Open carry incident ...

... this time in Upland, CA, and comes to us courtesy of Carlos Miller at PiNaC:



There's a part 2, about 11 min long, and be sure to read the comments. It's obvious that many there are not at the level of civil rights advocacy as firearms owners are, because many of the commenters thought that 'Black Shirt' was a bit overboard. I'm not sure how overboard one can be when you've just been the equivalent of felony-stopped on the sidewalk. He was a bit ... shrill ...but I don't think any of his questions were out of line, just his delivery.

Let's just say that I'm on the side of the open carriers. I think the situation could have been handled quite a bit better, even thought there had (allegedly) been a robbery at that very store recently. It's my laymans' opinion that the officers involved unnecessarily detained these gentlemen, and most likely violated their rights in the process.

I had a chat with a law enforcement buddy of mine about this. I was trying to get an idea of how 'bad' this stop was; as usual, my buddy (who is one of the most level-headed guys I know - certainly not an Only One) gave me some things to think about.

His over-riding comment was that the current situation was going to determine quite a bit about how he would approach it. Daylight vs darkness; good vs bad part of town, disheveled hobo vs well-dressed man were all parameters he said he would have to consider. And this got me thinking.

Why doesn't the firearms community start working with law enforcement to try to work out some of these differences, and then publish guidelines on how to act during an encounter, and what behavior to expect from law enforcement. I'm not immune to the concerns of law enforcement, but I do value my civil rights above their safety - I realize that law enforcement disagrees.

Let's say that the police received a call about a man with a gun. I understand that 'man with a gun' means different things to different people, so the 911 dispatcher really needs to get as much information (for officer safety, ya know). Questions need to be asked. What is the man doing? Walking? Running? Are there any calls right now of armed robberies? Where is the handgun ... in the man's hand? In his pocket? In his sock? Properly holstered?

Because working the police into a frothy lather worked well for Erik Scott.

And you know what organization is perfectly placed to handle this? The NRA. But they won't want to do it because they'd have to favor one constituency over another ... we can't have that.

It's clear that something needs to be done, and things will work out much better if we're proactive than if we wait for law enforcement to unilaterally decide for us what's in our best interests. Because it looks to me like all we want is to be able to go about our day in safety.

pm