What we do know, no matter how much Felton may eventually try to blame all this on his estranged young wife and not his gun, is this: If he was indeed waving his powerful gun around, he was as lucky to escape tragedy Jason DeCrow/AP
If Raymond Felton was waving his gun around, even as a prop, he is lucky he escaped tragedy.
Raymond Felton, whose bad year with the Knicks on the court just got a lot worse off it, does not become some sort of notorious bad guy because he is charged with a Class D felony over a gun with bad bullets in it, one that he never should have brought anywhere near New York City.
But you have to say, however this case comes out for Felton, that he is lucky there are no felonies for being this dumb about unlicensed handguns in this city, in a Plaxico Burress world.
RELATED: ISOLA: MORE BULLETS OVER BROADWAY FOR DOLAN'S LAUGHINGSTOCK KNICKS'What was he thinking?' a source from the NYPD was saying Tuesday morning after finding out what kind of gun Felton's estranged wife turned in at the 20th Precinct and what kind of magazine it has and what kind of ammunition. 'The answer is, this guy wasn't thinking.'
No cop I talked to on Tuesday thought that Felton would end up doing the kind of jail time that Burress did. Everybody knows what happened to him: He went out one night in Manhattan with his own unlicensed gun. The gun went off in a crowded club. By the grace of God, the only person hurt when it did was Burress, who managed to shoot himself in the leg.
RELATED: KNICKS' RAYMOND FELTON CHARGED WITH FELONY WEAPONS POSSESSIONNo one is sure how this proceeds through the system for Felton. At this point we only have the version of a young woman, Ariane Raymondo-Felton, to whom Felton is still married.
What we do know, no matter how much Felton may eventually try to blame all this on his estranged young wife and not his gun, is this:
RELATED: LAWRENCE: DESPITE ARREST, NBA HISTORY SUGGESTS FELTON WILL CONTINUE TO PLAYIf he was indeed waving his powerful gun around - even as a prop - during an argument on Valentine's Day and at other times in their relationship, then he was as lucky to escape tragedy as Burress was when his own gun accidentally discharged. Even if Felton swears up and down that he never did anything like that, this was still a gun owned by the wrong young man, in the wrong city, in the wrong state.
Larry Brown, who coached Felton with the Charlotte Bobcats, always said that Felton was a 'great kid.' Another of his former coaches said Tuesday that 'Raymond doesn't have a mean bone in his body.'
RELATED: TIMELINE: RAYMOND FELTON'S CAREER FROM UNC TO NYKWhat he had in his home on the Upper West Side, was a very mean, powerful gun, a Belgian-made FN Five-seven, with bullets in it that can penetrate body armor, nearly 20 rounds in that gun Raymond Felton purchased for some insane reason in South Carolina. And for what, a possible invasion of Morningside Heights? Because he's afraid the war in Ukraine might spill into Manhattan?
This gun of his can be licensed in New York. The magazine and the bullets sure aren't legal. In a Plaxico Burress world. Any pro athletes who don't know the rules about guns in this city after what happened to Burress, who want to plead ignorance about the law here or perhaps suggest that they didn't know they had to have a license if they kept the gun in their own home, really ought to take some kind of fall for that.
There ought to be some kind of seminar about guns, in this gun-loving sports culture, at the start of every training camp in every professional locker room, conducted by one of the law enforcement people that all teams seem to have on their payrolls these days. Just for the slow learners.
Here is what Deron Williams of the Brooklyn Nets said to the News' Stefan Bondy on Tuesday:
'I got my license to carry in like 26 states, but I'm not bringing my gun to New York City.'
Maybe in the end the determining factor in the charges against Felton will be as simple as whether the gun was still considered to be in his custody even though he and his wife have separated. Maybe we will never know for sure whether he actually did have a gun in his hand when he and Ariane Raymondo-Felton would have another argument.
But if it is true that Felton thought he was in his legal rights to have a gun like that in New York without a New York license, if he thought that after watching Burress end up in prison, you now have a much better understanding of why he has been constantly accused by Knicks fans of making such terrible decisions on the court this season.
At least this time the unlicensed gun didn't go off in New York. Nobody got shot this time. It doesn't change the fact that Raymond Felton shouldn't have owned a big, bad gun like his in the first place. But look on the bright side: At least the gun kept him safe after the game Monday night. But only because he was in custody.
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