Order a television on Amazon to get a gun

10 August, 2012

In a huge mix up, the well known online retailer Amazon sent the wrong package to the wrong place and person. However, it was not that simple as the contents of the package in the wrong hands could have given rise to another Colorado-like incident.

HOW MANY times have we experienced mix up in mails and have fumed at the delivery boy for the mix up done by a courier service or the postman? Imagine a man's frustration and utter disbelief who had ordered a flat screen television set, and was delivered a licensed gun - a military-style SIG Sauer SIG716 at his doorstep in Washington.

What with the hate crimes going on in various part of the world (the Colorado and the Wisconsin being the latest examples) - to get a gun delivered right at one's home - especially when you wanted a television.

Seth Horvitz, who got the gun, being a responsible citizen immediately called the police. The police said that they were a little confused but they took the gun, which was illegal to be kept there or to transported in a car so it could not be returned.

The site in question who did the major goof up was Amazon. The box was addressed to Mr. Horvitz but inside, the package had an invoice that said that the gun was supposed to go to a Pennsylvania gun shop.

A spokeperson of the Washington's Metropolitan Police Department, reported AFP, said that the case is under investigation and this sparks fresh concerns among the authorities as they have seen what a gun in the hands of a wrong person can do from the recent incidents. Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said, “We have to be better than a nation where assault weapons are so prevalent and can so easily end up in dangerous hands. It's deeply disturbing.”