Posted on 06/13/2012 6:32:29 PM PDT by marktwain
BIRMINGHAM, MICH. -- "Open Carry" advocates took to Monday's Birmingham City Council meeting with their guns displayed to support a high school student who was arrested for exercising his Second Amendment right.
According to The Detroit News, 18-year-old Sean Combs was arrested in April for walking downtown with an M-1 rifle strapped to his back. Combs was charged with brandishing a weapon, resisting and obstructing police and disturbing the peace.
Combs' supporters say the arrest was illegal because it violated his civil rights and the charges need to be dropped.
"I'm in support of anyone who gets into trouble for doing something legal," open carry advocate Dan Edinger told Birmingham Patch, with a pistol at his hip and an AR 15 rile over his shoulder. "I want to bring attention to the fact that open carry – whether rifle or pistol – is legal in Michigan."
Birmingham Police Chief Don Studt defended the arrest, saying "this guy was creating a disturbance and he wouldn't cooperate."
Do you think the charges should be dropped? Should a high school student be carrying a rifle on his back in public? Leave your comment below.
“Should a high school student be carrying a rifle on his back in public?”
Who cares if he’s in high school? He was 18 and therefore an adult, he was openly carrying a firearm in a state that allows open carry, so why the arrest? Keep in mind that most states don’t allow concealed carry until age 21.
Comments encouraged.
Fire the officer, "pour encourager les autres..."
How can you brandish a weapon if it’s strapped to your back? You’d have to have it in your hands pointing it around at people to be brandishing it. Then too, how can you be charged with disturbing the peace if it’s not in your hand? Heck, I could have a T-shirt on that offends someone and be charged with disturbing the peace.
If I lived up there so close to Motown, I would be carrying as well. Where I live in SW Virginia it is no big deal to see someone shouldering a rifle or for that fact firearms in a gunrack in the back of a pickup.
When I was 13 I could regularly be found walking along the roads near my house carrying a .22 and looking for squirrels.
Well, you see here's the problem: you're thinking these sorts of things should deal with facts and what the law actually says.
This is simply not true; a 'law' is all about what feels right to the enforcer.
We can see this in the fact that there are many 'laws' (called statutes) which are contrary to the respective Constitutions; this allows one to point to the Constitution for a "feel good"/"I approve" activity, but the statutes can be enforced if the activity makes them "feel bad" or is unapproved.
Taken in this light it is no wonder that this kid was arrested: someone thinking themselves equal to the class of people that determine the laws, the only people for whom it is safe to arm, will obviously make them "feel bad." These uppity folks who think that they have a right to keep and bear arms are obviously only able to cause bad feelings, therefore they must be stopped.
(The above should have been read in a sarcastic tone.)
Cops tend to interpret the law as they see fit. Then it winds up costing the taxpayers when the county or city is sued.
Indeed; sometimes I wish I could do the legal equivalent of breaking their faces.
But then as I've learned, the government makes it extraordinarily hard to bring up where it is in error; you are pretty-much forbidden from doing so in the legal arena (using the judiciary) without becoming a "violator" of that particular law.
In short, the deck is stacked; and the government is the house.
I forget what state it was, Illinois I think, where the cop said “I interpret the Constitution” .... jerk.
When I was an elementary school kid, my brother who was middle shcool carried his Remington rifle to school on the school bus, carrying a 50 count box of shells for rifle team practice after school. ... Wish I had that old single shot, peepsight Remington bolt rifle. It left the family when my brother died ... his wife from Idaho gave it away without even mentioning it to us two brothers! Sadly, a nice 7mm and a flintlock, along with a few other weapons went the same way. I still think it was out of spite.
Thanks ... too funnie!
When I was 15, a bunch of us had shotguns, mostly the nasty Pump Action types, both with and without cases, over the handle bars of our bicycles, as we pedaled our way down a major arterial street in the second largest city in the state. No one said a thing. I used to carry my BB gun in the business district of our formerly separate town. (formerly meaning just before my father was born. :) )
Did get questioned by a cop, on foot patrol, once. He asked were I was going, (to my great Uncles farm just outside of town) After I told him he said "be careful" and "have a good time".
When I was 12 I bought a Remington Model 510 22 rifle with paper route profits. I rode my bike all over this county with that rifle with no problems, it wasn’t seen as unusual or of concern to anyone.
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