How a Gun in a Suitcase Became a Permanent Ball and Chain

<img src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/08/28/nyregion/28ABOUT/28ABOUT-maste... align="right" width="200">At 27, Adele Langkil, mother of a 4-year-old son in Virginia, got her first extended break from her jobs as a single parent and waitress when her parents took the boy for a weekend. She spent a few days in New York.

Refreshed, returning home to Virginia Beach, she checked her bag at La Guardia Airport. It was 1985 and airline screening was not as rigorous as it is today, but the authorities noted that there was a handgun in the luggage.

“I was working as a waitress at night,” Ms. Langkil recalled Thursday. “A couple of people followed the girls home. I got a little gun. You didn’t have to have a permit in Virginia if it wasn’t concealed.”

For carriage of the gun, she was delivered to Rikers Island and charged with attempted criminal possession of a weapon and eventually posted a bail bond of $10,000. Appearing in court in Queens, she was told by a judge, she said, “‘This ain’t Texas; we don’t carry guns here.’”

Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/nyregion/how-a-gun-in-a-purse-became-a...