Police attitudes toward open carry

Everyone should obey the law.

If California law says you can open carry (albeit unloaded), that's that. The police don't have to like it. They just have to obey the law and not commit any crimes themselves.

If Texas law says you can't open carry, that's that. You don't have to like it. Just don't do it.

Nobody has to like the law. They just have to obey it, get it changed or face the consequences.

slabuda said:

We as gun owners need to be professional/responsible to educate those in LE who do not agree with the "Bear Arms" portion of the 2A

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Cops take an oath to uphold the Constitution. We don't need to teach them or convince them of a thing. If they don't want to obey their oath, they can find another job.

GunsAmerica Fan said:

A few bad apples shouldn't make a rule.

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I completely disagree. If there are always a few bad apples, then the probability of encountering a bad apple is never zero.

If you set the risk to zero, you are putting yourself at risk.

You know the imperative: "treat every gun as if it's loaded." While Jim may be known to unload his guns before setting on his workbench, you still treat every gun as if it's loaded, right? You wouldn't pick up a gun off Jim's workbench and pull the trigger without checking to see if it's loaded, would you?

When the exception (and we're not sure that this cop's desires are a minority view) is so lethal, you make a rule to protect yourself. When we get a zero tolerance policy that always gets cops like this fired or imprisoned for making such comments, we can begin to relax the rule.

StarDust1 said:

The facts are irrefutable, YOU had to ask permission to both buy, and then carry your gun, you can dress that up anyway you wish too, but the fact remains that you had to ASK, and that by definition makes it a privilege...

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Game, set, match. Stardust wins this round.

It's a privilege, folks. Sadly, many gun owners like it that way.

pbearperry said:

In proper enviroments open carry is a good option.

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Who are you to tell anyone what a "proper environment" is?

Smoking 357

Who are you to ask who am I?Get over yourself.lol

pbearperry said:

Who are you to ask who am I?Get over yourself.lol

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I'm the guy who's not scared of other people's guns and doesn't tell people where, when and how they can carry.

You must be the other guy.

smoking357 said:

Cops take an oath to uphold the Constitution. We don't need to teach them or convince them of a thing. If they don't want to obey their oath, they can find another job.

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More important, cops swear to uphold the law, not interpret it, not make it up as they go along. Ironically, in California this means they should be protecting those who open carry from harassment, not be the source of the harassment. Sadly, their superiors (who are the source of much of this mentality) also took such an oath but it apparently means little to them.

As to whether members of this group prefer to carry concealed, that's immaterial. They may not understand open carry and may not wish to engage in it, as is their right (they don't have to engage in free speech, either). I carry a gun because of past experience. I open carry where I can not because I am playing cowboy or policeman, but because it is more comfortable for me to be able to wear an OWB holster with the gun positioned lower than most concealment holsters allow.

I don't tell people to do anything.Open carry to me is not something I would do in a city enviroment.I like the idea of suprising the bad guy.If you like open carry,go for it.There a lot of things people do now that don't interest me.Maybe I am the other guy?lol

I finished a travel work assignment in SoCal 1/2010. I was told by the police that if you do open carry to be ready to be approached by police to determine if your weapon was unloaded. Any ammo was to be carried openly also. Too much hassle so I didn't. I carried a cane instead. Police said to carry a machete= a tool, not a knife, I didn't.
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Police said to carry a machete= a tool, not a knife, I didn't.

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I wonder what the cop who told you that would say after a different cop arrested you for carrying that machete. He'd probably just laugh.

Teachers have gotten in trouble, why not this guy?

"Police also point out the remarks were made in a personal, private web page and were only made public by a blogger."

Posting on social networking sites has gotten teachers in trouble who shoot, why shouldn't the police be held in the same regard?

There are many cases where teachers have been put on suspension or lost their jobs because of pictures on their Facebook or Myspace page show them shooting. Wouldn't the same thing apply to this officer? The man just made a threat toward individuals who are law abiding citizens.

I've seen quite a bit of open carry in the area where I grew up. By and large the LEO's of the area pretended it wasn't happening and moved on. But, that area still has a few die-hard farmers with a full rifle rack on the back window of their pickups.

The main problem there is when the city people buy houses to get away from the city then attempt to bring Chicago with them.

We are a "thriving" retirement area, with plenty of folks from Detroit, Cinnci, Chicago, and to a lesser extent NY. I have both friends and family on the SD, PD, and THP, and hear lots of stories about the imports. My favorite actually involves my dad. A couple of summers ago dad had one of the new "neighbors" call the SD on him and report him for animal cruelty. Said his horses were not cared for..... they were left outside in the field all of the time. The Deputy that came by told Dad about it and laughed and went over and told the lady that horses and cows, and chickens etc are just fine outside.

The same lady called and reported another of the local folks for animal cruelty for not feeding their dog. My BiL is a vet and the Basset in question was obese and my BiL had been trying to get the owners to cut back on the feed for this aging dog for some time. The kicker here is that they hadn't, he was waddling around fat as mud! She got to calling so often that they finally had the city attorney write here a letter telling her basically to mind her own business unless someone is doing something to her, or they would arrest her for filing false reports.

I don't want to stereotype but it seems like most of the people that I know that open carry are simply showing off and want everyone to know that they have a gun, and quite frankly that attitude scares the hell out of me.

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Geez, thanks for the civilized discussion. I didn't say anything bad about open carry ... I was not judging anyone,

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Actually, you were judging "most of the people I know that open carry" with your comments. You attributed an attitude to them that is less than positive. You might be right, but you were definitely being judgmental. (Being judgmental is not necessarily wrong - many situations in life require judgment.) By bringing such individuals into the discussion, you were also saying something bad about open carry by implication. You weren't wrong to make your comment, but don't be surprised that people responded.