Oh No! Another Open Carry Story.....

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jahwarrior

jahwarrior

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Apr 9, 2007
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Dickson City, PA
earlier today, took my lady and our son to a doctor's appt in my town. my boy gets allergy shots every two weeks or so there. when we got there, i got out of the van, and walked around to the other side. my son had brought one of rats along for the ride, so i decided to take him and stay in the van with him. the nurses don't care about the gun, but rats are another story. on the scene were 2 Lackawanna sheriff's deputies; they were responding to another call. i saw them stop anna, and ask her some questions. they were pointing to me, and anna was nodding her head, smiling. i walked on over. "what's up, babe?"

"what are you doing?" said one.

"with him? he's a rat."

"no, with that gun?"

"oh. uh, nothing." anna shook her head and continued on her way, leaving me to deal with it.

"you can't do that. that illegal!" said the other deputy.

"no, it isn't."

"uh, yeah, it is."

"uh, no it isn't."

"you have a license to carry a gun?"

"yes."

"through our office?"

"yuppers."

"and what does it say on it?" said the first.

"it says: license to carry a firearm. L-T-C-F."

"to carry it concealed! you better cover that up, kid."

"i'm not a kid, i'm a 36 year old with lots of gray. and as far as covering up, is that your opinion, or is that the law?"

"it's the law!"

"no, it isn't. actually, i only need it if i want to carry it concealed. i don't need it to carry openly, except in Philly. and this ain't Philly, thank G*D."

"no, if you have a license, you have to conceal it!"

"not if i choose not to, officer."

"so you're not going to cover that up?"

"sir, if it was illegal, you would have arrested me by now."

the first one gave up. he threw up his hands in frustration, and said, "well, good luck with that! when you get pinched for that, don't say i didn't warn you!" he opened the door for me to enter the building.

"oh, no thanks. i can't go in there. the girls freak out about the rat."

"but they're okay with the gun?!?"

"yeah."

"jeez..."

i walked back to the van, and watched them. one of them called it in. i was close enough to hear: "when can you get someone down here?....how long?......he's walking around with a gun!.......yeah, i'll wait......alright, fine...."

i sat in my van, for another 15 minutes, playing with mercutio (the rat), waiting to see if someone showed. no one did. when anna returned, she asked, "so, are you arrested?"

"no. what did he ask you?"

"if you carried like that all the time, and if you had a license through their office, and if you knew it was illegal to open carry. what he ask you?"

"pretty much the same thing. whatever. they were full of crap. if it what illegal, they would have arrested me."

"do you have any of those (gun rights) flyers?"

"nah, crap. i gotta print some up when we get home."
 
I don't think they did anything obviously actionable, but it merits a formal complaint, probably with citations to some settled or ongoing lawsuits relevent to the matter.
 
I'm glad to hear you had a real discussion with a couple officers and they did not feel that they need to arrest you or detain you to make a point.

Very nicely done. I assume they got word that it is indeed legal to OC, and hopefully they will not pester the next guy.
 
I love it, telling you that you're doing something ilegal and then just walking away. Don't they have a code book they carry w/ them?
 
How dare you so brazenly provoke an anointed one like that?

Don't you know that the cops are always right?

Submit! Comply! Be passive!!

Bahhhhhhh!!!
 
I'm often surprised how uninformed some LE officers are about the law. My brother and a couple friends bought some really nice ceramic body armor at a gun show earlier this year. They got a good deal on them, and as you'd guess, they were wearing it around when they went to leave. The sheriff's deputy at the exit of the show nearly had kittens when came out of the exit door. He closed the exit, wouldn't let anyone enter, and was yelling at the top of his lungs for the three to remove the "illegal" body armor at once. Body armor is not at all illegal to own, wear, pair funny colors, whatever in this state or county -- as long as you aren't wearing it when you commit a crime. Leaving a gun show probably wouldn't fit any reasonable person's definition of a crime. Though the deputy was anything but reasonable.

So a simple walk to the car after a show turns into a 45 minute ordeal. A couple minutes into it, the three of them have the deputy drawing his firearm and making all manner of threats. The whole time the guy is screaming. My brother stands his ground, says he isn't removing a darn thing, and demands to talk to his supervisor. I'd have probably soiled my trousers, but he has this personality trait where if he thinks he's in the right, then he's in the right and nothing can alter that immutable fact.

Long story short, they get a sergeant on the cop's cell phone and my brother has a chat (while he has a gun pointed at him, mind you). My brother calmly explains the entire situation, including the deputy's threats to shoot him "in the head where that body armor can't protect you", and he gets the guy's name and contact info and gives his. Hands the phone back to the deputy, there's words, and the deputy looks awfully upset. Puts his pistol back in the holster, says "You can go, but don't come back or I'll shoot you". Again with the threats. I think he made something like 20 death threats all told. Numbers vary slightly amongst those who were there.

As he's leaving, a couple dozen folks give him their contact info, saying they'll be happy to go to court to put that asshat cop in jail. I'm not at all litigious, but I'd have sued him into the realm of flashlight-carrying, night shift security guards. Though my brother got more and more angry as the day wore on. I think the adrenaline wore off and the reality of what could have happened to him sunk in.

Next day, my brother gets a call from some captain in what amounts to the internal affairs division. He's nice, polite, and explains what the story is, what they're doing about what happened, how sorry they are, and oh, by the way, you're not thinking of suing are you? Turns out the deputy has more than a couple complaints against him already. But yeah, just because he was unlawfully detained and had a gun pointed at his head for 35 minutes with death threats shouted at him repeatedly, there's no reason he'd be upset, right? And another wrinkle: my family knows the sheriff personally, and my brother mentions this, along with some very courteous words on what he feels the role of law enforcement ought to be, and how threatening to shoot a law-abiding citzen in the head for doing absolutely nothing wrong really shouldn't be including in that role. And, hey, whatever happened to "protect and serve", anyway? The deputy was just plain mean from the get-go.

The deputy got restricted to desk job for a while, had to go to classes, etc. I forget what all he had to do. But my brother didn't sue. My dad offered to pay for the lawyer himself (and he knows a few very good ones), just to get that guy out of the sheriff's department and off the street. But no dice. Brother told the captain over the next couple calls he had with him that as long as the deputy wasn't in a position to make threats like that to other people, he didn't care to go through the court process. I told him to at least get a restraining order against the cop. That would make for an interesting time at the next show! :)

Anyway, yeah. Don't automatically assume that cops know anything about the law. There are a lot of very good police, but there are a few who really don't want to see normal, everyday citizens owning guns and such. The best defense against that is always staying polite and educating yourself. Your fliers are a darn good idea in that regard. In fact, I might have a couple wallet-sized cards printed up. We had this one game warden once tell us that we couldn't shoot our machine guns out in our favorite shooting spot on BLM land that we've been going to for years. They'd be good for times like that.

Geez, sorry for the wall o' text. Didn't realize I had rambled on like that...
 
Turn in the badge numbers for remedial training and ask the chief to post the OC law in the ready rooms. No one should have to put up with that BS. Do another (all) citizen(s) a favor.
 
i think them holding the door was nice and that was a textbook way to enlighten them. hopefully they will spread the info
 
jahwarrior to what to you attribute the response and ending you got? are you good at handling folks? or get a couple cops who didn't wanna be a pain? was it your good attitude or theirs that ended it with no bad results?
 
cassandrasdaddy said:
was it your good attitude or theirs that ended it with no bad results?
Click to expand...

Are you saying it was the magnanimous benevolence of the police officers which allowed a man, who was doing no wrong, to go about his business? Why, by-gum, they deserve a medal!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I see too often, here and on other forums, the attitude displayed, which says..."Yeah, well he really could have made your life miserable. Consider yourself lucky."

That was the inference toward which my last comment was made.
 
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jahwarrior to what to you attribute the response and ending you got? are you good at handling folks? or get a couple cops who didn't wanna be a pain? was it your good attitude or theirs that ended it with no bad results?
Click to expand...

i attribute the response i received to the fact that i was completely in the right, and wasn't about to let a pair of misinformed dolts in uniform bully me into doing what they wanted. in other words, i called their bluff.

and i attribute your line of questioning to your unceasing desire to troll certain threads, and be an all around jerk.
 
i am sorry i wasn't trying to cheap shot ya i was genuinely surprised that 2 cops didn't take your stance the wrong way and that you didn't get an unpleasant response. its not easy to make your point in that kinda thing with out getting cuffed
 
brhodes said:
Next day, my brother gets a call from some captain in what amounts to the internal affairs division. He's nice, polite, and explains what the story is, what they're doing about what happened, how sorry they are, and oh, by the way, you're not thinking of suing are you? Turns out the deputy has more than a couple complaints against him already. But yeah, just because he was unlawfully detained and had a gun pointed at his head for 35 minutes with death threats shouted at him repeatedly, there's no reason he'd be upset, right? And another wrinkle: my family knows the sheriff personally, and my brother mentions this, along with some very courteous words on what he feels the role of law enforcement ought to be, and how threatening to shoot a law-abiding citzen in the head for doing absolutely nothing wrong really shouldn't be including in that role. And, hey, whatever happened to "protect and serve", anyway? The deputy was just plain mean from the get-go.
Click to expand...

I don't see any reason to sue. I think I would file a *criminal* complaint against the deputy. That's the only way to get their attention. How many felonies did he commit? (I think the FBI is the agency that handles matters like this)

__________________
Granny: Remember what William Jennings Bryan said, "Fight hard, but fight clean"
Jethro: But you ain't fightin' clean, Granny.
Granny: 'Course I ain't! William Jennings Bryan was a Loser!
 
Is the other rat called Benvolio or Tybalt?
Click to expand...

LMAO, i wondered if someone would catch that. i have a large collection of rats; one gave birth to a litter of 16. we gave away all but two of the males. we named one Romeo, because of a heart shaped marking on his belly; we named his brother Mercutio. my girl likes shakespeare.....
 
I think many of these cops are more informed than you think. I think they know full well what the law is but they just don't like it. So, they flat out lie to you about the law to see if they can discourage you from carrying openly. Nice try.

Put yourself in their shoes though. They know that even though it's legal, they try to convince everyone it isn't and so how can you blame the typical guy or girl on the street (who knows nothing about carrying a gun) when they freak out and call the police when they see a civilian on the street brandishing a weapon? If you keep doing this, the cops may be called several times each week because you are out there showing a weapon.

Now I'm on your side but at least try to understand why everyone is doing what they are doing here. Also ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing. Is it to exercise your rights or is it to get attention?
 
makarovnik said:
I think many of these cops are more informed than you think. I think they know full well what the law is but they just don't like it. So, they flat out lie to you about the law to see if they can discourage you from carrying openly. Nice try.

Put yourself in their shoes though. They know that even though it's legal, they try to convince everyone it isn't and so how can you blame the typical guy or girl on the street (who knows nothing about carrying a gun) when they freak out and call the police when they see a civilian on the street brandishing a weapon? If you keep doing this, the cops may be called several times each week because you are out there showing a weapon.
Click to expand...

The cops really need to think through all the consequences of this kind of behavior though. Constantly telling people that something is illegal and then failing to do anything about it makes them look impotent and undermines their own authority. If they actually try to arrest somebody for legal open carry, they'll open themselves up for some serious liability.

The best thing the police can do is enforce the law, and when somebody freaks out give them a short lesson on rights and the law. Better for everybody. If they have a problem with the law they can try to fix it the way everybody else does - by voting.
 
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