Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association
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  1. #1
    Join Date
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    Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
    (Cumberland County)
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    Default Police officer denied right to vote after refusing to surrender weapon...

    Soap Box - Worn out : Ballot Box - Broken : Jury Box - Pending : Ammunition Box - Unknown

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
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    City in, Pennsylvania
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    Default Re: Police officer denied right to vote after refusing to surrender weapon...

    Bangor police officer denied right to vote after refusing to surrender weapon

    10/31/10 01:53 pm Updated: 11/1/10 04:56 pm
    By Eric Russell

    Update: The election warden who turned the officer away has been dismissed, and the Bangor police chief has stated at a press conference that officers are not required to surrender their weapon at the polls.

    BANGOR, Maine — In the 18 years that he has been a police officer in Bangor, James Dearing couldn’t think of a single time when someone has asked him to turn over his firearm.

    Until last Friday.

    Dearing, who was patrolling his assigned beat near the Bangor Civic Center, decided to stop in and cast an early vote. He walked into the polling place in full uniform and stood in a short line with other voters.

    "Dearing flipped the safety question around.

    One of the election officials told Dearing he couldn’t bring his gun inside. The officer said he thought it was a joke.

    Election warden Wayne Mallar then approached Dearing and reiterated the request: Turn over your weapon to another officer or we can’t let you vote.

    Dearing refused.

    “I would never relinquish my weapon,” the officer said later.

    Mallar stood his ground.

    The officer said he left the civic center Friday feeling embarrassed and insulted. Dearing posted details of the incident on his Facebook page late Friday and immediately began receiving strong responses.

    “One fellow officer, who is stationed in Iraq, said ‘What am I over here fighting for?’” Dearing said.

    The incident bothered the officer enough to draft a letter to Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, which the officer also provided to the Bangor Daily News. In it, Dearing writes that Mallar claimed he would be violating state law by allowing the officer to vote with his weapon holstered.

    “Mallar claims that this was a state of Maine law, however, I cannot find such a prohibition listed in Title 21-A,” Dearing’s letter read. “Furthermore, many members of the police department and I have been casting ballots at the polls for many years in full uniform and have never been required to remove our firearms.”

    Reached by phone on Sunday, Dunlap said he had not yet seen Dearing’s letter but said there is no state law that says officers are prohibited from carrying firearms anywhere. The secretary of state could not remember a similar complaint in recent years.

    “Most of the complaints we get are from people concerned about candidates stationed outside the polls and over-aggressive petitioners,” Dunlap said.

    Mallar said Sunday that he couldn’t comment on what happened other than to say, as warden, he is in charge of a polling place and has the right to make determinations about safety.

    Dearing flipped the safety question around.

    “What if someone else had come in with a gun concealed? Then I wouldn’t have my gun to protect people and do my job,” he said.

    The officer said he doesn’t want Mallar fired. Dearing just wants the warden to admit he made a mistake.

    And he wants to cast his vote.
    I don't like this line at all:

    “What if someone else had come in with a gun concealed? Then I wouldn’t have my gun to protect people and do my job,” he said.

    Just because somebody has a concealed weapon, does not mean he is going to shoot somebody with it

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Butler, Pennsylvania
    (Butler County)
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    Default Re: Police officer denied right to vote after refusing to surrender weapon...

    Quote Originally Posted by daschnoz View Post
    Cop is still a putz.... “What if someone else had come in with a gun concealed? Then I wouldn’t have my gun to protect people and do my job,” he said.

    HiredGoon... you beat me to the punch!
    John Stuart Mill noted: ‘A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.’

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Oakland, Pennsylvania
    (Allegheny County)
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    Default Re: Police officer denied right to vote after refusing to surrender weapon...

    He doesnt want them fired? Fuck that noise, if someone prevents me from voting, which is a felony is it not, for absolutely no reason, they deserve to be fired. How are you expected to do your job, one that affects society, if you dont know the damn laws.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Police officer denied right to vote after refusing to surrender weapon...

    Quote Originally Posted by Butlerite View Post
    ...

    HiredGoon... you beat me to the punch!
    You need to practice your quick draw technique a little, I guess

    Yeah, that was a very dumb way for the cop to phrase what he was trying to say.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
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    Allentown, Pennsylvania
    (Lehigh County)
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    Default Re: Police officer denied right to vote after refusing to surrender weapon...

    Evidently the Warden thinks it is against the law to exercise one right while exercising another????
    When you are called a racist, it just means you won an argument with an Obama supporter.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2008
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    St. Petersburg, Florida
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    Default Re: Police officer denied right to vote after refusing to surrender weapon...

    Two things: 1 - police shouldn't vote while on duty, and 2 - there is no right to vote.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    next to my neighbor, Pennsylvania
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    Default Re: Police officer denied right to vote after refusing to surrender weapon...

    HA HA... now he knows how "us" regular people feel....screw'em.
    FJB

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Franklin, Pennsylvania
    (Venango County)
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    Default Re: Police officer denied right to vote after refusing to surrender weapon...

    Saw the title of this thread, and my blood started to boil.

    I thought a police officer stopped a member here.

    Good job getting my attention though.
    I'm so fast, I can bump fire a bolt action.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Elizabeth, Pennsylvania
    (Allegheny County)
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    Default Re: Police officer denied right to vote after refusing to surrender weapon...

    Quote Originally Posted by ThomasJ View Post
    and 2 - there is no right to vote.
    The 19th amendment suggests otherwise.
    .

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