Awesome LEO encounter Fri night, got new PAFOA member(s)?

[angus]

Well done. A rational and calm communication between a reasonable, informed armed citizen and a reasonable LEO.

He had no reason to request your LTCF.

Why not? OP was armed in vehicle, which requires an LTCF.

[kcr121]

IMO the owner should man up and split the costs for the registration, inspection, insurance fines, and towing.

Why? The owner did the OP a favor by allowing him to use his property. If the OP didn't use it and it sat parked in the owner's driveway, no fines or towing costs would be applicable, and the owner would only be responsible for bringing the registration, insurance, and inspection current if he himself chose to drive it on public roadways.

The OP is fully responsible for the towing and fines associated with the stop, in my opinion.

[DC2.2GSR]

Since our conversation was so lengthy (a little less than two hours total, including waiting for the tow truck), of course I only mentioned some of the more important points.

Thanks for sharing. That was mostly a good encounter. Hope he signs up here so he can get some more "training".

I think your buddy should be on the hook for some of those expenses if any of those tickets were for things you were unaware of.

absolutely not. he has another car to drive and i'm borrowing his car, and i have always been painfully aware of it's shittiness. lol. it's kind of an unsaid agreement between the two of us. if shit happens, it's on me. i'm okay with that in my current situation. the only thing that was even partially his fault was the registration, which was only expired by a few days so the officer didn't hammer me on it.

You should have questioned him on this. If not at the time of his request, at least later when you were BS'ing with him. He had no reason to request your LTCF.

in my opinion, i feel that he definitely did have sufficient reason to ask for my LTCF. someone who is better with law references could cite the law for me i'm sure, but i was always taught that i was to show the LTCF upon reasonable demand by a LEO. to me, seeing that i have a concealed weapon (shirt completely covering) and seeing that i just stepped out of a vehicle (must have a LTCF), asking to see my LTCF was more than reasonable.

even if some of this logic is flawed, the guy was real cool and at no time did i feel like he was trying to take advantage of the situation or demand anything unlawfully. for what it's worth, we did briefly touch on the fact that an officer can't just stop someone and ask to see their LTCF just as they couldn't stop someone and just demand to see ID... my "This isn't Nazi Germany or New Jersey" comment got a laugh.

A few more questions you could've asked...
What if I bought this gun used yesterday, and the registry you're referring too hasn't been updated yet?

What if this gun was given to me by my mother (who's remarried and has a different last name). That's a legal transfer and wouldn't be in any registry. But to you it would appear stolen?

we talked about this for quite a while actually. he asked me many questions and i responded with answers that i've picked up directly from this site. one of the things he asked was about transfer of ownership between family members... he and his dad in particular. i explained that between family members there is no record of transfer, and this was one of the things that convinced him that what i was saying was true.

[tlgpa]

The OP freely admitted that he was CCing and in a vehicle,

He was about to be frisked. Hardly freely admitting. The officer was going to find out he was CC'ing anyway.

both activities that require a valid LTCF or reciprocal state's license (or any license in the case of carrying in a vehicle.) The LEO's request to produce a LTCF was not unreasonable and would likely stand up in court.

Lots of things would likely stand up in court. Doesn't make them right. Courts are harldy the beacon of fairness.
You need a license to drive a car, doesn't mean an officer can pull you over for driving and demand to see your license. Since one is required. But hey, lets not make this an RAS thread.

I merely said the OP should have questioned the officer on the LTCF request. To find out his reasoning. I'd bet he would've given another un-informed reason and not your LTCF/driving one. My guess it was more for the gun registry fishing trip he went on.

[StraussiE WousiE]

The headlight is a no brainer. Anyone driving the car would know the headlight was out. DC2.2GSR knew it, his responsibility.

Expired registration sticker. Something DC2.2GSR should've checked before driving. But something the owner should have known about AND told DC2.2GSR.

Expired inspection. Same as registration sticker. Owner should've known.

Insurance card. DC2.2GSR should've checked on that too. And the owner should have known it wasn't in the car. Had it been there, the car wouldn't have been towed.

IMO the owner should man up and split the costs for the registration, inspection, insurance fines, and towing.

My point is, who does the owner say should pay it if he doesn't know things about his car? It's a not valid defense, to say "I had no idea, I shouldn't have to pay." If it's just as valid for the borrower of a car to claim he didn't know, then who would it fall back onto if the owner (and driver) claimed no knowledge?. The tickets are issued to the driver for a reason.


It'd be a nice gesture, no doubt, for the owner to chip in. But the owner wasn't the one driving a car that shouldn't have been. Proof is in the tickets.

I am in no way starting a "the OP did wrong things", just sayin', the car owner did nothing in the eyes of the officer. As far as two buddies go, yeah, throw in some duckets. < I typed that, I don't agree with waht I said, but I'm not deleting in.

I'd be pissed to pay money if I had a car that sucked, and chose not to drive it myself, and let somebody else take it. So yeah, mind changed. quickly.

[DC2.2GSR]

He was about to be frisked. Hardly freely admitting. The officer was going to find out he was CC'ing anyway.

Lots of things would likely stand up in court. Doesn't make them right. Courts are harldy the beacon of fairness.
You need a license to drive a car, doesn't mean an officer can pull you over for driving and demand to see your license. Since one is required. But hey, lets not make this an RAS thread.

I merely said the OP should have questioned the officer on the LTCF request. To find out his reasoning. I'd bet he would've given another un-informed reason and not your LTCF/driving one. My guess it was more for the gun registry fishing trip he went on.

to me it was perfectly clear that he wasn't fishing at all. he removed my weapon since i was going to be sitting in the seat behind him, politely asked for my LTCF, and ran the serial as if it was just another mundane task that he's done a thousand times before. he wasn't fishing, he was going through the motions. i know the feeling is hard to convey over the interwebz, but really this guy simply didn't know any better.he was doing what he was taught, which was to check the imaginary registry and call in the LTCF. he now knows better.

[tlgpa]

Why?

Because it would be the manly thing to do. IMO you don't offer your un-inspected, un-registered, vehicle without insurance card to your friend without letting him know. That doesn't sit well with me. Something I would never do to a friend. That's how I was raised. If you disagree, so be it.

Obviously the OP is fine with it so it's irrelevant.

[kcr121]

He was about to be frisked. Hardly freely admitting. The officer was going to find out he was CC'ing anyway.

Read it again. He was about to be frisked because he was freely accepting a ride from the LEO, to which the LEO applied conditions - "I'll give you a ride home, if you let me make sure you're not carrying any weapons." The OP could have just as easily said, "No, thank you, officer." That's a free admission of an action no matter how you look at it. The OP had a choice to get in the car (and disclose that he was CCing or be discovered during the frisk, and then produce an LTCF) or call a friend for a ride, or take the bus, or any number of other choices (and never disclose that he was CCing or be discovered during a frisk, and not have to produce an LTCF.)

[StraussiE WousiE]

and i have always been painfully aware of it's shittiness. lol. it's kind of an unsaid agreement between the two of us. if shit happens, it's on me.

^That was said earlier ^

Because it would be the manly thing to do. IMO you don't offer your un-inspected, un-registered, vehicle without insurance card to your friend without letting him know. That doesn't sit well with me. Something I would never do to a friend. That's how I was raised. If you disagree, so be it.

Obviously the OP is fine with it so it's irrelevant.

ummmm.

Plus, I'd like to see all LEO's do a search on somebody goign behind them in a car. I rode with a state trooper once, to go retrieve my car when my friends broke down. He didn't pat me down. I didn't question him... I was 19, didn't carry yet. Had that been today, I'd tell him to search me, and to do it to anybody he allows behind him. They could be a crim, with a weapon, and can easily attack.

[King 5.45]

Just a thought for the OP: do you think that it could have gone south on you in a heartbeat as soon as you loaded up?

At 1:30 am out in the middle of nowhere, with the kindly presence of an armed officer to see you to your porch, do you think that it was entirely necessary to even ask about restoring your hardware to instant readiness? I don't mean to sound paranoid or be preachy, but the benefits of broaching the subject and making ready were greatly outweighed by the inherent risks.

Let me put it to you this way: if you had gotten a round in the chamber and that muzzle had swept him even in the smallest measure, we might be reading about you in a less personal and more belated fashion.

Take care, be safe, and remember that police officers are creatures of rigidly enforced habit as a set of learned reactions to certain stimuli. It's how they make it through to end of watch.