Pulled over in VA, cop asked for my gun.

Status
Not open for further replies.

steveracer

Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2005
Messages
1,554
Location
VA Beach
I got pulled over for speeding yesterday, and as usual, I was carrying. I had all my credentials out when he walked up to the car, and my hands on the steering wheel. I hended him my license (NY) my registration (VA), my military ID (Navy), and my concealed weapons permit (VA). I've done this a few dozen times.

In VA, the cop runs your license, and gets your CCW info, so I usually just tell him, as a courtesy, "I've got a loaded ______ pistol on my right waist."
This time he wanted it.

Now, I did give it to him, holstered, and he walked back to his car with it. This bugged me. I had another gun right there in the lock box in the console, but I was still a little peeved about him taking my gun. I had been speeding, 10 over, not a jailable offense, and was polite with the cop, so I couldn't see him taking my gun for legal reasons.

What do you folks do?
 
"A few dozen times"!!

Fortunately I haven't been pulled over in about eight or nine years.

But I think it would have bugged me too.
 
Can I assume he gave your gun back to you?
What do you folks do?
Usually obey posted speed limits ;)
Otherwise I ALWAYS do whatever the LEO requests. I've found life to be much more enjoyable that way.
 
*shrug*

Cops are like that. It pisses me off, frankly. But what can you do? Tell him no? Get into an argument over a loaded gun? THAT won't get handcuffed in the back of a squad car.

I once heard the phrase "You argue law in court, not on the side of the road." And that is the bottom line here. He may have been legally allowed to do that, he may not have. I don't know Virginia law. Will it be more hassle than it worth to get into an argument over a loaded gun on the side of the road? Probably. Does it still piss me off? Yeah...
 
Think about it from the LEO point of view

He pulls you over, you have a gun. He doesn't know what to expect from you, despite the fact that you have a CCW, so for his safety he takes the weapon and secures it until the traffic stop is over. Then he returns the weapon. You might drive away angry but he is going home alive at the end of his shift. The fact that you have a CCW or a military ID should not play at all into the equation because neither one is a guarantee of good behavior from you. Don't take that as an insult because I am also on active duty. I'm not familiar with CCW in VA at all so I don't know what the requirements are but I can guarantee you that if I was stationed in the area and boarded a boat that you were on I would do the exact same thing.
 
In states where you have a duty to inform, it is the officer's decision whether or not to disarm you. Anything but compliance under these circumstances is the wrong answer.

There may be things happening that you are not privy to. There may be an APB out on a vehicle very similar to yours. The last CCW holder the officer stopped might have been an ass. There may be a Navy man who is wanted for beating his wife to death that morning. The officer may just feel the need to go the extra step to disarm you to feel safe himself. His reason does not matter. he doesn't know you from Adam, and he has the right and authority to disarm you if he feels the need. It may not seem right to the private citizen who is stopped, simply because they do not have the same information as the officer, nor are they performing the same job under the same circumstances.

Over the years, I have had official encounters with law enforcement, and not been disarmed. I have, however, been disarmed a couple of times by LEOs. Both times I allowed an officer to unholster my weapon while keeping my hands out. Both times I had a fleeting fear of a 1911 with the thumb safety off and an officer with his finger on the trigger. Both times the encounter was handled professionally, and I was given my weapon back at the conclusion of the encounter. I am very surprised that the officer allowed you to disarm yourself.

Don't begrudge the officer for disarming you. He has that right, and the authority to make the decision in the field based on his knowledge at the time. If I had to do his job, I would want the same right and authority.
 
Cops can have my gun, they're not a problem for me,unless my:cuss: causes
them to be!I'll just hand it over kinda:eek: ,and:scrutiny: my behavior later! so next time we can be:cool: and everybodycan be:) right?;)
 
Watch your speed this weekend.... Virginia will be running "enhanced enforcement" on 95 and 81 including the use of aviation assets. They plan another crackdown next month as well.
 
Think about it from the LEO point of view
He pulls you over, you have a gun. He doesn't know what to expect from you, despite the fact that you have a CCW, so for his safety he takes the weapon and secures it until the traffic stop is over. Then he returns the weapon. You might drive away angry but he is going home alive at the end of his shift. The fact that you have a CCW or a military ID should not play at all into the equation because neither one is a guarantee of good behavior from you. Don't take that as an insult because I am also on active duty. I'm not familiar with CCW in VA at all so I don't know what the requirements are but I can guarantee you that if I was stationed in the area and boarded a boat that you were on I would do the exact same thing.

With the restrictions in TX, the people with squeaky clean records who get a CHL are not the people an officer will need to worry about. I have been pulled over once while carrying. I got a verbal warning. The officer wanted to know where I had the gun, but didn't bother with anything else.
I think I understand your concern, but it seems to me that CHL holders are less of a concern than those that don't hold a CHL.
 
I agree with others. If you have been pulled over a few dozen times, I think I detect a pattern here that suggests your behavior needs to be modified. I drive faster than average down here, but I generally don't go more than 10 MPH over (except in school zones). Most officers down here was bug you at those speeds. But then I drive a truck.
 
In Virginia, you don't have to inform the officer if you're carrying or not. Keep your trap shut. He'll know via the computer that you have your license anyway.

In the 6 years I've had my license, I've been stopped and had my DL run by police 4 times.

1st time: Expired county sticker, just moved and hadn't received my new one yet. Officer made no mention of my CCW.

2nd time: Expired registration. My fault, just plain forgot. Officer made no mention of my CCW.

3rd time: Had my plates stolen off my car, was on the way to Autozone to get new screws to attach new plates. Plate in rear window fell down and out of sight en route. Officer pulled me over to inform me (no prob once I explained where I was headed) and ended up running my detailed info (city of birth, etc) when it turned out my name was the same as a wanted felon (probably the same reason I always get delayed for 45min by NICS). Officer made no mention of my CCW.

4th time: Auto accident. Officer made no mention of my CCW.

I never mentioned my CCW. I was polite and cooperated each time. I was never disarmed.

Chris
 
"A few dozen times"!!

That does jump out at you, doesn't it?!

I'm 44 and fast approaching 45. Been driving since I was 15.5 like most other male Americans. Drive every day. I've NEVER seen the flashing red lights in my mirror. Never even had a warning, much less a ticket.

Got to be some kind of lesson there!

G
 
Wow! It has been 32 years since I was last pulled over, and I drive an average of 40,000 miles a year.

"A couple of dozen times" may be an indicator that other things are also amiss, and it might just be that the LEO picked up a bad vibe. I would have no problem if an officer asked to temporarily take possession of my carry weapon.
 
Some suggest that CCW carriers are as law abiding as cops. Some say more law abiding. If true, it is an act of irrational predjudice for a cop to disarm a CCW holder and not insist that his or her fellow officers also disarm "for his safety."

On the other hand, it's just a piece of paper and plastic and like any ID document can be fabricated. Until the cop can verify that this is the person named on the CCW and the CCW is legitimate, I think some caution on his or her part might be a good thing.

PS: Going faster, for the distances most of us drive, hardly gets you there faster.
 
After the stop was concluded, and he'd handed it back...

"Uh, sir, if you had cause enough to be suspicious of me to take the legal weapon off my hip, you really should have terry frisked me and also searched my vehicle for other weapons. I'm just worried for your safety from the criminals out there..."
 
I follow the requests of the cop, that's what I do. In Ohio, they have the right to have control of the weapon during the stop--for their own safety. They don't *have* to do it, but some may feel like making a point of it. Shrug it off.

K
 
Now, I did give it to him, holstered, and he walked back to his car with it. This bugged me. I had another gun right there in the lock box in the console, but I was still a little peeved about him taking my gun. I had been speeding, 10 over, not a jailable offense, and was polite with the cop, so I couldn't see him taking my gun for legal reasons.
It's been over ten years since I was stopped because I forgot to put the registration sticker on the license plate. The previous time I was stopped for anything was in 1966, so I don't have much experience in this where it appears you have many experiences.

Yes, it does seem absurd that he is worried about the gun you freely tell him about, yet he has no concern that you may have other weapons. I was always taught that if you find one weapon on a contact, keep looking because there are probably more.

Officers are taught to control situations, and undoubtedly this officer felt he was controlling the situation by taking your pistol. If this really bothers you, I suggest you change your behavior so you don't attract police attention so much.

Pilgrim
 
Don't begrudge the officer for disarming you. He has that right, and the authority to make the decision in the field based on his knowledge at the time. If I had to do his job, I would want the same right and authority.

Okay, fine. Then we get to disarm the cops too. Why do our guns put them in danger but theirs don't have the same effect on us?

There is no excuse for the hypocritical conduct that governments or their agents engage in, no matter what pretenses they do it under. The fact of the matter is the cop disarmed someone he had no probable cause did anything other than speed a bit on the road. And if he had probable cause, he should have mentioned it.

No double standards.
 
OK! I get the "drive slower" thing all the time.

Seriously, how many of you guys have never done 10 mph over the limit?
My biggest ticket, ever, was 77 in a 55. That's on our freeway, 264E, at night, sober(always), and just going home from work. That got me landed in a cell for reckless driving, because in VA, if you break the 20 over limit, you are a dnagerous criminal and must be locked up.
I've been pulled over lots of times, but mostly because I have always been driving crap cars with something or another wrong with them. My current car has 286k miles it, and I have a finnicky middle tail light. I've been pulled four times for that.
I have had NO tickets in five years, of any kind, and only three in ten years. I get pulled over a LOT more than I get ticketed. Having NY plates here in VA for a while was the biggest cop magnet. I switched it over, and now I have VA plates in NY pretty often, and get pulled over a lot up there. It's usually "easy money" on the part of the officer. He figures I don't live there, won't come to court, and will just send a check.
I got my gun back, and told him to have a nice day. (he didn't ticket me) and that's that. I just don't like the disarming routine.
 
Change the law

Don't pitch a @*&$% get a petition signed and change the law.

I now agree that it is unreasonable. A month ago I was not so concerned, but now we have a new Jokeland County (oooops sorry) Oakland County happening.

At present, there is a group of police impostors in Rochester Hills, Michigan pulling people over. So, let's assume that they pull you over. They take your gun and flee, what are your going to do? When you call and report it, it will take several minutes just to convince the department that it was probably not a real cop. By then, your gun is LONG gone.

Sounds like flawed logic has led to a flawed law. If we are honest enough to have a MCPL (CCW), why take it away, save for a probable cause felony?

Doc2005
 
Utah is a duty to inform state. So we're required to by law to tell them we're armed.

99.99% of the time the cops are cool, and don't have an issue. They usually ask where the gun is, and for you to please leave it there. .01% of the time, you get a jerk.

Now what I tell my students, if you get one of those jerks, there is a time and a place to be a 2nd Amendment activist. The side of the freeway at 2:00 AM is not the time or the place. Just do whatever is required to get out of the problem, which means complying with the jerk.

Afterwards, raise a stink. If you were mistreated, call their department and file a complaint.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top