Open carry "victory", $25K payday.

Yes... especially in the highly charged atmosphere immediately following the theater killings -- in the same town, no less.

I'm just dumbfounded by these "I got my rights" arguments.
Carry, but keep it out of sight of the frightened sheep.
They'll trample you to death.

 

I've open carried for years and the sheep that have bleated the loudest have been the conceal carry only people who can't resist the opportunity to tell me they carry their guns concealed and so should I.

 

How long should he have waited? A month? A year?

 

Because guns are baaad and people with guns only have them to do baaad things.

Only because so few people do it. Not doing it won't help the problem.

Keep that in mind.

 

When you have reason to believe that tensions are high and people are nervous or paranoid about something, wisdom says to not do whatever might exacerbate the situation.

I'm all in favor of open carry being legal, but I really doubt I'd do so in Aurora, Colorado.

The OC fella could just as easily have had two or three guys do a Flight 93 on him.

 

Now THAT would be bleeping stupid, and I would hope that they would end up in prison for being so ridiculously stupid. Assuming, of course, they didn't end up in the hospital or the morgue before they had a chance to be arrested and charged. Maybe even shot in the back by a concealed carrier who saw the peaceful open carrier get jumped.

 

I'm not believing what I'm listening to here....

 

I open carry in the theater in my town at least once a month. Nobody bats eye. Maybe they are just used to seeing me and my gun.

 

The sad fact is we have to play politics in this country and rubbing salt in a wound isn't a good thing. Yes the guy was totally legal but that doesn't make what he did "right" IMO. People see that kind of action and they could well vote for a gun grabber the next chance they get. It stinks but it's reality. There are plenty of other times to make your point if that's what you want to do. But just like Mutt and Jeff at Chipolte there are better ways of doing things. I'm not putting anyone down but they came off as a couple of kids looking to get their face in the paper. They shouldn't have been posing and grinning and dressing like they were on safari IMO. It's just bad politics. If they wanted to open carry and make a point wear a suit and tie and do it. And don't rub salt in an open wound. People could think the guy was looking for a payday. Maybe he wasn't but it's sure as heck hard to tell from the media and that's the only way we have of getting information. Don't play checkers when the other guy is playing chess.

Politics rules in this country and we have to win that game or else.

 

This is a PR battle. There is no win in open carrying in a theater in Aroura at that time. Let it cool down. No one is listening to this debate and thinking, "Oh, the police had to pay out. Hmmm...now I am more supportive of gun rights,

 

It is a sad state of affairs when people just assume that somebody not doing anything wrong can be "looking for a payday" under the assumption that the police WILL break the law and the police WILL violate your rights and the police WILL unlawfully arrest you.

What does that say about the state of our law enforcement?

There is a big difference between people taking notice of him...people keeping an eye on him...even the theater having the police escort him off the premises or whatever...and ARRESTING him.

 

In a town of 6,000 people, that is probably the case.

 

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/new...enly-carrying-firearm-into-cinnebarre-theater

This article would suggest that it wasn't even theater management that called the police. I was eating dinner at a restaurant one night when an officer approached me and asked me to step outside. He hassled me for about 15 minutes about my gun and I finally told him, "Either give me a citation for whatever law you think I am breaking, or I am going back in to finish my dinner."

Officer said, "Fine, go back inside." He then followed me and got a waitress who wasn't even old enough to serve beer to accompany him while he told me that I was required to leave. So I paid my bill and left.

The next day I dropped a letter off at the restaurant describing what had happened. When I got home there was a voice message from the manager of the restaurant that stated they were extremely sorry for my experience. Nobody from the restaurant had contacted the police, it must have been another customer. The restaurant had no desire for the police to be there and certainly did not want them removing me from the restaurant, and said the I, my family, my friends and our guns were welcome back at any time.

I notified the Chief of Police of my town that his officer had no authority to evict me from private property against the wishes of the property owner and that there would be a gathering of armed customers at the restaurant the following Saturday for a luncheon at the invitation of the restaurant and any involvement with the police other than joining us for a social get together would be met with a lawsuit.

We had a great luncheon that Saturday (about 10 of us, with our holstered handguns and our families), gave a lot of business to the restaurant that day, and the police never showed up

Even if it was theater management that called the police, it must be an agent of the property owner that asks the customer to leave, and then only if the customer refuses do officers have the authority to detain or arrest. See this theater case that resulted in Alamogordo, New Mexico, paying out $21,000:

http://www.examiner.com/article/alamogordo-police-pay-21-000-to-settle-open-carry-lawsuit

http://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/gunstuff/legal/St.John v Alamogordo Police Order.pdf

 

He did not do anything he did not normally do.
He did not brandish his firearm.
He did not carry his firearm in a provocative manner.
He did not carry a long gun.
He did not carry a "scary" gun (at least, if the picture is accurate).

I don't think this is anywhere near as bad as OCing an AR-15 on a tactical 3-point sling into a starbucks.

 

I remember when he was arrested. There was a thread then with much the same conversation.

Whatever your feelings on open carrying are he didn’t break any laws. He didn’t hurt anyone. Does he really need the approval of the masses to engage in behavior that isn't hurting anyone?

A society shouldn’t push people around because it makes them feel better or because they disapprove. That way madness lies. Something we all should be very aware of given our collective hobbies.

 

That 'consideration for others' is something I've had people tell me when they claim open carry should be illegal. Some other people just plain don't like guns, don't like seeing guns, and don't like knowing people ever have guns. Out of consideration for these people, open carry in public should be illegal.

 

This response has exceeded the point of terminal irresponsibility. It's also completely off topic.

So if someone were to look like the shooter, your reasoning says they should stay home with the shades drawn to avoid getting arrested or attacked by other theater goers.

 

This.

 

They should at least shave off their mustaches and beards out of consideration of others that might be disturbed by the legally worn mustache and beard.

 

"When you have reason to believe that tensions are high and people are nervous or paranoid about something, wisdom says to not do whatever might exacerbate the situation."
Wisdom actually says to be prepared for the consequences of said paranoia/nervousness. Quite honestly, I remember clearly lots of people being fearful of copy-cats for weeks/months afterwards; why would you specifically not be armed if you really thought a do-over was possible in the theatre you visited? Why would you conceal if you didn't care to do so and it was perfectly legal?

As far as people freaking out, it would solely be due to their connotations of guns with violence, which, btw, an awful large number of gun owners & even gun enthusiasts themselves suffer from. If a lawful activity scares others while doing absolutely no harm to anyone, how is it not the 'others' that are at fault in the scenario? The gun was holstered, the gun was plainly visible (which actually makes it easier to tell what he's doing/not doing with it), and the man was doing nothing notable besides going about his business. Mr. Joker was none of those things, yet somehow that gets lost in the "GUN, GUN, GUN!" freakout. Were the gun hidden, would that have changed the 'threat' he posed? Were the gun hidden, would it be easier for movie-goers to identify a potential 'threat' before he started shooting? Of course not, but we've come to expect people to act irrationally, for some reason, and even try to justify it.

He did nothing illegal, he hurt no one, and was arrested for standing out and being perceived wrongly as a threat; same logic behind witch burnings.

"In a town of 6,000 people..."
Yeah, yeah, people in urban centers can't be expected to act with any sense whatsoever; we get it

"So if someone were to look like the shooter, your reasoning says they should stay home with the shades drawn to avoid getting arrested or attacked by other theater goers."
Precisely. And the Ryder trucking company should have gone out of business after the OK City Bombings. And all people from the middle east should have been detained after 9-11.

"Rights don't necessarily make exercising good judgment irrelevant."
True, but they are supposed to give police good enough guidance to understand where their authority ends. I understand the 911 calls; I do not understand the police arresting the man for no cause (I know, I know, we can't expect officers to act with any sense whatsoever when they're excited )

TCB

 

"They should at least shave off their mustaches and beards out of consideration of others that might be disturbed by the legally worn mustache and beard."
Granted, you don't see the toothbrush mustache/comb-over combo much anymore...

TCB

 

When the ex-cop cop-killer was in LA, there were 2 incidents where the cops opened fire on vehicles that looked kind of like the suspect's vehicle. One it was the same make and model, but slightly different color and had 2 old Asian women in it, the other was a different make and model, different color and had a man of a different race from the suspect in it.

So should everyone who drives an SUV stay home if the suspect in recent shootings drives an SUV?

 

Just a few days ago some nut was running people over with his car in California. I bet today people are driving up and down that same street and aren't being hassled by the cops.