No, You Can't Slap Cuffs on Peaceful Gun Owners

[mr1337]

Sorry, as much as I'm a proponent of gun rights, I think the notion of "I'm going to strap on a mean looking weapon, get my 7 months pregnant wife to follow me recording, and walk down a busy road trolling to get stopped" is not the height of good sound judgement.

So you're a proponent of gun rights, but not a proponent of exercising them in a reasonable manner? I don't mean it as an attack, I'm asking you to distinguish.
This wasn't a guy who was carrying an AR-15 and a concealed side arm, not that such should make a difference legally speaking.
He was OC'ing a handgun in a state that had passed OC... I don't exactly understand how that's behaving unreasonably.

If you're a proponent of gun rights, but don't think that we should have the right to openly carry a firearm in a public place contingent upon how busy that place is... well, I think that's what you're saying.... I don't think the views are *necessarily* incompatible... Just asking for clarification.


I have a video camera in my car. That doesn't mean I'm trolling for an accident of bad police behavior. It simply means that experience has taught me that recording incidents might be in my best interest in the future.

I think we're getting our beams crossed due to the video that I posted above of someone being heavily detained for lawfully carrying an AR15.

[ScooterSissy]

Sorry, as much as I'm a proponent of gun rights, I think the notion of "I'm going to strap on a mean looking weapon, get my 7 months pregnant wife to follow me recording, and walk down a busy road trolling to get stopped" is not the height of good sound judgement.

So you're a proponent of gun rights, but not a proponent of exercising them in a reasonable manner? I don't mean it as an attack, I'm asking you to distinguish.
This wasn't a guy who was carrying an AR-15 and a concealed side arm, not that such should make a difference legally speaking.
He was OC'ing a handgun in a state that had passed OC... I don't exactly understand how that's behaving unreasonably.

I have a video camera in my car. That doesn't mean I'm trolling for an accident of bad police behavior. It simply means that experience has taught me that recording incidents might be in my best interest in the future.

I don't think this guy was doing it in a "reasonable manner".

Did you watch this whole video? Are you advocating that the couple didn't do this fully anticipating a confrontation from the police? This guy wasn't carrying the weapon to move it from one place to another, nor was he carrying for self-defense, I pretty strongly suspect he wasn't even carrying it to simply exercise his rights - he was carrying it to initiate a confrontation with the police, and he got it. Pretty strong evidence of this is the constant narrative (exaggerated) of what the police were doing (at one point she said her husband was being cuffed, but that never even happened).

That might not even be a bad tactic to bring attention to what you perceive as a wrong, if you're willing to pay the price of what happens; but to make your seven month pregnant wife a part of it is the height of stupidity.

[ScooterSissy]

Pretty mad after watching this video [abbreviated profanity deleted] a guy in Oregon legally open carrying a rifle

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He was ultimately released and the weapon was returned to him, but I'm sure it was a very stressful situation to be drawn down on by multiple officers while they detain and disarm you.

Sorry, as much as I'm a proponent of gun rights, I think the notion of "I'm going to strap on a mean looking weapon, get my 7 months pregnant wife to follow me recording, and walk down a busy road trolling to get stopped" is not the height of good sound judgement.

What, pray tell, makes a weapon "mean looking"?

It was a deliberately snarky comment, but with a grain of truth. We all know that AR 15's are commonly called assault rifles, and mistaken for machine guns. They're not, just just "scary looking". I have little doubt in my mind that this guy picked that weapon because of its visual effect.

[mr1337]

No matter your view on openly carrying a rifle in public, no person should be detained or searched for exercising a lawful activity. Such is the subject of this thread.

It might not be reasonable to some people, but it's legal. The fault in the video lies with the officers who used excessive force, detaining, searching, and seizing property of someone who had broken zero laws. Detaining and pointing guns at people just because they seem "unreasonable" is dangerous policy. If no crime is being committed, the police have no authority to detain, search, or seize property.

In fact, at one point in the video, the man asks if his wife is being detained, to which the officer says that she is also being detained. It doesn't seem like she was carrying as well, so I'm not sure the reason why they were detaining the wife as well.

[The Annoyed Man]

Pretty mad after watching this video [abbreviated profanity deleted] a guy in Oregon legally open carrying a rifle

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He was ultimately released and the weapon was returned to him, but I'm sure it was a very stressful situation to be drawn down on by multiple officers while they detain and disarm you.

His hair might of caused him to look like he was up to no good. He might of been profiled.

That guy was absolutely trolling for cops to rouste him. He was not "just minding his own business"; his business on that day was luring cops into a confrontation. Why else have his barely articulate girlfriend recording his walk like that? Normal people don't run a videolog of their walk down the street - unless they are doing something highly unusual and entertaining, or, unless they expect to have to record a police encounter.

Now, that is a separate issue from whether or not the cops behaved correctly, but he was looking for trouble, and the cops gave it to him.

No sympathy from me. I don't care about open carry, but I do care about deliberately trying to draw police out as if LEOs are our enemies.

[rotor]

No matter your view on openly carrying a rifle in public, no person should be detained or searched for exercising a lawful activity. Such is the subject of this thread.

It might not be reasonable to some people, but it's legal. The fault in the video lies with the officers who used excessive force, detaining, searching, and seizing property of someone who had broken zero laws. Detaining and pointing guns at people just because they seem "unreasonable" is dangerous policy. If no crime is being committed, the police have no authority to detain, search, or seize property.

In fact, at one point in the video, the man asks if his wife is being detained, to which the officer says that she is also being detained. It doesn't seem like she was carrying as well, so I'm not sure the reason why they were detaining the wife as well.

I agree.
It's not like he is trying to smuggle his pet dogs into Australia or something really bad. Did they hold Johnny Depp at gunpoint like that?

[The Annoyed Man]

The flip side of that is what kind of man exactly drags his 7 months pregnant wife along on a fishing expedition for a confrontation with law enforcement? No kind of man, that's what kind.

To me, it is not about the legalities of open carry. I'm in favor of OC. It is about acting like a complete tool by spoiling for a confrontation, and dragging your pregnant wife and unborn child into a potentially dangerous situation. That's just plain stupid.

[ScooterSissy]

The flip side of that is what kind of man exactly drags his 7 months pregnant wife along on a fishing expedition for a confrontation with law enforcement? No kind of man, that's what kind.

To me, it is not about the legalities of open carry. I'm in favor of OC. It is about acting like a complete tool by spoiling for a confrontation, and dragging your pregnant wife and unborn child into a potentially dangerous situation. That's just plain stupid.

This. Exactly.

[cb1000rider]

To me, it is not about the legalities of open carry. I'm in favor of OC. It is about acting like a complete tool by spoiling for a confrontation, and dragging your pregnant wife and unborn child into a potentially dangerous situation. That's just plain stupid.

What I can't get my head around is how this spoiling for confrontation in an OC state. Obviously if he's bringing a camera, he knows that there might be an issue. But why the heck is this an issue? Why expect trouble here? That makes zero sense to me.

The guys that really got played here were the LEOs that took the bait and went too far. I want officers that are smarter than that.

You run into this a lot on this forum - there's a smart way to OC and an un-smart way. The unsmart way is any condition that might get the attention of law enforcement. The un-smart way involves a camera. If we don't want to allow un-smart behavior, it shouldn't be legal. To me, it's black and white - either I can carry a gun openly or I can't. If I can, you don't get to stop, detain, search me, deprive me of property based on a call that merely observed what *even dispatch* said was perfectly legal behavior. This was LEO enforcement of behavior that they didn't like.

I wonder what the legal expenses were?

No matter your view on openly carrying a rifle in public, no person should be detained or searched for exercising a lawful activity. Such is the subject of this thread.

Exactly. If this isn't acceptable behavior, then it shouldn't be legal..

[ScooterSissy]

To me, it is not about the legalities of open carry. I'm in favor of OC. It is about acting like a complete tool by spoiling for a confrontation, and dragging your pregnant wife and unborn child into a potentially dangerous situation. That's just plain stupid.

What I can't get my head around is how this spoiling for confrontation in an OC state. Obviously if he's bringing a camera, he knows that there might be an issue. But why the heck is this an issue? Why expect trouble here? That makes zero sense to me.

The guys that really got played here were the LEOs that took the bait and went too far. I want officers that are smarter than that.

You run into this a lot on this forum - there's a smart way to OC and an un-smart way. The unsmart way is any condition that might get the attention of law enforcement. The un-smart way involves a camera. If we don't want to allow un-smart behavior, it shouldn't be legal. To me, it's black and white - either I can carry a gun openly or I can't. If I can, you don't get to stop, detain, search me, deprive me of property based on a call that merely observed what *even dispatch* said was perfectly legal behavior. This was LEO enforcement of behavior that they didn't like.

I wonder what the legal expenses were?

I wish I could find the video again, but I once saw a video of a guy taken out of his car with three policemen around him. He had both hands barely in his pockets. Suddenly, he whipped out a pistol, shot the officer standing next to him the chest (he survived because of his vest), and a second officer who fell after stumbling backwards (he died). The third offier pursued him shooting as the did so. None of the shots hit. They eventually caught him.

It happened in a split second, and two officers were shot and one lost his life.

The guy in the video had the gun slung in very nearly a ready position. It would probably take less than a second to bring it up firing. A police officer coming up to him doesn't know what his plans are. I can understand the cop drawing on him. At the same time, I feel the guy probably should have been let go a lot sooner.

The couple were deliberately provoking the police. They should be happy, they got exactly what they wanted.

I've been stopped three times by police since I got my CHL. In all three situations, they policemen asked me to keep my hands away from my weapon. Wait a minute now... isn't it my "right" to do what I want to with my hands? What illegal act would I be committing if I disobeyed.

My CHL instructor made it clear that when we are stopped, we should turn on our interior light put our hands on the steering wheel where they are easily visible. Why? Why should have to got through any type of rigamarole? Because it's the smart thing to do with armed people who have to live with the fact that they can be a target at any time.

If this guy wanted to make a point about open carry, there were other ways he could have done it that would have been far less likely to initiate a confrontation. He chose to be confronted. He was.

These are the kind of stunts that will turn the public against gun carriers.

[The Annoyed Man]

To me, it is not about the legalities of open carry. I'm in favor of OC. It is about acting like a complete tool by spoiling for a confrontation, and dragging your pregnant wife and unborn child into a potentially dangerous situation. That's just plain stupid.

What I can't get my head around is how this spoiling for confrontation in an OC state. Obviously if he's bringing a camera, he knows that there might be an issue. But why the heck is this an issue? Why expect trouble here? That makes zero sense to me.

The guys that really got played here were the LEOs that took the bait and went too far. I want officers that are smarter than that.

You run into this a lot on this forum - there's a smart way to OC and an un-smart way. The unsmart way is any condition that might get the attention of law enforcement. The un-smart way involves a camera. If we don't want to allow un-smart behavior, it shouldn't be legal. To me, it's black and white - either I can carry a gun openly or I can't. If I can, you don't get to stop, detain, search me, deprive me of property based on a call that merely observed what *even dispatch* said was perfectly legal behavior. This was LEO enforcement of behavior that they didn't like.

I wonder what the legal expenses were?

No matter your view on openly carrying a rifle in public, no person should be detained or searched for exercising a lawful activity. Such is the subject of this thread.

Exactly. If this isn't acceptable behavior, then it shouldn't be legal..

CB, I'm not disagreeing with your point about police behavior. In an open carry state like Ohio, obviously, they should have known better. On the other side of that, which we never find out from the video, is what the transcript of the MWAG call said. The caller may have exaggerated and said that he was threatening passing traffic with it; or maybe they said he was arguing with his pregnant wife while rapidly walking with his back to her while carrying a "assault" rifle. I don't know, you don't know, we don't know. But either scenario is fairly easy for me to believe: either that the cop behaved inappropriately on insufficient information, or he behaved appropriately on incorrect information. So I look for some balance here in critiquing the situation.

Even so, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind, and the video pretty much confirms this, that the dude was looking for a confrontation with police. What if the dude merely patted his rifle while making a statement to the officer before he got proned out, and that first officer on scene panicked and opened fire with one of his rounds striking the wife in the abdomen, killing her AND the baby? What if? Yes, the officer would have been wrong, but the woman and child are still dead. It is easy to say that it would be the officer's fault, but that's not following the data stream all the way back to its source. The source of that data stream is a guy carrying an AR15 down the street, looking for a cop to stop him so that he can have his day of YouTube fame.

[Jago668]

GRR..
" Bright then appealed to the Sixth Circuit, asserting qualified immunity from suit."

In other words, I'm not liable because it's reasonable for me not to actually know the law...
I find this whole qualified immunity bit ridiculous. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, unless you're a LEO, and then it gets you off the hook.

Really, I don't see how this incident is much different than what happened Grisham up in Temple, which had an entirely different judicial outcome.. (I do acknowledge that with a recording device, Grisham was probably expecting trouble).


Great test case for Ohio. The outcome in Texas, to date, has been very different.

Exactly because remember that South Carolina case. The SCOTUS ruled that officers that do illegal things because they don't know the law aren't liable.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/15/supre ... s6lvl:I9iw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[BobCat]

RoyGBiv, thanks for the link about Evan Bernick; ".. educate the public and persuade judges about the need to enforce all of the Constitution’s limits on government in every case." I should have looked more carefully and found that myself.

I did not see the column as anti-LEO, only as pro- due process.

As far as the video of the guy with the AR-15 - I didn't watch it but can guess, from the posts here, that he was trying to provoke a response from the police that would paint them in a "bad" light.

Maybe unwise - certainly not something I'd do - but maybe not much different from having a cartoon contest; legal but disruptive.

In the case of the guy open carrying a pistol in Ohio, which the column and court ruling were about, it does not immediately seem like he was being provocative - but one would need to know more about what constitutes "normal" behavior in that locale.

Maybe nobody open carries there, even though it is legal, unless they are trying to provoke citizens (that some folks deride as "sheeple" because they are afraid of guns) into calling the police - to "make a point". I don't know, I wasn't there and don't know the norms in that place.

I just thought the court ruling was good, and was surprised that h-p had the column on their website.

[mr1337]

Pretty mad after watching this video [abbreviated profanity deleted] a guy in Oregon legally open carrying a rifle

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He was ultimately released and the weapon was returned to him, but I'm sure it was a very stressful situation to be drawn down on by multiple officers while they detain and disarm you.

His hair might of caused him to look like he was up to no good. He might of been profiled.

That guy was absolutely trolling for cops to rouste him. He was not "just minding his own business"; his business on that day was luring cops into a confrontation. Why else have his barely articulate girlfriend recording his walk like that? Normal people don't run a videolog of their walk down the street - unless they are doing something highly unusual and entertaining, or, unless they expect to have to record a police encounter.

Now, that is a separate issue from whether or not the cops behaved correctly, but he was looking for trouble, and the cops gave it to him.

No sympathy from me. I don't care about open carry, but I do care about deliberately trying to draw police out as if LEOs are our enemies.

His wife started recording when he saw the cop car coming towards him. Actually pretty smart because then the police know that they have to tread carefully.

Not everyone open carrying is trolling. Some people want to engage in conversations with people. Some people do it because it's their right to do it. I find it appalling that you're defending the officers for detaining someone who has not committed a crime. This is a 4th Amendment violation. Without reasonable suspicion that a crime is in progress or about to be committed, a police officer has no authority to detain someone or seize their property. It doesn't matter if the guy was expecting police to show up. Police can absolutely engage in a consensual conversation with the man, but by no means should be detaining him without reasonable suspicion. I know it's National Police Week, but this is just ridiculous. You're blaming the open carrier for the way the encounter went instead of the police who were actually in the wrong by detaining someone who had not committed a crime.

Again, it's not about your views on openly carrying a rifle. Remember Black v. US. A firearm, where legally carried, does not create reasonable suspicion. Unless the officers had knowledge that this guy was a felon, they had no reasonable suspicion to detain him. Personally, I hope this guy sues the department for civil rights violations and unlawful detainment.

[jimlongley]

Pretty mad after watching this video [abbreviated profanity deleted] a guy in Oregon legally open carrying a rifle

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He was ultimately released and the weapon was returned to him, but I'm sure it was a very stressful situation to be drawn down on by multiple officers while they detain and disarm you.

Sorry, as much as I'm a proponent of gun rights, I think the notion of "I'm going to strap on a mean looking weapon, get my 7 months pregnant wife to follow me recording, and walk down a busy road trolling to get stopped" is not the height of good sound judgement.

What, pray tell, makes a weapon "mean looking"?

It was a deliberately snarky comment, but with a grain of truth. We all know that AR 15's are commonly called assault rifles, and mistaken for machine guns. They're not, just just "scary looking". I have little doubt in my mind that this guy picked that weapon because of its visual effect.

But in this case he was wearing a holstered handgun.

Quite frankly, and possibly because I know a little about guns, I consider someone carrying an '03 Springfield to be carrying a much "meaner looking" weapon than an AK or AR. You won't see a gang banger in Ferguson carrying one, but you might see a SWAT sniper carrying something that resembles it, and therein lies the rub. In my eyes, the meanness of the weapon is a function of its effectiveness, a function of its true firepower. If that gangbanger stands at the end of the block and sprays a whole magazine up and down with no effect, and that SWAT guy takes him out with one well placed shot, which one had the more effective weapon?

But in any case, I guess I just don't get this societal thing of reacting to some imagined meanness, particularly when it is just that, imagined.