Arrested by the Philadelphia Police for Open Carry

[son of the revolution]

I totally agree with you on principle but I don't think that could ever work in a practical world.

Why not ? It happens all the time in the "practical world". A cop gets in behind a vehicle in traffic, radios in or accesses the on board MDT and runs a check on the vehicle/driver, finds nothing out of order and moves on.

Plus IIRC, there have been plenty of instances related by members in the Open Carry threads of Officers staying at a discreet distance and observing/checking on things before moving in for a direct encounter. Which is how it should be ! Since PA is a carry State, including Open Carry, the fact is, observing for potential criminal behavior or at the minimum something that rises to the level of RAS to initiate contact with the subject is the ONLY thing any officer is legally permitted to do !!

[B_Markewinski]

I am sick and fucking tired of hearing the excuse of " well the officer was scared, so its understandable

why does the I was scared work for the cops? Me being in the military and deployed, if i were to do something so irrational every time i felt scared, you better bet the government and a great deal of the people back home would hang me out to dry.

why dont we start holding cops to the same set of standars?

[zackattack784]

I totally agree with you on principle but I don't think that could ever work in a practical world.

SOTR covered its pretty well. But I don't see why it can't work. We're not talking about somebody robbing a bank where you don't have time to wait around and figure things out. Someone peacefully walking down the street with a firearm is no immediate threat to anyone. Call it in and ask, figure things out, then approach (if that's even necessary). Draw first and ask questions later is dangerous, illegal, and a serious problem in a "free" society.

If I did that every time I was scared I'd expect to be locked up. Cops are citizens just like me. Why do they get a free pass?

[t1m0thy]

Now is not the time to bicker amongst ourselves. This act was meant to intimidate and get Mark to back down. He needs our solidarity and our support. This is bigger than one man's fight against a corrupt system, it is a fight for the rights of all free people not just gun owners or those who carry firearms.

We must send a message that we will not allow one of us or any American to be subject to tyrannical fear of an oppressive police state. It does not matter your personal opinion of Mark, the fact remains that there is absolutely no excuse for a free individual to be treated in this manner.

How quickly we forget that once upon a time if an agent of the state dared to assert himself as these officers have done they would have been drug into the street, coated in tar, doused in feathers, and ridden through town on the back of a quarter horse.

Remember what freedom is....remember who you are. Take a stand together and don't back down. Ever.

[streaker69]

If I did that every time I was scared I'd expect to be locked up. Cops are citizens just like me. Why do they get a free pass?

Because they are the only ones expected to go home safe at the end of the night.

Geez, you new here or sumthung?

[Don]

Not bad, but......................... If we as citizens are held to the standard of " ignorance of the law is no excuse " then we have EVERY RIGHT to DEMAND that those that swear an oath to uphold the law be held to the same, if not a higher standard. Its especially well known that Philly PD as a general rule despises citizen carry in general and Open Carry in particular.

While it may not be fair to expect any officer to know every single law they are charged with enforcing, as that would be impossible, we can DEMAND they know any law they plan on enforcing against a peaceable citizen, going about his business, absent probably cause.

Frankly, and I say this coming from a family with one cop in it ( my brother ) and myself interested in pursuing the same career, I am sick and fucking tired of hearing the excuse of " well the officer was scared, so its understandable "


NO ITS NOT !!! Anyone that enters into the job of LEO knows damn well the risks involved and sorry Charlie, but their " safety " DOES NOT trump anyone elses RIGHTS end of story !

I personally have been harrassed and threatened by an officer over here in NJ that took exception to the fact I dared to be out in public wearing an empty holster as a form of protest against the States policy of mandated victimhood because , "it might scare someone "

By the end of the encounter he was spluttering and obviously pissed off that he couldnt find anything to really hammer me with because I dared to stand up to him and the authority of the State. Then he got his head handed to him by me in Court over a blatantly BS ticket he wrote for no other reason to to save face and harrass me.

The abuse of power and disregard for rights is systemic and goes all the way to the top in Philly PD and they have a long overdue major slapdown coming their way as a result.

I totally agree with you too except on two details. First, I maintain that what the cop did WAS understandable and even reasonable given his ignorance of a law which is uncommon for him to encounter, however "understandable" does not mean "right" or "legal". He was clearly wrong and clearly did something illegal. The other point is that in the real world when potential danger is abound "my" safety can always be expected to trump "your" rights in anyone's decision making process.

Second, as a person who would never want to be a cop I am be willing to temporarily donate the lily white virginity of my rights every once in a while to accommodate the imperfection of a human being who is making mistake which doesn't damage me permanently.

That is not to say that I would ever give up a right permanently, but if they mistakenly infringe on my rights for such a brief period of time and I get to be on my way, and they've learned the lesson, I feel I am practical and resilient enough a person to let it go after maybe talking to the department chief and having their assurances that they will send a memo to the whole department regarding what happened. Things are never perfect but if they are made right in the end, that's good enough.

I think that is a practical and fair expectation, unless police departments are truly riddled with rampant corruption and maliciousness against gun owners, which at this time I do not feel is likely.

[zackattack784]

Because they are the only ones expected to go home safe at the end of the night.

Geez, you new here or sumthung?

Sad but true. Who cares if a cop draws down on a person minding his own business engaged in a perfectly legal activity? I often wonder, am I still a citizen? Or are we now all subjects?

[zackattack784]

I totally agree with you too except on two details. First, I maintain that what the cop did WAS understandable and even reasonable given his ignorance of a law which is uncommon for him to encounter, however "understandable" does not mean "right" or "legal". He was clearly wrong and clearly did something illegal. The other point is that in the real world when potential danger is abound "my" safety can always be expected to trump "your" rights in anyone's decision making process.

Second, as a person who would never want to be a cop I am be willing to temporarily donate the lily white virginity of my rights every once in a while to accommodate the imperfection of a human being who is making mistake which doesn't damage me permanently.

That is not to say that I would ever give up a right permanently, but if they mistakenly infringe on my rights for such a brief period of time and I get to be on my way, and they've learned the lesson, I feel I am practical and resilient enough a person to let it go after maybe talking to the department chief and having their assurances that they will send a memo to the whole department regarding what happened. Things are never perfect but if they are made right in the end, that's good enough.

I think that is a practical and fair expectation, unless police departments are truly riddled with rampant corruption and maliciousness against gun owners, which at this time I do not feel is likely.

Now THIS guy really is new!

ETA: Mark wasn't detained for a few minutes, which might be excusable or "understandable" as you say. He had a loaded gun pointed at him and he was threatened with being shot! If that's not maliciousness against gun owners then I don't know what is...

[MDJschool]

The cops clearly didn't handle this situation in the manner which was appropriate or strictly legal but we should keep in mind that the range of variation of good well meaning cops and bad power-tripping cops is the probably same as it is for society at large.

"[T]he greatest [abuse] that could be committed would be a base betrayal of trust in refusing to interpose to prevent injustice whether arising from a wilful, deliberate and wicked invasion of the Constitution, or from what we believe to have been a mistaken construction of legislative authority. As the people, who are the fountain of all power, have in their wisdom distributed the functions of government into their co-ordinate branches--the legislative power, the executive power, and the judicial power--it is necessary that each should respect the just rights of the others, and abstain, as far as practicable, from the exercise of all doubtful authority. . . . To prevent the evils which would inevitably result from the overthrow of the government, the equilibrium established by the Constitution must be preserved, and this can only be done by meeting on the threshold the first attempt at encroachment, whether arising from design, inattention or mistake, come from what branch of the government it may." Commonwealth ex rel. Hepburn v. Mann, 5 Watts & Serg. 403, 420-421 (Pa. 1843).

I think we need to keep in mind that cops aren't the bad guys.

How many cops would keep their jobs if they stood up and declared their refusal to undertake any ordered act to violate their oaths to the constitutions? I posit that that in this current environment, it would be rare, if even possible, for officers to keep their jobs without violating the constitutions to appease their superiors, even if it contradicts their individual oaths. How many good cops from that group can you select?

Also remember that open carry is not a common thing for Philly cops to see and deal with. They are people just like everyone else, and regardless of training, they are going to be more knowledgeable and more solid on the things they DO encounter every day. When anyone at their job has to deal with something they've never seen before they will have a harder time recalling training or protocol and may need to check the rulebook.

There's an easy heuristic for this: "If the suspect isn't harming anyone and I don't know the law, I won't act to oppress." And yet the courts occasionally (and unfortunately rarely) say it better: "It is the officer's responsibility to know what he is arresting for, and why[.]" U.S. v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 595 (1948).

Fault him for being crude and hostile and ultimately in the wrong regarding the OC law, but no one can fault him for being afraid and for ensuring his own safety.

"“Officer Safety” alone will not justify a frisk." fletc.gov (fedgov's verson of PA's MPOETC, I suppose) TERRY FRISK UPDATE.
Also, see the 4A and Pa. Const. art. I, § 8.
If officers can use 'training and experience' to put away 'bad guys', why can't they have training and experience that helps them not fuck up searches and seizures of property in light of 'human feelings of security'?

What I see on the side of the cops here is them doing an about average job given a situation which is largely uncommon to them and they weren't clear on the rules about. Yes it is their responsibility to be clear on the rules but they aren't sitting at a desk reading social theory and having abstract discussions about rights. They aren't lawyers.

We aren't lawyers either, but we generally take on the attitude of reading the law before we act. After all, "ignorance of the law is no excuse"! Police, DAs, legislators, judges, and even your fellow posters pound this into your mind. Why is that good for the layperson by ignorable by the officer?

I'm all for rights but I seriously have to question, is the OC man setting out to specifically have these encounters for the sake of activism? Is "personal comfort" really the primary consideration for him OCing? Is that gun on his hip a tool of self defense or a tool of activism?

What excuse does he need? Why would he have to 'hide his shame'? Police are not some untamed animals whose responses we can predict based on the nature and long history of such creatures, animals whose response shall be confined to basic genetics. Police, as they come from the People, ought to have some thinking power in the face of OCers. My opinion is that the foremost purpose of OCing is to show that We the People are armed, and, for example, should an enemy foreign or domestic seize our homes, we are still armed on our person, and we shall be the final arbiters of our government. Obviously the large lack of OCers correlates to how our government tramples over us on a regular basis; they do not respect us as the source of the 'fountain of all power'. There are a multitude of reasons to OC, and not one of them cries for the violent response of the state.

Don, tl;dr? The right to bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED and SHALL NOT BE QUESTIONED. Does an officer need to know much more?

[JoeyBones]

why does the I was scared work for the cops? Me being in the military and deployed, if i were to do something so irrational every time i felt scared, you better bet the government and a great deal of the people back home would hang me out to dry.

why dont we start holding cops to the same set of standars?

Because "holding themselves to standards" is apparently not something that particularly enthuses some elements of the PPD...

Plus it makes entirely too much logical sense...

Regards,

Bones

PS - thanks for your service!!!