In September 2014, an 18-year-old boy in Dazhou, Sichuan Province, was arrested by the Public Security Bureau for "special interests."
In the subsequent trial, he was even sentenced to life imprisonment.
For a time, internet public opinion was in an uproar. What kind of "hobbies" did this boy have that he actually sent himself to prison?
The boy's name was Liu Dawei. Most of the boys of his age like to play games and read novels, but Liu Dawei's hobbies are different, he is a full-fledged "gun fan".
But he was so obsessed with guns that he made a terrible mistake and became a lingering nightmare in his life.
In July 2014, he purchased 24 "imitation guns" from a seller in Taiwan through the communication software QQ.
But this batch of "imitation guns" has not yet been delivered to his hands, and it has been seized by the customs.
Soon, the relevant departments found Liu Dawei's head.
Waiting for the left and the right, Liu Dawei waited not for the "imitation gun", but for a pair of silver handcuffs.
In this way, Liu Dawei was sentenced to life imprisonment by the court for the crime of "smuggling weapons", deprived of political rights for life, and confiscated all personal property.
The case immediately caused an uproar on the Internet.
As for Liu Dawei's parents, they also began to constantly complain about their children's affairs.
Unique hobbies
For many young boys, they were accompanied by various toy guns and toy cars when they were young.
Liu Dawei, who was born in 1996 in Dazhou, Sichuan, is naturally no exception.
Like many young boys, Liu Dawei showed a keen interest in the military at a very young age.
He has a fondness for toy guns since he was a child, and when he was a child, his family would buy them for him, which made him even more addicted.
Everyone thought that Liu Dawei just played with the gun as a toy, but they did not expect that his heart had already planted a seed of love for the military.
Liu Dawei went to the playground when he was a child, and his favorite project to play was "ballooning".
There, Liu Dawei can break balloons with toy guns firing bullets, winning rewards based on the number of balloons broken.
However, although Liu Dawei said that he loved to play with guns, he really took the toy gun to aim and shoot, and the quasi-head was still almost meaningless.
But he is also not upset, and always likes to practice alone with a toy gun, and shoot at a target.
Liu Dawei loves to buy toy guns, and her home is full of all kinds of toy guns, like a toy "arsenal".
At that time, Liu Dawei's mother, Hu Guoji, was vaguely worried about her son's hobbies.
If my son loves to play with guns so much, will it affect his future life?
But her husband reassured her that it was normal for boys to play with guns.
Moreover, those are all toy guns, and there is no danger, so that the wife does not have to pay too much attention.
Therefore, Liu Dawei's father was very supportive of him, thinking that it was his son's hobby, and often bought him a variety of toy guns.
But as he grew older, Liu Dawei's love for guns did not diminish.
At this time, he was not satisfied with the toy gun he played with as a child.
At this time, Liu Dawei went to the amusement park to play, and felt that the air gun used to play balloons there looked handsome, and it was more like a real gun than a toy gun.
Therefore, Liu Dawei told his father Liu Xingzhong that he wanted to buy a "simulated gun" to play.
At that time, Liu Xingzhong did not take it too seriously, just asked his son to be careful and not to buy a controlled gun.
Liu Dawei agreed on his lips, but in his heart he was thinking about how cool it would be if he could have a "simulated gun" exactly like the real gun.
But no one expected that Liu Dawei's naïve idea would send himself to prison and almost never come out again.
Evil descends from heaven
It was August 30, 2014, when Liu Xingzhong, who was working, suddenly received a phone call from the police station.
On the other end of the phone was a police officer in Fujian who asked him if he was Liu Dawei's father.
Receiving a call from the police, Liu Xingzhong was stunned, did his son commit something?
He replied yes, and only then did the police say that his son Liu Dawei had been criminally detained by the Fujian police for smuggling guns.
The police said on the phone that they would immediately send relevant staff to Liu Xingzhong's home to search.
Before Liu Xingzhong could ask what had happened, the other end of the phone had already hung up.
He stood still, not reacting for a moment.
It took a moment for his buzzing brain to finally calm down.
But how could he not have imagined that his son usually played with toy guns, so how could he commit the crime of smuggling guns?
Liu Xingzhong returned home with a nervous mood, and his wife Hu Guoji saw that his face was not right and asked him what had happened.
Liu Dawei and his mother Hu Guoji
After hesitating, he said, "Something happened to my son." ”
Hu Guoji looked at him with a look of disbelief and panic, and quickly asked his son what was wrong.
Liu Xingzhong then told Hu Guoji that his son had been arrested for smuggling guns.
Hearing this, Hu Guoji almost fainted.
Their family are ordinary people who don't know much about the law, but everyone knows that smuggling guns is a big crime.
The husband and wife looked at each other, not knowing how to be good, and could only wait for the police to come to the door and then ask the truth.
The police came to the door, which told them the truth of the matter.
It turned out that a month ago, that is, on July 16, my son bought 24 "imitation guns" through QQ to a Taiwanese seller.
The Taiwanese seller designated a trading platform where Liu Dawei could buy virtual products for a total of 30,540 yuan.
This money is the money that Liu Dawei paid through Alipay with his mother's Agricultural Bank account.
Of course, this batch of "imitation guns" want to be shipped directly, and they certainly can't be sent in.
So the Taiwanese seller hid the 24 "imitation guns" inside the water dispenser box and handed them to a company in Taiwan for export.
However, these "imitation guns" were still seized by the anti-smuggling sub-bureau of Fujian Shishi Customs in the warehouse of the logistics company.
After an inventory, the staff found that there were 24 "imitation guns" in the water dispenser.
After testing, of the 24 "imitation guns", 20 are powered by compressed gas to fire projectiles, which have a lot of lethality and can be identified as guns.
The police also followed the vine to find the melon, and followed the clues to find the purchaser Liu Dawei.
On August 30, police arrested Liu Dawei in Dazhu County, Sichuan Province.
Now that the evidence is conclusive, what awaits Liu Dawei is the court's verdict.
Upon hearing this news, Hu Guoji was surprised, she never thought that her family would have this day.
She said that when Liu Dawei was in middle school, she did not want to study because of her poor grades, so she chose to drop out of school and go to work in other places.
The more than 30,000 yuan was saved by his own hard work and then handed over to her for saving.
They have always known that their son has such a hobby, and Hu Guoji also said that he once opposed his son and wanted to stop him.
But Liu Dawei is an out-and-out "gun fan", and they ultimately failed to beat their son.
Liu Dawei was arrested, and both Liu Xingzhong and Hu Guoji were anxious.
They immediately ran to Quanzhou, Fujian Province, to work, earning money while complaining to their son.
More than once, the couple prayed that a miracle happened, but the court's verdict finally came down.
In April 2015, the Fujian Provincial High People's Court announced the outcome of the first instance.
Liu Dawei was sentenced to life imprisonment, deprived of political rights for life, and confiscated all personal property.
The husband and wife who learned the verdict of the trial felt that the sky was about to fall.
They never imagined that their son's hobby would turn into life imprisonment.
However, crying does not solve the problem, the husband and wife are determined to be painful, or plan to continue to appeal for their son, for Liu Dawei to fight for a glimmer of life.
But the court rejected the two men's appeals, and their emotions fell to a low point again.
Is there really no room for things to turn around?
New life
In 2016, the case was widely reported by the media and attracted people's attention.
Everyone has discussed, what is the identification standard of "imitation gun", and what kind of "imitation gun" is illegal and is going to jail?
While the case has attracted widespread attention, the Fujian Provincial High People's Court also felt that there was something inappropriate about the original trial and sentencing of that year, and decided to try the case again.
The effort paid off, and thanks to media coverage and the continued efforts of his parents, things finally took a turn for the better.
On December 25, 2018, the Fujian Provincial High People's Court again pronounced judgment on the case.
The court still found Liu Dawei guilty of smuggling weapons, but the sentence was changed from life imprisonment to seven years and three months imprisonment and a fine of 32,000 yuan.
Liu Dawei's case is also the heaviest sentence in all the "simulated gun cases", which has aroused extensive discussion in the legal community.
Liu Dawei's lawyer Xu Xin said that during the retrial of Liu Dawei's case, the two supremes also issued the "Reply on the Conviction and Sentencing of Criminal Cases Involving Guns and AirSoft Lead Bullets Powered by Compressed Gas."
It can be said that Liu Dawei's case has promoted the progress of the rule of law on the control of "imitation guns".
Liu Dawei's parents saw the latest trial results and smiled happily.
The day when my son finally came out, the next thing to do was to wait.
Liu Dawei who went home
At the same time, Liu Dawei, who had gone through great ups and downs in his life, was very grateful for the opportunity to reform himself, so he actively participated in reform in prison and seriously carried out ideological and political studies.
On March 30, 2021, Liu Dawei, who had received an eight-month commutation in prison, was finally released from prison.
He said he thanked the lawyers who helped him and thanked the media and netizens for paying attention to his case.
He felt very guilty about his past behavior and said that he would definitely start a new life as soon as possible and earn money with his father to support his family.
"My family has suffered a lot because of me, and I feel guilty, and only by making more money can I repay them." Facing his long-lost home, Liu Dawei shed hot tears.
On April 6, 2021, the family took advantage of the Eve of the Qingming Festival to return to their hometown in Dazhu to pay homage to the deceased elders.
The last time we had been together like this, it had been six years ago, and the family had mixed feelings.
Today, Liu Dawei also has a younger brother, because he was in prison at that time, he advised his parents to have another one.
"If I can't come out, my parents and brother, at least there is still a way back." Liu Dawei said that his idea was like this at the time.
On that day, the weather was particularly good, clear and cloudless, Liu Xingzhong rode a motorcycle with him and went to the Yang family police station to apply for an ID card.
Liu Dawei said that he had not seen his parents for a long time, and his mood was very excited, and the biggest problem he encountered after he was released from prison was that he was too excited, resulting in him not being able to sleep for several days in a row.
When he was in prison, his mother, Hu Guoji, would visit him almost once a month to do psychological work for him and enlighten his emotions.
However, in the past two years, because of the epidemic raging, travel is inconvenient, and there is a two-year-old brother at home, busy taking care of his brother and no time, Hu Guoji rarely goes to prison.
Back home, Liu Dawei felt that it was really good to be able to stay with her parents, which was a long-lost happiness.
Coming out of prison, Liu Dawei also talked about his lessons.
When he returned to his hometown, he wore a hat, afraid that the villagers would recognize him, because everyone knew about his arrest.
Liu Dawei said that he was afraid that others would look at him differently, because after all, he had done something wrong.
He said that in the future, he will resolutely not play the "imitation gun", although he has never thought of using it to hurt people, but even if he takes it out and puts it there, it will scare people, and he will not touch it again in the future.
This experience is indeed a big lesson for Liu Dawei.
Because of a hobby for a long time, I ended up touching the relevant laws and regulations, which made things so big.
And now his parents are busy with his business, and he must be sensible and can no longer let his parents worry.
Today's Liu Dawei, the biggest wish is only to live well with her parents.
He plans to work in coastal cities with his parents so that at least a family of three can stay together and earn money.
Liu Dawei is very anxious in his heart, so many years for his own things, his parents have not been less tired, not less money, plus now that there is another brother in the family, he must shoulder the burden of life.
He plans to go to his father's construction site, where he will work as a small worker and use the money he earns to change the family to a new place to live.
Because of poverty, the house rented by a family of four is now only 20 square meters, which is extremely cramped.
Liu Dawei knew that it was because his parents had given him all the money.
I recall when my parents came to visit the prison, it was too late, there was no car, and my parents slept in the train station.
Thinking of this, Liu Dawei's heart was sad, and the corners of his eyes gradually burst into tears.
Today's Liu Dawei has a new life, and I hope that he can work well, repay his parents well, and live a happy and happy life for a family of four.
For us, Liu Dawei's case is also a warning, it reminds us all the time not to try to touch the bottom line of the law.
Taking a step outward is a bottomless abyss, and you must be a good citizen who abides by the law and discipline.
-Ends-
Resources
1. Red Star Depth: "Juvenile Purchase of Imitation Gun Sentenced to Life" Liu Dawei Released from Prison: Will Start a New Life as Soon as Possible and Earn Money to Return to His Family
2. Red Star Depth: "Exclusive Dialogue" Juvenile Purchase of Imitation Gun Sentenced" Liu Dawei: Thinking that he may not be able to come out, his parents have a younger brother"