A dorm room rifle factory bust at New York University (NYU) has resulted in the arrest of 20-year-old psychology student Bernard Goal. According to New York media, a maintenance worker spotted the weapons and called the cops, which resulted in Goal being arrested on Monday night at his dorm.
The young man hails from Sugar Land, Texas, and there have been breathless reports in the media of how his Facebook page is “packed” with scary photographs of Goal and friends waving weapons.
Well, yes and no.
A photo posted on several sites around the internet appears to date from late 2011 when he was working at a sports center. And his Facebook page is even more packed with his obvious worship of cars . To a southerner, it doesn’t look particularly out there. It just looks like a young man’s page.
In any event the so-called weapons are air rifles — pellet guns — that Goal allegedly built himself from parts he bought online. He sold the completed guns for as much as $500.
“These are just Airsofts. This is no big deal. I modify them and make them look real. I sell them online,” he reportedly told prosecutors, apparently unaware that he was admitting to a crime.
I’m sure your third grade teacher will speak up here to explain that you can put an eye out with a spitball. Yes, sure, it’s possible to hurt someone with an air gun at close range. But the so-called dorm room rifle factory is hardly the second coming of Al Qaeda .
He may not have known that owning or selling air rifles and replicas is illegal in New York City limits. This kind of entrepreneurship is probably just a kid being a 20-year-old in Sugar Land.
But he knows he has a problem now. His lawyer Ramsey Hinkle said that Bernard Goal has already pled guilty to five misdemeanor counts and is ready to get back to his studies.
The next time he starts an online business, it probably won’t be a dorm room fake rifle factory.
[air gun pellets courtesy Kallerna via Wikipedia Commons]
