A few days ago, Joyce Davis of Rock Hill, South Carolina--a suburb of Charlotte--got an unpleasant surprise. While rummaging in her used 2002 Chevy Malibu, she discovered a 9mm semiautomatic pistol under the driver's seat.
She didn’t know it until Tuesday, when she noticed that the driver’s seat cushion in the car she bought at least eight years ago was loose. When she lifted the cushion, she found a gun underneath the seat.
“I said, ‘Oh my God,’ ” Davis said, adding that she never felt the weapon under her seat.
Police took the loaded gun and asked dispatchers to check if it had been entered as a stolen gun into the National Crime Information Center, a criminal information clearinghouse.
Davis bought the car sometime around 2005. She'd lent it to several friends during that time, but none of them admitted to leaving the gun in the car. It turns out the gun had been stolen in 2003 from a dental assistant in Winston-Salem.
This could have been serious business. It's obvious that both the dealership and the car's previous owner failed to ensure that car was thoroughly cleaned out. And because of that, Davis could have potentially been arrested--or at the very least in for serious heartburn--had she been pulled over and an officer found the gun.