Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Man carries AR-15 rifle into J.C. Penney store to make point

Rifle in store

Cindy Yorgason / AP

This cell phone photo provided by Cindy Yorgason shows a J.C. Penney shopper with an assault rifle over his shoulder in Riverdale, Utah, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013. Yorgason said she was trying to exchange an item at the store when she spotted the man and took his photo. The man, identified as 22-year-old Joseph Kelley, says he wanted to demonstrate that the weapons aren’t dangerous when handled by law-abiding citizens. Kelley told The Salt Lake Tribune the rifle was an unloaded AR-15, and he was also carrying a loaded Glock 19c on his hip.

Hours after President Barack Obama called on Congress to ban military-style assault weapons, one man's protest raised some eyebrows at a Utah store.

An Odgen woman took some photos of a man inside a J.C. Penney on Wednesday with an assault weapon slung over his shoulder.

Cindy Yorgason says that even for a firearm-friendly state like Utah, it was out of the ordinary.

Yorgason took two photos of the man and posted them on Facebook, where they received hundreds of comments and have been shared more than a thousand times.

The Salt Lake Tribune identified the man as 22-year-old Joseph Kelley, who says he was trying to demonstrate that the weapons aren't dangerous when handled by law-abiding people.

Kelley says the AR-15 he was carrying was unloaded, which is legal.

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