Posted on 01/11/2010 9:00:29 AM PST by SWAMPSNIPER
In all the years I carried at work very few people ever knew about it. It isn’t something you can get complacent about,there has to be a thread of awareness all the time. You read about cops who leave their gun in a restroom stall, got to wonder where their mind is.
Sooo, you see a holster on a otherwise nonthreatening person and you draw...? Maybe go on alert and position yourself for cover, pull a roscoe on a citizen who is legally armed and non-threatening you may find yourself in jail, or worse. Cop should have squared you away back then, in my opinion.
Even “years ago” many states had CCW permits, undercover LEOs etc.
Be very careful, don’t be afraid.
Ya, you have to condition and discipline yourself with your weapon so that being separate from it would feel as strange as having no clothes on.
Some police officers are just not gun folks. I work with guys that won’t carry off duty at all. Their choice, but I don’t go anywhere without it.
The deputy blew it, he forgot he was packing. His wallet should have been on the other side so his gun wouldn't show when he reached for the wallet.
Plus, as far as I’m aware, a LEO can ask anybody in public for their ID without any requirement for RAS or PC. Now if this guy is plain clothes he shouldn’t have had any problem displaying a badge to prove that it was a LEO asking for the ID.
I think both open and concealed serve their purposes. Open can un-demonize guns and gun-owners in the eyes of the public (except in a scene like this one). I think concealed is better for normal defensive carry, like you.
I do object to the licensing rules that demand more from a concealed carrier than an open carrier. Why does the gun or the owner become more prone to bad aim or using his gun illegally just cause he puts it in his pocket?
Police can ask for ID whenever they wish. However, the person does not have to provide it unless there is a specific crime the person is reasonably suspected of committing. I did not read the full article yet. I will.
Didn’t the Wyoming (Nevada?) SCOTUS case about a guy on the street come out that you have to ID yourself to a LEO if asked?
What happens when two a-holes collide...
Yep. And so can any random citizen, as long as the First Amendment right to free speech is still in force. Of course, you're not required to respond by producing the ID unless the requester identifies him/herself as a LEO and provides proper evidence to back that up. And this off duty officer did let the request drop . . . until the poor oppressed RKBA-exerciser finished up his lunch and decided to reopen the matter by going over to the still-lunching off duty officer and demanding his ID. Judging from the whole story as it's presented here, I suspect that demand was made in a sufficiently aggressive manner that, combined with the openly carried weapon, made it at least within reason to arrest him and charge him with disorderly conduct.
The officer's main error, as far as I can tell from the obviously biased article, was in not being perfectly clear about what "hat" he was wearing when he initially asked "Who are you?". I'm still not sure if he intended the original request for verbal identification to be a formal request from a LEO, or a random question from a citizen which the requestee was free to decline to answer. The fact that he was lunching with a uniformed police officer, but was not in uniform himself, made his identity and role a bit unclear, and he was at fault for not making himself perfectly clear in that regard. The requestee couldn't really have known at the outset whether he was an off-duty or plain clothes LEO who had legal authority to demand identification, or a non-LEO friend of his LEO lunch companion who figured he could get away with making pushy demands like this because his friend is a LEO. This careless error on the part of the requesting LEO is what's likely to get the poor oppressed RKBA-exerciser a "not guilty" verdict when he gets his day in court.
That’s basically what I was thinking. The officer was remiss in not identifying himself as a LEO (and may also have shown questionable judgment on how do deal with legal open carriers). The other guy seemed to think that even if the other guy was a LEO, he needed RAS or PC to ask for ID, which I believe is not presently correct, plus he re-escalated the situation after the other guy was willing to let it go. Fault on both sides.
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