Unreal. This country needs a whole new facelift.
Best part of this story is that no laws were broken and yet the police still have the nerve to put their foot down and tell him he can no longer carry at work.... excuse me?! He's not their slave and never will be so long as he keeps his guns and practices his 2nd amendment rights. F***ERS.!
Think about it...the police are his employer. They should, like any other employer, have the right to decide what policies pertain as to who should carry firearms. I am in exactly the same situation, and I work under a contract that says that I cannot carry firearms at work unless it is part of my job description.
Now before everybody who in their blind fury that hates cops and authority and all of that gets their panties in a snit, let's look at the facts:
FACT 1: He was not fired, or reprimanded. He was not violating a law. Until someone complained, the police took no action. They implemented a policy.
FACT 2: As an employee of the police department, he was in effect acting as an agent of said agency. If he were to use his gun while employed, then both the police department and the city are liable. He has not been trained by the police, it is unknown if he is using the same type of firearm as the police, it is unknown if he is using the same type of ammunition as the police. Now we can argue how well the police are really trained until the cows come home, and you can get all upset and quote the Old Dead White Guys again, but the reality is the legal system that you and I live in. The police do meet a legal standard for training of a firearm. What if he whacks some bad guy and then the bullet hits old Aunt Marie across the street and her dog? We don't know what the standard of marksmanship this guy is up to. He could be a Barney Fife or at the level of the President's 100.
FACT 3. His obligation to use a firearm to protect, is for himself. I don't know where some of you get off with the idea that you are carrying to protect society, because you are not. You are carrying, even in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to protect yourself as an individual. This really is because the police have no obligation to protect you as an individual but society as a whole. Think not, refer to Warren vs District of Columbia, et al. He was empowered to protect students from vehicular traffic and to stop vehicles at designated crosswalks. His position within the police department is analogous to that of an unarmed security guard. Unarmed security guards frequently perform traffic and pedestrian control duties on private and sometimes even public property.
OPINION 1: Is arming a school crossing guard a bad idea? I don't think so. I think the idea has merit, and it is something that the police should consider especially since the concept of an armed responder in and around schools is an idea being kicked around these days.
OPINION 2: This is one of the strongest cases for why concealed means concealed. The guy could have carried for years and nobody would have known the difference. Open carry these days, and people are going to freak. In the real world, the world that I live in and not the world I would like to live in where everything should be the right way, people are afraid of guns. Even in gun culture states like PA. The reality of the situation upsets you but I honestly hope that you can see that it's not going to change. PA is a shall issue state, it is easy to get a CCW license there, took me all of about 40 minutes, so it's not like Mass.
OPINION 3: The guy didn't look professional enough. When I was a kid, crossing guards wore police-style uniforms. Npw we can debate uniforms until the cows come home, but I'm willing to bet that if he had been wearing a police-style uniform instead of civvies, it wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.
OPINION 4: Did the guy even bother to discuss this with anyone like his supervisors? Oh, I know he shouldn't have to, but don't you think if you showed up open-carrying at the job site even in states where open carry is permitted, then this decision might be questioned? The police department would have probably said No, but we don't know that, do we? Or they might have said, okay let's make sure you know how to use your gun, or they could have said just don't let us see it, wink, nod but then we are back to that concealed means concealed argument again, aren't we?
So some of you will no doubt bash me, and call me a police apologist, but again I live in the real world, work in the real legal and CJ System, and understand liability and all of that sort of thing, It may be totally screwed up and the Old Dead White Guys might be right, but once again, common sense was lacking on the part of this guy, he should have been smart enough to figure out that he was going to be the center of a you-know-whatstorm. A little common sense, and a good pocket holster could have avoided this whole thing IMO. Yes he was exercising his right but was on his employer's dime and in the end the employer has the right to call the shots in this case, whether it is the police or a private entity.