The Increasing Trend of Improper Use and Illegal Possession of Firearms by Professional Athletes2/26/2014 Raymond Felton being escorted out of a New York court after posting a $25,000 bail. Unless you’re a devout New York Knicks fan you probably wouldn’t know who the person in the above picture is. I would even venture to say that most wouldn’t know who he was if he were wearing the classic orange, white and blue jersey of the historic New York City based basketball team. As you now know, Raymond Felton is a point guard for the New York Knickerbockers who have been struggling this season even with All-Star Carmelo Anthony and the team needs all the help they can get when it comes to having somewhat decent players on their team. Even though Felton isn’t quite on par with Derrick Rose (that is, if he ever gets over all his injuries and plays the way he did before tearing his ACL and Meniscus), he is still a vital part of the Knicks’ organization. Fortunately for everyone’s favorite team from New York, Felton although arrested on Tuesday morning (February 24th, 2014), posted bail and was allowed to practice on Wednesday. According to Knicks’ head coach Mike Woodson, after practicing on Wednesday, Felton is cleared by the team to play in New York’s game at Miami on Thursday. According to the NBA’s CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement for all of you who don’t know what that means), Felton cannot be suspended by the league for just an arrest. The legal process has to be carried out first which means that Felton could possibly be playing in games all around the country while stopping at the court house literally hours before he suits up for the night for a month or more. It is only after the case is closed that the NBA can take action against Felton, which of course is almost a one hundred percent guarantee that they will. Plaxico Burress won Super Bowl XLII with the New York Giants in 2008. No matter what the suspension or fine is for the point guard, while the season progresses there is still the ever-growing and definitely under-discussed issue of NBA players who possess a firearm and carry it with them. Why any of them would bring one to the state of New York where gun laws are some of the strictest in the entire United States is beyond me; especially one that is not registered to them or at all. If you need an example you don’t have to look any further than the National Football League where Wide Receiver, then of the New York Giants, Plaxico Burress brought a gun with him to a New York City nightclub and ended up shooting himself in the leg with it. Dumb? Try idiotic. Not only was the gun not supposed to be in the nightclub, it wasn’t even registered to him. I guess if you’re going to break one law you might as well break another at the same time right? This of course happened back in December of 2008 literally just months after he caught the game-winning touchdown pass to push the Giants passed the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. Burress was served 20 months in jail after being sentenced to prison for two years. Burress has at least made it back into the NFL after being released from jail signing a one year deal with the New York Jets in the Summer of 2011 and then with the Steelers halfway through the 2012-2013 season due to WR injuries on Pittsburgh’s roster at the time. Unfortunately, he isn’t the player he was before being hauled off, not to mention that he was also two years older, thus resulting in less job security. Burress did not play in the 2013-2014 season due to being placed on the season-ending Injured Reserve list for the Steelers. Of course, the National Football League is not the NBA and may have different punishments for Raymond Felton. That is, if they get the opportunity to punish him at all; he might just be sentenced to prison time just like Burress. Though Adam Silver, the successor of long-time NBA Commissioner David Stern who just took the position on February 1st of this year might want to make his mark on the league and send a league-wide message that the participation in any illegal activity or the possession of any illegal object or substance will not be tolerated by the league. Teams that Gilbert Arenas has played for throughout career: Golden State Warriors 2001-2003, Washington Wizards 2003-2010/'10-'11, Orlando Magic 2010-2011, Memphis Grizzlies 2011-2012. He is now currently playing for the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association. Another very similar instance to this whole debacle in New York is the one that took place in Washington D.C. back in 2010 with then NBA star Gilbert Arenas who was a staple for the Wizards for nine years before he broke his gun out in the locker room during a dispute with another teammate. Arenas never spent any time in jail due to a plea agreement that he accepted. Had Arenas been arrested in New York for the same reason, it is almost certain that he would have been incarcerated, lucky for him that D.C. isn’t quite so tough on their gun laws. The main difference between the situations that Burress and Arenas found themselves in and that of Felton is that while Burress and Arenas committed both their crimes in public and were carrying the firearms with them at the time of their respective incidents, Felton didn’t have the unregistered weapon with him at the time of his arrest. The night before he was put in cuffs, Raymond Felton’s wife, Ariane Felton, whom he is currently in the process of divorcing, brought the weapon to a police station in Manhattan essentially wanting him to get arrested and stating that she was just tired of him having it in the house and claiming Raymond had waved the gun in her face on several different occasions; the most recent of which was on February 14th. What a romantic gift for Valentine’s Day. Felton is now not allowed to have any sort of contact with his wife for the next six months to ensure her protection. Felton turned himself in the morning after. Only time will tell if the Knicks’ player will be suspended and fined by the league, sentenced to jail time, or both. Though from what we know from previous incidents of professional athletes and their misfortunes with firearms, the situation is most likely not going to turn out well for Felton even though he technically is only at fault for having possession of an unregistered firearm with ammunition that is illegal in the state of New York. He never committed any crimes with or even shot the gun so in a twisted way; his situation has the possibility of working in his favor. Though it is certain he will receive some sort of punishment, if not from the law then from the league and vice versa, he might not get as tough of a punishment as Burress did when he shot himself in the leg that night in 2008. No matter what the consequence, I think we can all agree on two things: one, don’t bring your guns to New York or own any guns in New York. And two, it’s probably about time that professional athletes learn how to use their brains; not just when it comes to firearms but life in general. As much as we “normal people”, meaning those of us with less than 200,000 Twitter followers, would like to think that these athletes aren’t anything more than big, tall guys who can run fast and jump high; and as much as some of them probably wish the limelight would stop following them for a while to at least have some privacy in their lives, they aren’t leading normal lives and the limelight is not going to stop following them everywhere they go reporting every move they make as they make them. The sooner that they realize that they are held to a higher standard than your normal American and that they have thousands if not millions of people who look up to them, the better. Maybe then will they understand that they need to take responsibility for their actions and that just because they have more money than they’ll ever need and all the fame they could ever want, they also need to suffer the consequence of their actions.
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