Food for thought after being pulled over by a LEO for the first time while carrying

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Whether he ascertains your permit and carry status by running your plates or by you declaring it, the result is the same: he has good reason to believe you're carrying lawfully which should not affect his handling the contact.
No, I don't think so. If I hand a cop my CWP and tell him I'm armed, that's a pretty good clue that I'm not planning to jump him. In my very limited experience, the officer seems to relax noticeably at that point.
 
Did they stop you just asked you if you had guns in the car?

That was one part that was so odd. He didn’t even ask me for ID first.

I always figured the first things out of an officers mouth would be, ‘can I see your identification and proof of insurance’ or ‘do you know why I pulled you over.’

Since then I have wondered why the road block, never driven to one before or since and what or who they were after or looking for.

I should have asked to satisfy my curiosity but that would have violated my “yes/no sir/officer” policy stated in #2.
 
A number of people whom I know have been stopped on the Interstate that leads past the shooting range in Arnold, MO. It's easy to exceed the limit there.

Most of them do inform, though it is not required. Few receive tickets.

Here is a relevant thought. Suppose that your car meets the description of one that is thought to have been near a crime scene. That, and not your speed, might have been the reason for the stop. Informing the officer might reduce the tension level.

And if you are asked to ger out of the car, your gun may be exposed. Best to have informed the officer first, I think.


That's an interesting point. Years ago, my wife and I were driving past the local middle school in our neighborhood. I looked in the mirror and we are being followed by a police car. It followed us for a bit but never pulled us over. I wondered why. Later on the news, it was reported that law was on the look out for a green car (my color) driven by a guy with a beard (I have one) that was suspected in some sex crime against school kids. OH! Probably they ran my plates and decided, I wasn't the guy and driving by the school with my wife isn't suspicious.

If I had been stopped, I didn't need a surprise discovery of a gun (I have to disclose anyway).
 
"Do you know why I pulled you over" = "On the record, would you like to confess?"

[QUOTE="edwardware, post: 11168877, member: 117624"... If I hand a cop my CWP and tell him I'm armed, that's a pretty good clue that I'm not planning to jump him.....[/QUOTE]

That's not a rational response for the officer. Your CWP and declaration of being armed does not put the officer in any more or less danger.
 
That's not a rational response for the officer. Your CWP and declaration of being armed does not put the officer in any more or less danger.
Balderdash. The CWP says I'm not a prohibited person, and the sharing of information is the foundation of social trust. Both actions demonstrate things about me that are hard (but not impossible) to fake for a potential attacker.

Police spend their careers reading people; make yourself an easy read and they relax. Really no surprise here.
 
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Planning for common LEO contacts is a good thing. Make them easy. For both you AND the officer.

For example, all of my registration and insurance docs are in a plastic bag in the glove box. I never keep a gun there.

Also, I used to keep my wallet in my strong-side hip pocket, right behind my EDC. If asked to retrieve my DL/ID, I figured that reaching in that direction might be a little, uh, awkward, so I switched to carrying my wallet in the support-side hip pocket.

Really simple, but hopefully helpful.
 
That was one part that was so odd. He didn’t even ask me for ID first.

I always figured the first things out of an officers mouth would be, ‘can I see your identification and proof of insurance’ or ‘do you know why I pulled you over.’

Since then I have wondered why the road block, never driven to one before or since and what or who they were after or looking for.

I should have asked to satisfy my curiosity but that would have violated my “yes/no sir/officer” policy stated in #2.
Something like that makes me think a child had been kidnapped.

In any case, I generally view police as just doing their jobs. I don't always inform because I have no reason to here. If I'm asked to exit the vehicle for any reason, and the chance of the officer seeing the gun goes up, then I inform voluntarily. I'd rather give them a little forewarning rather than have it be a surprise..

I did have to move a loaded gun once to get to my license and registration. I let the cop know when I opened the center console there was a gun sitting right there. I told him I had a permit, and he thanked me for letting him know.

I think you done good TomJ.
 
If I'm asked to exit the vehicle for any reason, and the chance of the officer seeing the gun goes up, then I inform voluntarily. I'd rather give them a little forewarning rather than have it be a surprise..

That one reminds me of when we bought a cheap Saturn from my wife’s friend, that I used to drive to matches, 40 MPG beat the heck out of my truck.

First weekend I used it it still had the out of State plates on it and that was the reason I was pulled over, another odd one, I didn’t realize that was a justifiable reason to be pulled over. I handed him my license, insurance and CHL when he walked up. He asked where I was heading, I told him to a 3 gun match and the town it was held in. He then asked if I had a gun. I said yes sir, several, one on the right side hip. He then asked if I would step out of the vehicle. I informed him, if I did so, my firearm would no longer be concealed and that it was located right beside the seat belt latch I would need to release to exit, he acknowledged that fact. So I slowly unbuckled and exited and he startlingly stated, “you have a gun right there!”. I said, “yes sir, that’s what I told you.” He then wanted to take the firearm into his possession, I said he could remove it from the holster as I wasn’t going to touch it.

So he removed the 1.5lb triggered SV from the holster and stuck it in his pants without checking if it was clear or not (it was as the range I was going to was a “cold range”). Then asked me to stay by the car as he wiggled his 270lb +/- self back into the little impala squad car while he checked me and the car out.

Shortly he came back, reholstered my pistol and said I could go. It was at that point he noticed he had left me standing right by the door where an AR 15 and shotgun were sitting in the back seat. I figure many of our LEO’s are only alive because the vast majority of citizens are not bad guys.
 
I used to debate this topic all over the Internet and I don't think I ever changed a single person's mind.

What generally happens (As stated in my post above) is someone has a run in with a bad cop and decides they'll never make that mistake again.

My run in was the State Trooper I mentioned earlier who went off on me because I didn't immediately inform him I was armed. A few months later I read in the paper that he murdered his wife and killed himself in a domestic violence incident. You have no way of knowing what kind of person the cop you're interacting with is.

I really don't care if it makes the cop's life easier or that it makes him more comfortable that I automatically inform him I'm armed. It's in my best interests to maintain my boundaries and assert my Rights.

Consequently I never

Volunteer information
Answer any question I'm not legally required to answer
Consent to a search.
 
The best advice I have ever read during a LEO interaction at a traffic stop is to turn on the dome light when at night or dark. Officers rely on ambient light and their flashlight to make sure YOU (or whomever they stop) is in compliance with law. Adding just a little bit of light to your own vehicle can go a long way in smoothing a stressful interaction with even a rookie officer.
 
I just returned from vacation, where I spent a week in Wisconsin with my 12 year old son. As a little back ground, I also have a 23 year old son who drives safely now, but when he was younger drove too fast, leading to quite a few arguments between us. We were driving through a tourist area when I went through a yellow light that turned red just before I entered the intersection. I was wrong and as luck would have it there was a LEO driving behind me, and he pulled me over. As soon as my son saw I was being pulled over he started laughing and asked if I was getting a ticket. I told him I probably was and he pulled out his cell phone to text my older son, as he thought it was funny after all my safe driving lectures to my older son I was getting a ticket. I gave my license and CC permit to the officer and let him know my gun (I referred to it as "it") was in my right front pocket. He told me to leave it there and after running my license we had a brief conversation during which I was respectful and let him know I was in the wrong, and he let me off with a verbal warning. He could not have been more professional and polite and I appreciated the break.

I did what I was supposed to, keeping my hands in plain view, etc., but it occurred to me afterwards that my son had no idea what to do in that scenario. By way of example, had he reached into his pocket for his cell phone while I was talking to the officer there's no way to know how the officer would react, not knowing what he was reaching for. I talked to my son afterwards about the things we should and should not do when pulled over (hopefully not again for a while, or ever), and just wanted to post a reminder to everyone who hasn't had that conversation with family members they drive with that it's a good idea to do so. LEO's have no idea who they're pulling over, and preventing any misunderstandings goes a long way towards keeping everyone safe.

Good post!
 
I think the last time I was pulled over for anything was back in 1985. Mostly that's just being lucky, but trust me, in these tense days, if pulled over, I'd do exactly what the cop says, with no sudden moves, hands where he can see them, polite answers to questions, no volunteering of information.
 
That's not a rational response for the officer. Your CWP and declaration of being armed does not put the officer in any more or less danger.
The CWP/CCW/CHL/etc. actually does, sort of. Licensed concealed carry permit holders in the US commit felonies at a rate less than half that of police officers, per capita. The officer may or may not know that but he's literally safer pulling over someone with a CCW that he is pulling over any other citizen, including cops he doesn't know.
 
Balderdash. The CWP says I'm not a prohibited person, and the sharing of information is the foundation of social trust. Both actions demonstrate things about me that are hard (but not impossible) to fake for a potential attacker.

Police spend their careers reading people; make yourself an easy read and they relax. Really no surprise here.
The CWP tells him that AT ONE TIME you were not a prohibited person. That doesn't tell him anything if you just committed a crime or beat your wife and kids last night. You are introducing a variable into the equation and it just doesn't belong there UNLESS the state law says it does. Youy got pulled over for speeding, take the ticket (if he gives you one) and be on your way
 
The CWP tells him that AT ONE TIME you were not a prohibited person. That doesn't tell him anything if you just committed a crime or beat your wife and kids last night. You are introducing a variable into the equation and it just doesn't belong there UNLESS the state law says it does. Youy got pulled over for speeding, take the ticket (if he gives you one) and be on your way

In Illinois we need to have a valid FOID to have a CC permit. If you have a FOID your name is run every 24 hours, so they’ll know pretty quickly if you’ve been arrested as opposed to someone without one, so I would say LEO’s are safer here pulling someone over with a valid CC permit.
 
In Illinois we need to have a valid FOID to have a CC permit. If you have a FOID your name is run every 24 hours, so they’ll know pretty quickly if you’ve been arrested as opposed to someone without one, so I would say LEO’s are safer here pulling someone over with a valid CC permit.

Not everyone who has committed a crime has been arrested and a valid FOID and CCW tells the officer absolutely nothing about what you might have done and never been arrested for or what you may have been involved in recently. All it says is that at the time it was issued you had a clean record.

A CCW permit means that you are legally authorized to carry a firearm on your person. That is all it means. It doesn’t attest to your character or state of mind at the time of the contact. I have seen people from all walks of life act badly during a police contact. There are no guarantees on the side of the road.

The CCW community likes to tell everyone that will listen that they are certified good guys. The community would do well to dismiss that notion and accept the fact that everyone who gets a CCW isn’t just like you are. There are as many different motives for getting a CCW as there are people who get them.

There are no certified good guys. There are just human beings with all of the faults that human beings can possess. Any officer who completely drops his guard because the person he has stopped is an off duty officer or a CCW holder is not working safely.
 
Not everyone who has committed a crime has been arrested and a valid FOID and CCW tells the officer absolutely nothing about what you might have done and never been arrested for or what you may have been involved in recently. All it says is that at the time it was issued you had a clean record.

A CCW permit means that you are legally authorized to carry a firearm on your person. That is all it means. It doesn’t attest to your character or state of mind at the time of the contact. I have seen people from all walks of life act badly during a police contact. There are no guarantees on the side of the road.

The CCW community likes to tell everyone that will listen that they are certified good guys. The community would do well to dismiss that notion and accept the fact that everyone who gets a CCW isn’t just like you are. There are as many different motives for getting a CCW as there are people who get them.

There are no certified good guys. There are just human beings with all of the faults that human beings can possess. Any officer who completely drops his guard because the person he has stopped is an off duty officer or a CCW holder is not working safely.

Understood and I don't disagree, but the key word is safer, not a guarantee of safety, which is not possible. It does tell the officer that the CC permit holder hasn't been arrested in the past 24 hours. Again, it's not a perfect metric by which to judge the person but it's something, however small.
 
It does tell the officer that the CC permit holder hasn't been arrested in the past 24 hours.

Which is completely meaningless. I ended up in one of the worst fights of my career arresting a subject for domestic battery. He had NEVER BEEN ARRESTED before. It started out as a routine arrest until the cuffs hit his wrist and then the fight was on. I used OC got him cuffed and strapped into the back seat of my squad. When he started getting over the effects of the OC he began kicking the cage, undid the seatbelt and when he couldn’t get through the cage to get at me he kicked both windows out of the back of my squad car. A deputy met me and we OC’d him again, Recuffed his hands back behind his back and hog tied him. He rode the rest of the way to jail trussed up like a steer for branding.

Anyone who has worked any time on the street can tell you similar stories about completely compliant subjects who became violent for no apparent reason.

That's why no one who works safely accepts a CCW permit or badge and ID as certification that this contact will be completely safe and uneventful.
 
Which is completely meaningless. I ended up in one of the worst fights of my career arresting a subject for domestic battery. He had NEVER BEEN ARRESTED before. It started out as a routine arrest until the cuffs hit his wrist and then the fight was on. I used OC got him cuffed and strapped into the back seat of my squad. When he started getting over the effects of the OC he began kicking the cage, undid the seatbelt and when he couldn’t get through the cage to get at me he kicked both windows out of the back of my squad car. A deputy met me and we OC’d him again, Recuffed his hands back behind his back and hog tied him. He rode the rest of the way to jail trussed up like a steer for branding.

Anyone who has worked any time on the street can tell you similar stories about completely compliant subjects who became violent for no apparent reason.

That's why no one who works safely accepts a CCW permit or badge and ID as certification that this contact will be completely safe and uneventful.

You’re taking what I said to the extreme. I never said pulling someone over who has a CCW permit is a guarantee of safety and would never recommend the a LEO drop their guard under any circumstances. I’m saying that given the daily background checks in Illinois a FOID holder goes through means something, not everything, but it’s a piece of a puzzle. You’re saying those checks are completely meaningless. On that we disagree.
 
Yes they are meaningless. Even if the daily check reveals a disqualifying arrest there is a lag time between that and the time the ISP revokes a FOID card.

It’s not a piece of the puzzle at all. It’s meaningless. The last mass shooter we had in Illinois had a valid FOID card. FOID cards, CCW permits are simply a way for the government to restrict the second amendment. There is no public safety value to either of those programs. If someone is going to be a bad actor the fact that they have a FOID or CCW they might lose does not figure into their decision.
 
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