You were lied to by a police officer. Sadly, I wish this was an unusual event, but I cannot honestly say that it is.
You should have asked for him to provide you the code section.
TFred
We've got dingdongs in every group. Seems like the guy mentioned in this thread is one of them.
Question here... when you guys organize open carry get togethers, do you issue rules or at least "suggestions" as to certain standards e.g. minimum level 2 holsters or no t-shirts with profane messages on them, etc?
I would guess that most people here wouldn't wear a t-shirt with a profane message while open carrying, of course.
I have yet to hear of a single incident of anybody trying to forcibly disarm an OC'er (has anybody),but having a decent retention holder just seems to be common sense to me.
As for the above statement, maybe he was lied to or more likely (imnsho) assuming the officer is incorrect (I'm not familiar with laws in that jurisdiction) , maybe the officer just was ignorant of the specifics of the law. Many states have statutes that have a subjective aspect to them (such as my state's brandishing statute) about carrying a firearm in a way that "warrants alarm". So, while there is no specific statute prohibiting an OC'er in my state from carrying his handgun by duct-taping it to the back of his head, I think an argument could be made that carrying in such a manner warrants alarm (iow a reasonable and prudent person would be alarmed by such a method of carry... It's a silly example, so whatever.
For those people who live in jurisdictions where it seems some officers are ignorant of the laws regarding open carry, why not volunteer to attend a police roll call and offer instruction in open carry case law etc? I've arranged for outside (non law enforcement groups) to provide roll call training before and it's been quite successful. Reaching out and trying to work with law enforcement can often reap good results.
I arranged a roll call once and used a member of my weightlifting team to demonstrate some strength training techniques and it was pretty successful.
A good way to get an "in" in regards to the roll call training thang is to request to do a ride along and then when you do, and you guys are sitting at lunch or whatever, to bring up the topic. Despite what it sometimes seems
officers don't WANT to be ignorant of the law but often stuff gets passed on by osmosis (especially by ill informed training officers ) and it just sticks in the person's brain. It's harder to unlearn bad habits or information than it is to learn the right stuff from scratch.
We had a roll call on open carry and initially there was some hostility from a few officers towards the idea that - yes you cannot stop somebody and investigate open carrying, no matter HOW MANY people complain about it (and trust me we can sometimes get a dozen calls in a minute or two on the same guy open carrying). But it worked. After that roll call, we had the advantage of being armed with info and now not only do people act in compliance with the law, but a few guys even took up the practice of open carrying on their own off duty.
I transferred here to WA from one of the most restrictive, anti-gun states in the country. During my FTO I saw some guy open carrying and fortunately my FTO was well schooled (this was 15 yrs ago before it became routine to see OCers in WA) and told me that yes - open carry was legal. I was lucky to have a good FTO.
I would bet dollars to doughnuts that if one of the open carry groups went to a local precinct of their open carry state and offered to provide roll call training, resources etc. regarding open carry, that they just might get a positive response. What's the worst thing that can happen? The guy says "NO". bfd