[Statkowski]

Here's one for the legal scholars. State law says:

18 Pa. C.S. §505. Use of Force in Self-Protection.

(a) Use of force justifiable for protection of the person. - The use of force upon or toward another person is justifiable when the actor believes that such force is immediately necessary for the purpose of protecting himself against the use of unlawful force by such other person on the present occasion.

(b) Limitations on justifying necessity for use of force. -

(1) The use of force is not justifiable under this section:

(i) to resist an arrest which the actor knows is being made by a peace officer, although the arrest is unlawful....

Basically, even though the arrest is unlawful (e.g., enforcing a local ordinance that we all know is preempted by state law), we're not allowed to resist.

However, it appears the U.S. Supreme Court has held otherwise, to wit:

“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529. The Court stated: “Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.”

So, what does that mean when some local cop tries to stop you from carrying a holstered handgun in a park?