OC/CC encounter Donegal, PA

**Ed in PA** · January 26th, 2009, 03:01 AM

I attended a gun bash at the Donegal Community Center on Sunday. I was OC but CC also with a cover garment (winter jacket). I was suprised to see that NOONE else was OC.

While I was there I was questioned about the legality "of having that gun on your hip".

At first I thought that I was about to receive another lecture about openly carrying a firearm. I was asked if I had the proper permits to do that.

I then informed the guys that it was legal to do so generally without a permit (I had to walk through a school zone to get to the building, so needed a "license" to be exempted from the federal prohibition).

The guys seemed surprised that OC was legal in PA. I asked them if they wanted some pamphlets about OC in PA. I then retrieved them from my vehicle. Finally, I pointed to the paopencarry.com website, and the pafoa website for more information.

So, what I thought was going to be a negative encounter was not.

Ed

**headcase** · January 26th, 2009, 10:43 AM

Originally Posted by Ed in PA

I attended a gun bash at the Donegal Community Center on Sunday. I was OC but CC also with a cover garment (winter jacket). I was suprised to see that NOONE else was OC.

While I was there I was questioned about the legality "of having that gun on your hip".

At first I thought that I was about to receive another lecture about openly carrying a firearm. I was asked if I had the proper permits to do that.

I then informed the guys that it was legal to do so generally without a permit (I had to walk through a school zone to get to the building, so needed a "license" to be exempted from the federal prohibition).

The guys seemed surprised that OC was legal in PA. I asked them if they wanted some pamphlets about OC in PA. I then retrieved them from my vehicle. Finally, I pointed to the paopencarry.com website, and the pafoa website for more information.

So, what I thought was going to be a negative encounter was not.

Ed

*bold is mine
Almost always how it goes, my friend.

It is important to read about the possible consequences of OC, as well as the good encounters, to get a better overall grasp of what you should be prepared for. Having said that, I think that a great many people just expect anyone approaching them while they OC, to be about to chastise them in some fashion. I know that when I first started to OC, I expected every person who looked at me to call the cops. When that didn't happen, I figured they were just either scared or didn't want to get involved. Then it progressed to thinking that every time someone said, "Excuse me...", I was going to have to run through every cite and law, to convince them that I was not doing anything illegal. When this turned out not to be the case because it was almost exclusively people who were genuinely curious about something they had never seen before, I printed up a bunch of fliers so I could be "Mr. Information". Again, it turned out to be unnecessary, as most people don't seem to care.

So most of my encounters were just simple conversations, satisfying curiosity. Until the PSP came along. While I was actually CC'ing. I was treated like a piece of shit, threatened, detained, disarmed, embarrassed, and harassed. I was compliant, while trying to be as self assertive as I could manage... but I felt violated and powerless. That one encounter tore away everything I had been taught to believe about police, it opened my eyes. That encounter made me determined that I would stand up for myself, no matter what, if I was ever faced with a LEO encounter again. And I have, more than once, since then. I know the law. I know the case cites. I can articulate them clearly, and verbalize about my right to carry a firearm openly. Police, themselves, no longer scare me. The thought of going to jail for no reason, no longer scares me, although I still studiously try to avoid putting my wife and child through that....

With the new annual LEO training including an evolution on OC and legal citizen carry in general, I am confident that we will see less and less of these types of negative LEO encounters.

The whole point is that the reality of OC seems to be on the verge of transitioning out of the early stages of mass introduction and into what will probably be it's shaping phase, where the general rules of engagement will be laid down, allowing it's practitioners to engage in this carry mode with greater confidence in their ability to make it home without knowing the feel of handcuffs or zip ties on their wrists.

Those who are relatively new to OC, and those who are contemplating it, should really go about it with the mindset that you are just carrying your firearm legally as you go about your daily business, and worry less about the need to defend your actions. Be prepared, always, but the negative encounter should not be the expectation, it should be the exception.

Hope that came across right

**shooter357** · January 26th, 2009, 10:59 AM

I'm at the point now where I need to print out more fliers. I have been approached a few times and explained that not only what I was doing was legal, that there was nothing to fear. There are not many, if any, criminals that walk around with a gun showing. As I hand out a flier I tell them that if you don't believe what is in it that they can look up the statute that is provided. I don't anticipate any bad encounters but I am prepared in case they do. All you can do is take it all in stride and keep a positive demeanor.