Jason Garcia, host of the YouTube channel Daddy&Daughter Plus Water, sets out with his thirty-eight hundred pound, three-hundred-sixty degree magnet from Kratos Magnetics—named the Titan—into an area north of Jacksonville, Florida, to hopefully find something cool.
And boy, does he ever? We’re talking guns galore. Jeez Louise, what’s happening in Jackonsville? More like cracka-lacka-lacksonville.
He starts out with a good toss avoiding the side of the bridge where there spans a length of iron piping, an obstacle that would no doubt attract Jason’s powerful magnet, making every throw a hassle.
Everything Jason pulls up his covered in barnacles, starting with a sleek computer component containing a lithium ion battery.
Next we have random bits and pieces of pipes, and a knife blade. Then Jason shifts to the other side of the bridge, avoiding the previous aforementioned potentially problematic strand of long, rusted piping, to reach a more desired angle for throwing the magnet.
Definitely dragging something, Jason apologizes to the audience for the terrible angle, as he turns off the camera off.
When we return, the audience trembles in sadness at the sight of a weary, cast-off fishing net. The folly of some forgotten, fisherman, the fumbled figment of a horrid fish-god’s imagination.
Unbelievably, Jason next pulls up the magazine to a gun. Our next question is: is the gun still down there? In not time, the magnet the magnet dredges up a gun. An actual gun. Our hero drops the muddy gun on the sidewalk.
Jason from Motor City Magnet Fisher is contacted to confirm what anyone who has played even a fleeting round of Call of Duty could also confirm: this gun is an AK-47.
The AK-47 is a gas-operated assault rifle chambered for a 7.62x39mm cartridge. The AK-47 was invented by Russian firearms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov. Nearly eighty years after its inception, it remains the most widely used conscription army rifle in the world.
The weapon lain aside, we watch in anticipation as from the murky depths are pulled a spoon, a section of wheel well, more mystery scraps, discarded electronics, part of a shopping cart— half of a pair of scissors— a battery— bent up drug spoons—
A crusty old hammer—
What Jason pulls up next is heart-stopping: it appears to be a small caliber pistol, no doubt used in a drug crime. Doubtless it was used to threaten a confession from a witness who spilled everything before their execution.
Jason safely waits for traffic to pass to move the handgun off of the bridge.
Next he finds an old Dewalt battery, plus a pair of wire snips.
As is the correct and responsible thing to do, Jason Garcia calls the police.
The officer, an authoritative-looking female, arrives on the scene and examines the guns.
“So… are you wanting to keep them, or…?” she asks.
“I’d love to keep them if I could,” Jason answers
“I mean, you found them, so…”
So why shouldn’t he be able to keep them? The officer contacts a supervisor to confirm.
To the shock of the audience, the answer is a resounding NO, Jason cannot keep the guns.
The weapons are stashed safely next to a bag of dog food in the back of the police vehicle.
Jason receives information to contact the police later, at which time maybe he can retrieve the firearms.
The state of Florida has no laws requiring purchasers to register firearms, and there is also no requirement when it comes to reporting lost or stolen guns, so if you find what you think might be a stolen firearm, you are well within your rights to keep it.
However, if it turns out the weapon you found was used in a crime, you would have no way of proving that it was not your gun to begin with.
Spanish explorer Ponce DeLeon was the first known European to land in Florida, although various Native America tribes have inhabited the area for at least 14,000 years.
A more hands-off, personal-responsibility-centric legal system, such as the one found down in the ole panhandle of Florida, is ideal for magnet fishing—a hobby which can get legally complicated when you aren’t sure which waterways are off limits.
Take for example the recent story in Georgia, where magnet fisherman on Fort Stewart pulled eighty-six military training rockets out of the Canoochee River. They were written citations by a game warden totaling over $300.
In the end, they were exonerated of their crimes, but it would behoove all aspiring magnet fisherman to look up the local laws in a given area before deciding to toss their magnet into the water.
