Morgan,
What's foolish is any human being trying to impose their will on someone through threat of arms. What is even more foolish is to think all other will meekly submit to that kind of behavior when they've done nothing wrong. & perhaps the most foolish thing of all is to be surprised if/when someone fights back effectively.
Hell, if you're worried about a criminal trying to harm you, then why do you seem so shocked at the idea of a citizen just trying to protect himself from a cops unlawful actions?
& I have read up on the law. Read up on case law as well. More importantly I've read up on the applicable Constitutions. The bottom line is that unless I'm threatening you or someone else, through negligent or malicious actions, or I'm suspected of a crime, then you as a cop have absolutely no authority to tell me to do anything.
now as I see it the Colorado's constitutional provisions about certain Rights are pretty clear.
Let's start off with
Section 3. Inalienable rights.
"All persons have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; and of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness."
& we progress to
Section 7. Security of person and property - searches - seizures - warrants.
"The people shall be secure in their persons, papers, homes and effects, from unreasonable searches and seizures; and no warrant to search any place or seize any person or things shall issue without describing the place to be searched, or the person or thing to be seized, as near as may be, nor without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation reduced to writing."
& we wrap it up with
Section 13. Right to bear arms.
"The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question; but nothing herein contained shall be construed to justify the practice of carrying concealed weapons."
Now as I've said before, from a safety standpoint tucking a pistol under your arm ain't the smartest thing to do, but barring that I can see where Labgrade's actions could fall under the protection of all 3 of those articles.
There simply is no Colorado law which makes carrying a weapon openly illegal. (excepting laws concerning particular places, like school, courthouses, etc...)
Similarly there is no law in Colorado against wearing shorts w/ no shirt. If there was don't ya think half the male population in Boulder would be arrested every July? But I could be wrong & it's just not enforced. However it was not listed as one of the charges so I assume that had little or nothing to do with the kidnapping & stealing of Labgrade's property.
When the cops ordered him to drop his weapon, they did so without any legitimate authority.
So considering that Labgrade's actions were not illegal under Colorado law, they had absolutely no cause for detention. They saw a gun in the possession of a citizen & they got scared, so they did something very stupid & bullied Labgrade.
Now odds are they threw the obstruction charge & prohibited use of a weapon charge in after they had kidnapped him. In short they threw down the charges they thought would justify their actions.
I would submit it's the cops who need to read up on the law. Unless you can demonstrate (from Labgrade's statement) that they did have cause to kidnap him & steal his property at gunpoint.
After some thought the thing I think was meant by the obstruction charge was labgrade's refusal to drop a loaded weapon the second they said to. That's the only thing I can think of, unless they are trying to say his sitting in the door fo a car while asking a question was obstructing them. It'd be helpful to see the report, & until then it's all just speculation.
Now if you'll be so kind to look
here &
here I think you'll see that Denver's governing body has no intention of making things better for gun owners.
A quote from the second link:
"We're going to enforce personnel regulations that say, for instance, that you cannot bring a gun to work even though some may interpret the new law to allow that,' Assistant City Attorney David Broadwell said."
So Denver being firearm friendly of late is something that I'd like to believe, but given their past actions & stories like the two linked above I just don't see it. Then again we probably have very different views of firearm friendly.
As far as case examples go, the last one I remember clearly that was fairly straight forward was Rick Stanley & an associate getting arrested for carrying openly in Denver to challenge Denver's ban on open carry. Now keep in mind that until last March (I beleieve - could be off a month or two either way) Denver's finest had the authority & obligation to arrest anyone for carrying a firearm eitherly openly on their hip or openly in their car.
How often they followed through I cannot say. But likely some Denver cop arrested someone for solely carrying (no other crimes or suspicious activities) at leats once & that's way too many times. * what I would suspect is that most cops usually didn't press the issue unless the person failed some sort of attitude test, but then again given the way things are I wouldn't be surprised to hear that all Denver cops enforced the law religiously as often as they could.
But the problem is most of the time you hear about specific cases is when the person knows what his/her Rights are & tries to fight it. Odds are most people wouldn't fight it as most people don't realize what they're Rights are, let alone how important it is to protect them.
