Nail gun owner charged with gun possession

A cartoon shows a netizen purchasing a nail gun online. [Photo: newspaper.jcrb.com]

A farm owner is appealing a verdict of illegal gun possession after he was sentenced to a 13-month-long supervision order, reports the Shanghai-based news agency The Paper.

The man surnamed Gong admitted to purchasing two nail guns online in 2016. He explained that his farm in Shiyan, a prefecture-level city in Hubei Province, is deep in a mountainous area and had no power supply back in 2016 when he moved in. He bought two nail guns, each priced at around 260 yuan (38 US dollars), to decorate his farm.

Gong was found guilty of gun possession in September. He is appealing the supervision order imposed by the court on the grounds that the type of nail guns he bought are easily available online. He's now asking the online store to provide their license to manufacture nail guns.

In November 2017, local police seized the nail guns following a regular inspection of goods being shipped. According to a police report, one of the nail guns uses gunpowder to fire the nails. The report says this means the nail gun can cause serious injury, and should therefore be recognized as a firearm. Gong appealed to provincial-level public security authorities in 2018; however, they returned the same findings.

Gong's case has been transferred to the local procuratorate in Shiyan for an appeal.