Border Wars

[dross]

Here's to the internet and not being able to read tone. Before going further, did you mean to put that in purple for sarcasm?

No need for him to be sarcastic, unless you can point to any entity in history who has been more effectively dangerous to my rights than the government.

 

[level.eleven]

If he saw my firearm and asked for my permit, that's one thing. It's another to ask everyone you stop if they have any weapons, which is just a way to get around the freedom of not having to inform that some states have codified. Why not just advocate a "require to inform" provision and this argument becomes moot. What you're saying is that the freedom not to inform is only to be had at the discretion of each individual officer.

I was thinking this earlier. By making it policy, or even if its not, asking the question is a defacto inform law it appears.

 

[infidel]

Considering his posting history here I think he was dead serious.

I'll go so far as to echo the same sentiment in all seriousness: our own govermnment is a greater threat than illegals.

No, I had the right font color.

No need for him to be sarcastic, unless you can point to any entity in history who has been more effectively dangerous to my rights than the government.

Good, I was hoping you were serious, hornadylnl. I couldn't agree more. It is unfortunate that it is the case, but it is.

 

[hornadylnl]

Good, I was hoping you were serious, hornadylnl. I couldn't agree more. It is unfortunate that it is the case, but it is.

Thanks, I wasn't sure how to take your post. People on here like to think I'm a radical, whacko, nut job or whatever label they try to throw at those who believe in the principles that our founders created this country on.

 

[Bill of Rights]

This same advice could have been given to interracial couples forty years ago, or to black folks in the wrong part of town thirty years ago, or to Jews traveling in Alabama during the civil rights movement, or in any number of situations where an officer asks questions that are none of his business, or without sufficient reason to make them his business.

Personally, I find the "Where are you headed?" question incredibly intrusive.

As do I. If I don't feel like answering it, I'll simply say something like, "Oh, just out running some errands." Still a direct, truthful answer, just not specific. I think the point of it is probably to determine if you've got some kind of emergency that would necessitate speeding (in which case most cops I know would answer with, "C'mon. I'll get you there a little faster.") or are just carelessly or inattentively going too fast.

Bill, frankly, it's a terrible analogy because you see, I'm in charge of my kids. I'm their parent. The state is NOT my parent, and I despise it when the arm of the state specifically charged with interacting with me decides to act like my parent.

Enforce laws as written. Not figure out how to get around the intent or the spirit of laws as written because that spirit and intent make their job a little harder.

I knew that was going to be the argument when I wrote it. As a parent, you are responsible for ensuring that your children follow the rules that you (the "legislature" in your house) set. As parent, you are cop, legislature, and judge-All three branches of your household "government". As LEOs, they have been assigned the responsibility for enforcing society's rules that we call laws. We are not children, but to be a part of our society, we do have to agree to follow the laws or to work actively to change them. The simple fact that the fight to change certain laws is a near-insurmountable task is irrelevant. We change laws while living within them, not while breaking them.

Yes, well the courts have collectively proven to be the biggest enemy of our rights. I should be able to "conceal" any damned legal thing I possess, including some knowledge. This skims very, very close to the argument, "If you have nothing to hide..."

Agreed. So once the stop is complete, make a complaint. Make a stink in the newspaper (the "court of public opinion"). Try to get a law passed that says that if you show your LTCH, the officer may not remove your firearm from your car. (Good luck with that one, but it's a lawful counter to the problem you describe.)

Do you not see how this chain is an absolute circumvention of liberty? The officer steps a little over the line, right up to where the courts will support him, then if you assert your rights, he'll use the fact that you stepped right up to the line to press a little further, using what you did, combined with phrases he knows will play in court. This continues until there's a chain he can sell. And, as an officer of the state, HE knows the intricacies of the law better than you, in that he knows what will play and what won't, which leaves you not knowing what to do in any given situation. As a citizen, shouldn't there be a way to tell an officer, "You've gone too far, I'm not cooperating," then later have that held up?

Of course there should. That's why the public education in general and police education in specific about such things as the lawful carry of firearms (among others) It is often seen that LEOs either don't know or don't correctly quote those laws, and while not knowing them is slightly more forgivable (because there are so many laws and no one can know them all), education is the key. Kirk rather famously (or infamously) taught a cop in Broad Ripple about open carry, but he tried to do it that day and later succeeded after the encounter with the officer was long done. The court system, sadly, is pay-to-play, and THAT needs to change. We as citizens need some recourse.

So do I. Hence my anger.



I cry foul on this paragraph, and frankly I'm surprised to read it from you. I get to criticize because I'm a taxpayer and that guy works for us, albeit indirectly, and because cops stand in a very long line to get that job. You have to really want it. I respect that, but it does not make them immune to criticism, in fact, because of the huge amount of authority, discretion, and benefit of the doubt we must give them, as well as the large amount of prestige we bestow on them, they should be prepared to gracefully accept much more criticism than any other job but politician.

Maybe there are better phrases I could use than "criticize". I couldn't think of one, but maybe there are. The point I'm making, and it's one that was made to me by a coworker who is also a reserve LEO, is that standing by the side of that road is an awfully lonely place.

We talk often on here of protecting ourselves and our families. Ask yourself and answer yourself honestly, to what length would you go to protect your own safety if you were the one standing there?

And THAT is one of the main reasons I want our INGO LEOs to stick around as a group... which does not at all address the fact that I think most of 'em are pretty good guys individually, too.

Fair enough. But let's still call it what it is: WRONG.

What exactly are you calling wrong? What that officer wrote to me, that the bad advice of others on here frightens him, or that the end result of not just answering the question might be more violent than any of us want to be on the receiving end of?

If he saw my firearm and asked for my permit, that's one thing. It's another to ask everyone you stop if they have any weapons, which is just a way to get around the freedom of not having to inform that some states have codified. Why not just advocate a "require to inform" provision and this argument becomes moot. What you're saying is that the freedom not to inform is only to be had at the discretion of each individual officer.



Agreed. And yet this is WRONG.

Yep. So you have two choices: Live with it (which includes just pointlessly b****ing about it), or work to change it. Right now, they have that power. Maybe the answer to "have any weapons in there?" is "None that are a threat to either of us where they are." Maybe the answer is to, when asked that, hand over your LTCH. The answer is not to refuse to follow the officer's lawful orders, so maybe the correct angle is to change what orders he can give that fit that definition.

Yes, the state uses this power quite often - the power to ruin you financially if you stand up for your rights.

And the courts are supposed to be our recourse to that.

I don't have the answer. I just know that being evasive to the guy who enforces the law because you're ticked off at the guy in the legislature or the guy in the long black robe is counterproductive for everyone involved.



Blessings,
Bill

 

[dross]

I don't have the answer. I just know that being evasive to the guy who enforces the law because you're ticked off at the guy in the legislature or the guy in the long black robe is counterproductive for everyone involved.

Like many issues, this one gets all mixed up between ideology and pragmatism.

Yes, it's very practical to become submissive and conciliatory, no matter how the officer chooses to interact with you. Conceded.

Now, it's also a sad state of affairs that I must become submissive in the face of the officer, sworn to uphold the law, violating at least the spirit of the law because I choose to exercise my rights under the law, or further, my natural rights that are denied by the law. I can't blame the officer for the second, but I can damn sure call him out on the first.

What can I do about it? There are different stages of life, and different skill sets. Some people (like a man in a Tennessee park) can challenge the system and make the papers and spend some money in court. Others can donate to the campaigns of politicians who support their viewpoints.

Others, who have some skill with writing and persuasion can go grab a soapbox, carry it to the town square, stand on it and speak passioniately. Or, they can do it on the modern equivalent of the town square - the internet.

What will I do when confronted by a rude officer? I won't likely be. Officers tend to be very polite on the very, very rare occasions I'm stopped. I live in a relatively upscale area, drive a relatively late model vehicle, wear short hair, and I'm in my late forties. I smile and say sir (the same formality I extend to all strangers) and fit the profile not of someone they are likely to bust, more of the profile of someone who probably plays tennis with their boss and the District Attorney (true). I'm not likely to have my rights violated.

But the young guy I work with, a graphic artist in his twenties, lots of tatoos, and a helluva a lot more whitebread, responsible, and way less dangerous than I was in my twenties (82nd ABN, hooaa) may have a very different encounter with the police. Yet he is a citizen as well.

I have some friends who live in a high crime area in the Denver area. Mostly black, the guy (white) has lived in that area for more than twenty years. Owns a landscaping business. His wife is black, they met in college. He's a former Army officer, she's an engineer by training. They too, play tennis with some of the prominent folks in town, though you wouldn't know it by WHERE they live, you'd have to know them as individuals. Unfortunately, one night, my friend (plagued by periodic depression over the years) disappeared after writing a suicide note. We looked for him all night. Found him the next day near the house, near death from an overdose of aspirin, of all things. The ambulance showed up, and with them the police. His wife was understandably hysterical. I was shocked, and for the first time believed and understood that policing differs depending on the area. His wife approached the cops crying and asking them questions. Not angry, not threatening, just understandably very upset. She was rudely threatened with arrest if she didn't get the f**k away from them. I saw this with my own eyes. Unthinkable in my neighborhood.

I wasn't allowed to get close enough to them to get a badge number.

Now, does that make me think all LEOs are bad? No. Just makes me incredibly angry when the people who enforce the law aren't held to its highest standards.