Lots of good laughs, especially from BoRs and that last one by Printcraft had me rolling! 
Maybe now he realizes WHY we OC and maybe he won't be so hard on the next guy that he sees with a pistol on his hip. One can dream, right? 
CC is also illegal
The one thing I never like about these threads is how fast people start saying his rights were violated. I KNOW several of the members on here know better, yet many of them still make the comment. He never made an indication that he wanted his encounter to end. He never made an effort to impose his rights. When it comes right down to it, he was okay with the encounter. Yes, the officers may not have been the most professional about it (tapping the gun with the light, calling his date "hun") and the removal/disarm of the firearm is probably SOP. I dont agree with it, but that is just how it is. If he had said "Get your hands off of my property, I do not consent to any search or seizure of my property. Am I free to go?" then we could all cry foul. On the other side of the fence, he would have probably gotten written up and had a very poor experience. That is the very reason I always try to comply with an officers request, even if I am not legally required to. Personal preference.
Say it ain't so! 
) As such, he's had more formal legal training than I have, and I respect the fact that he's pursuing his goal.Why is it so unacceptable to check to see if the LTCH has been revoked or suspended? There have been many people who are out driving on suspended driver's licenses, with no insurance, no money, etc., yet their license has yet to be taken by a police officer. Should cops just automatically assume someone who has a driver's license is legit? Would you feel different if you had a female relative with a crazy ex boyfriend or husband who committed domestic battery against the relative, had his license suspended, but didn't turn it in? Say that person was on their way to visit the female relative, gun in possession, to do who knows what, wouldn't you be relieved an officer who stopped him was able to secure the pistol after finding out the license had been revoked or suspended?
LEOs can always do the minimum, and if we want that, great, less work for the cops. However, there is no doubt in my mind that if we steer our cops towards doing the minimum, and taking everything a person says, and every document they give, as 100% legit, we will see more suspended driver's being sent on their way, more criminals with suspended/revoked LTCHs being sent on their way, etc.. If this has any bearing on future vehicle crashes or violent crimes committed with a handgun is all speculation. All I know is that I know of a case where a guy had a firearm, was under a restraining order for battery against his girlfriend, ended up beating another girlfriend, and had caused all sorts of damage going nuts outside one of the homes of a girlfriend....yet some folks want him to be able to produce his revoked LTCH and the cops just take that as "He is good to go!"
Fact is, you can't please everyone. I had a crash where both driver's produced driver's licenses. I did the exact same things folks here have desired: Don't run the info, take the license as legit since it is physically there. Come to find out, one person was suspended and didn't have insurance. You can guess what came next, I got a complaint for not checking the driver's license since the person also didn't have insurance. LEOs: Dammed if they do, dammed if they don't.
When someone's female relative is killed by an ex-lover, and relatives come to find out the ex was stopped by police, showed his revoked license, yet the cops didn't run him to find the protection order which prevented him from having guns, nor did they run the LTCH to see if it is still valid, you can bet the family will be up in arms "WHY DIDN'T THE COPS RUN THIS INFORMATION...THEY WOULD HAVE TAKEN HIS GUN HAD THEY KNOWN THIS!" Everyone seems to want cops to behave a certain way, until that behavior they so champion ends up negatively affecting them or a friend or family member. The checking info usually will take less than five minutes, at the most ten. I don't want these people being able to produce pieces of paper from five years ago and cops just have to take that information for granted. While there are many cops who do just that, there are some situations where maybe the ability to run the information through a computer system is warranted, and will help get a gun out of the hands of a person on his/her way to do harm or keep an unlicensed driver from driving a car.
A LTCH is easy enough to forge, it is nothing but black ink on pink paper. Maybe if we make it so cops can't check the status of LTCHs, we could just set-up a printing shop at the Indy 1500 and sell our own LTCHs? People could buy ours for $50.00 each, and just show them to cops when they are stopped.
They put the LTCH database on-line a few years back. If you have the right system, you can run the license. IMPD/IPD even had it set-up where they could run the info on their in-car computers, but after the switch to the new system, I guess that function no longer works.
Actually, everything after confirming the LTCH is 100% legal if it is voluntary. Courts rule on this sort of stuff. Cops will usually argue the interaction was voluntary, defense attorneys may argue that two armed agents of the state put the fear of God in the person that they weren't free to go. Just how things go.
It will take legal court rulings to get things changed. I have stated this many times: Who here is willing to start a fund to pay a lawyer to start such a lawsuit? Fact remains that most courts give cops a lot of leeway, especially if there ends up being only slight detainment, no incarceration, etc.. Lawyers do their work to make money, so if they don't see winning a case, they will want to be paid a nice retainer to at least start the process.
I personally don't think cases like this are the ones to rally behind. I just don't see judges saying it is wrong for officers to take five to ten minutes to run a person's info to check for restraining orders and/or to see if the LTCH is suspended/revoked. If judges feel officers have the right to check to see if the license is valid, then I can see them ruling an officer has the right to secure the handgun until such time they have information the license is valid.
In the Richardson ruling, the court document states "And even if the facts were such that Officer Eastwood's questioning about the bulge was proper, the fact remains that Richardson's production of a valid gun permit should have resulted in the termination of any further questioning." Now, there are some issues in regards to this ruling, and why the court used the language they did:
#1: The officer testified she always ran licenses, because she felt they could be easily faked.
#2: The officer didn't run the license on her in car computer.
#3: It is not stated if the officer ran the license through dispatch or not.
#4: It is not known if the court had information from the previous trial where it was confirmed that the license was in fact "valid."
Basically, is the court saying the mere production of a pink piece of paper is enough validity the person has a "valid" license, or did they have other information available to them to make this assessment that the license was "valid"?
Very well said!
I agree, somewhat, with these statements. But they must be understood in light of the fact that we have constitutional limits on what government may do in any circumstance. Basically, what I'm saying, is that you're making an argument that doesn't pertain to the discussion we're having. Yes, we have a government. Yes, it makes laws. But there are some things that can't be legislated. Government cannot prefer religion over irreligion. Government cannot segregate the schools based on skin color. Government cannot invade my bedroom and decide which adult can sleep there. Government cannot tell me what I can write on my blog, or where I can travel, or what I can wear.
Even within the context it was written, this sentence is terrifying. Giving police officers discretion in "every case" would result in a police state--a society in which the executive branch makes the laws. This isn't one of those societies, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in one.
We actually don't have many "laws" on this subject. We have, so far as I know, one. It's the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Even good cops are notoriously hostile to it. My ex girlfriend's father used to work on a gang unit. He told me to my face that he had arrested and detained people for "thinking gang thoughts." There are plenty of good reasons why courts review the "reasonableness" of a police officer's choice to detain someone. False imprisionment is a serious tort. We shouldn't take it so lightly.
This is the same kind of nanny state reasoning that our enemies use to say that we shouldn't be able to own guns, or carry guns, or that government must regulate (insert word here). This type of thought is antithetical to a free society. If you have a disagreement with your neighbor, talk to him like a decent human being. If it's so bad that you can't work it out, there's a civil process for that. There is no reason to involve any executive office in a dispute between two individuals unless it also constitutes a crime.
I agree that government needs to be drastically altered. I don't think it's necessary to engage in violence to get what we want, however. The last century has shown great strides in the courts' willingness to defend our rights against government actors. There's still plenty of ground to gain, though.
I don't want violations of my freedom to merely be "reasonable." The Fourth Amendment, unfortunately, uses the word reasonable. But other parts of the Constitution don't use language so flexible. Think of the strong language in the First, Second, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. "Congress shall make no law..." and "...shall not be infringed" and "No person shall be deprived..." etc. The kind of society I want to live in takes these statements seriously. And for the most part, our society does take these phrases seriously. You're right in pointing out that the Fourth Amendment isn't broad enough--especially in a world of electronic surveillance, GPS, and, perhaps the place where no privacy exists--the Internet.
