This is a reprint of an old article. The below line is my favorite.
I don’t know of any CCW carriers that carry a gun in the hood of their sweatshirt like felons are known to do.
Who says LTC holders can't be inventive?
![[wink]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/002.gif "Wink [wink]")
One big unanswered and oft-debated question. Lacking state or local law which mandates informling an officer that you are carrying, what do you do?
Some MA SP might start spouting off all sorts of "made-up laws", implying that CCW may not be legal or carrying wherever may not be legal (this was done to me many years ago), etc.
I recently posted about this in another thread. If you're dealing with the state police in MA, there is a law that requires you to surrender guns and ammo for inspection.
Failure to allow inspection of hunting equipment/ammo
MGL 131-88 says:
The penalty is found in
MGL 131-90, which says in part:
I checked, no other penalty is specified in MGL 131-90, hence this penalty. The 30 days in jail is petty, but still, a conviction for this will trigger the LTC lifetime DQ.
There's also a tidbit in here that would appear to apply to anyone whether or not they were hunting. Read this law carefully; if any state police in their jurisdiction reasonably believe that you're in possession of unlawful equipment or ammunition, they can demand to inspect it and arrest you if you refuse.
When most people hear "state police" they think of MSP Troopers, but
MGL Chapter 22C Section 50 to 68 includes special state police powers for hospitals, universities, colleges, railroad corporations, humane society/association members, Boston Port Authority, Mass Turnpike Authority, state lottery commission employees, and many others. Many of these groups have jurisdictions that aren't anywhere near hunting, fishing or trapping areas, but they still have this authority under the law.
Many gun owners know that the last paragraph of
MGL 140-129C requires an LTC or FID holder to display their license on demand to the police when they're not on private property. That law does not require that you turn over your guns and ammo for inspection, just the license, so many people may not be aware of this.
Like all of the rest, a conviction for a violation of this will result in losing your Mass. LTC for life, and no, I can't find a single piece of case law on it.
Notice the loooong list of "state police."
He did use the term "half cocked" in the article by the way.
"...crotch of their pants at knee height or wear their baseball hat cocked at a ridiculous angle."
Ha
t cocked = ha
lf cocked?
![[laugh]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/012.gif "Laugh [laugh]")
Why is it important to know who is in the subcategory of "good with guns" vs just "good"?
Keep in mind, this article was written with a specific audience in mind. If I'm posting on NES, I might use a term like "GI 1911," instead of spelling out "Colt M1911A1 pistol, chambered in .45 ACP, designed by John Moses Browning, single stack magazine and a 5 inch barrel." The author left out the specifics because the people he wrote it for know them already.
Cops need to pay attention to everyone who has guns, no matter why they have them. If you're carrying via LTC and you get suckerpunched your pistol might go sliding across the floor, or you might be angry enough to wave your gun in the face of your cheating wife caught kissing her boyfriend. Officer safety doesn't mean you ignore what's legal, it means that you pay attention to everything, because situations are 100% fluid.
People are getting confused because he blends "tips on noticing the good guys" with "tips on being safe." It's about perspective; most gun carrying folks only see one focus to the story, when in fact there are many more issues being addressed.
But what concerns me is that he also seems to say that a LEO should always be trying to locate who is lawfully carrying a firearm on them. Even while observing normal foot traffic they should always be attempting to ascertain who is carrying. I took it as that is why he provided such a long description of what they look like and how they act.
What I'm getting at is after reading the essay, I think that the author does in fact believe that those that carry are somewhat of a threat even though he starts out by saying the contrary.
Not that they are, but they can be. In the same way that someone carrying in Vermont without a permit doesn't make them a criminal, someone carrying with a permit in a state that requires an LTC doesn't make them a good guy. It also doesn't mean that they'll know what they're doing, that they won't lose their cool, that they won't break other laws, or they won't have their gun thrown in the mix when they get their arse handed to them in a violent encounter.
People stress on this forum all the time that a gun is a tool absent intent, right? Same logic applies here, but from a different angle. Recognize the tools even if they're not being used. In a 100% peaceful situation a lawfully carried gun doesn't mean anything. But situations can get out of control very fast, so recognizing the players will help make split second decisions, like what happened in the aftermath of the Trooper Mark Coates shooting, where an LTC holder with a drawn gun came to render aid and was crouched over the trooper's body when backup arrived. It's about the totality of the circumstances, what a reasonable person would believe, and sorting out the correct form of action faster than the bad guy's speeding bullet.
Noticing the little things matters.
I guess the thing that bothers me the most is that most cops (IME) know less about the world of guns, both in practical application and in theory (Law) than the average armed civilian. As a result, it irritates me to have any cop come off as if they have the moral or legal high ground in being armed, and that somehow I'm potentially any more dangerous to their safety than they are to mine.
I guess the base if my qualm is that it seems that many LEO's function under the impression that they are the only ones that really should have guns, and that somehow an armed civilian is a "second class" gun carrier, to be tolerated at best, harassed at worst.
ETA: Even the title of the article is part of what I'm getting at... "Dealing with..." As if we're a problem they have to cope with.
In most situations, they are dealing with a problem when a firearm is discovered. How often do people call 911 to report seeing a guy dressed like he's lawfully concealing a firearm?
He's pointing out that while the majority of guns that they'll come across are problem guns being used for something bad, there are good guys carrying out there. Some cops will get warped in a Pavlovian way...when every time you see a gun it's in the middle of a bad situation, your body will respond accordingly, and you may well freak out on someone doing nothing wrong when you see another gun. He's gently correcting and guiding people to remind them that 99% of what they see does not equal 99% of what the world is, while simultaneously encouraging them to stay safe and not disregard street survival skills.
My only two points of contention are that at one point he states that there are differing legal requirements for CCW's to announce such from place to place, and in the next paragraph he says that not declaring such is a mistake.
That's a preference thing most likely. Look at NES, some people will always notify, others never notify, some do it based on circumstances. He thinks you should always tell him...just his opinion.
And, the point where he says "when you've found one gun, don't stop looking". All fine and dandy, but I don't like the idea that cops feel they need to know whether I'm carrying or not, unless I've given them reason to need to know.
That's in reference to a felony, prone-'em-out-and-search-'em stop, more confusion due to his blend of "courtesy/safety" in the article. A couple years ago, a cop responded to a fully involved domestic, the male half was acting funny and had a big bulge in his pocket; the cop searched him (because of the DV arrest) and found massive bag of drugs and money in that pocket. He stopped the search, probably thinking "Shucks,
that's why he was so nervous," and later he noticed the guy squirming around in the back seat of the cruiser during transport. After booking him, he went back out to the cruiser and found the pocket pistol that he'd missed in the pat down. That same week, a cop in Texas was shot and killed by a handcuffed suspect in the back seat of his cruiser, with a pocket pistol that he missed in his search. It took a few hours to find his body, the cruiser off on the side of the road with the suspect and his pistol still locked in the backseat...it smacks of the fable of the scorpion and the frog, really.
Countless cops and corrections officers have been shot by guns they missed in the search. Yes, violent criminals carry BUG's too.
Check out the video found at this link where a large .45 was missed in several searches:
Warning, very graphic.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/gruesome/interrogate.asp
I'm going to apologize in advance for ruffling the feathers of some police officers here, but what makes your life more valuable than mine? You already have more personal protective equipment available (and sometimes mandated) to be worn while you are on duty than does anyone whom you encounter; you've got the advantage of "the law" giving plenty of weight to your shield; you've got the advantage (in this state) of being the only one around who has their firearm openly holstered (and thus, far more readily available than is mine); you've got brother officers only a radio call away; and yet you still insist on being so preemptive that accidents happen, with sometimes tragic results...
The bolded part isn't even slightly true. Ceres shootout? Kehoe brothers? North Hollywood? How about the ones that don't make the news that happen on a regular basis?
How about
Frank Denzinger? Did he encounter anyone better armed than himself on his shift?
That second picture of him and his daughter has stuck with me since I first heard of his death in 2007, when he was murdered by an angry teen with a perfectly legal Garand. Err, sorry...a 1900's era .30-06 military issue rifle.
In an encounter with a police officer, there shouldn't ever be a reason to disarm me unless I'm being arrested.
What about investigative detention? What if you're purple & screaming your wife, or talking in gibberish while drooling, or muttering "I can't go to jail" and freaking out in the driver's seat while scrambling around with your hands?
What situations have you encountered, or witnessed, that have helped you form this conclusion? I'm not trying to come at you too hard, just pointing out that different vantage points lead to different views.
We know that sometimes people drive while drunk. It happens far too frequently. But does anyone really think that adding another light bar to your cruiser will keep the drunk from hitting you? Oh, and let's brighten them up by another hundred lumens, too. What, sober drivers are complaining that the lights endanger them because they are blinded by the flashes? Yeah, but "I want to increase my odds of going home tonight."
More cops are killed and injured in the US by cars then are by guns. Maybe if the lights are really bright people will look away from the car rather than stragiht at it, to avoid that whole steering towards wherever your eyes are looking phenomenon.
OK, I chose a petty example there; I could have talked about the old lady tasered in bed, or the armed civilian killed recently in NV (I know, the case is still pending, and all of the facts aren't known yet), or of other cases where properly-armed citizens have been improperly disarmed.
Inerestingly the less petty examples are things you learned from incomplete news stories that only get a follow up article when it was something awful, but are allowed to fade out when it turns out everything was on the up and up. Why do we trust the media to report accurately on LE events, but we are shocked when a story involving a law abiding citizen with a gun makes mainstream news?
I just dislike the excesses in the name of "safely getting home."
So does everyone else.
I don't "teach" how to survive a gun fight, surviving means wheel chair and feeding tubes, I do my best to provide instruction so my officers will WIN a gun fight should they be so unlucky to end up in one.
+1
