Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s deputies arrested third-year geography major Kevin Tym yesterday after he accidentally fired one shot from a 9mm Glock 17 handgun in his apartment at the 6500 block of Pardall Road.
According to a press release by SB County Sheriff Sergeant Mark Williams, the bullet Tym fired pierced through a wall, ricocheted off of a television and “narrowly missed” a resident inside the adjacent apartment before becoming embedded in a nearby wall. The resident, whose television was damaged in the incident, immediately reported the incident to police.
Tym has been charged with negligent discharge of a firearm and possession of high capacity magazines, and his bail has been set to $2,500.
Upon inspecting Tym’s residence, police found and confiscated seven firearms and approximately 1,000 rounds of ammunition as well as high capacity assault rifle magazines, the sale of which has been banned in California since January of 2000. According to third-year English major Alec Killoran, an acquaintance of the suspect, Tym hoped to join the French Foreign Legion and regularly practiced shooting at a local gun range.
Although deputies seized Tym’s ammunition, Williams said police are only holding it for “evidence and safekeeping,” and it will likely be returned to him once he is released with the exception of the high capacity magazines, which are defined as ammunition-feeding devices capable of holding more than 10 rounds.
The press release states Tym has been charged for illegal possession of those magazines under state penal code 32310(a), however, this code only punishes an individual who “manufactures or causes to be manufactured, imports into the state, keeps for sale, or offers or exposes for sale, or who gives, lends, buys or receives” such ammunition. It does not specify possession as illegal provided the ammunition was acquired prior to 2000. Police could not be reached for comment to clarify this disparity.
A version of this article appeared on page 10 of the Thursday, May 29 2014 print edition of the Daily Nexus.