Oh, jailer!

Had a nice chat with a jailer the other day and got a great opportunity to educate him on open carry. I didn't know that they aren't regular police officers and don't go through regular police training. They do get training and bulletins from the PD but I guess not as formally.

I was open carrying in Wings Leather and he asked me about it. (I knew him already from elsewhere, and no, not from being in jail). He mentioned that he knew it was legal but that it made him uncomfortable and a couple points ensued.

1) He saw someone OC towards a 7-Eleven and called it in. His justification was that if the guy did rob the store or shoot someone he would have felt bad that he didn't at least let the PD know. The dispatch asked him what the guy was doing and when he said, "nothing, just carrying" she told him that was fine. Yay for the training that Bellingham PD went through thanks to our buddies.

2) He was under the impression that if someone was alarmed then you couldn't OC. I told him about State vs Casad and the language that said that in order to warrant alarm, the reasonable person test would have to be used.

It was a good conversation and I know he went away more educated than he had been. Definitely a nice guy and not confrontational, just uneducated on the subject.

+1 Well done!

You will find this attitude with this mind set as the greater majority have not been introduced nor sought out any type of training on our rights and laws and resort to "FEELINGS" instead of "KNOWLEDGE".

I just had a discussion with a Minister on this very issue. He and he has many in his congregation who he says carry to include some in the law enforcement community. I feel he has unrealistic views on how a response would happen if someone came into the church in manner that the law enforcement would respond and not the others who carry.
When I bought up the concept of identifying a threat it was clear if he saw a weapon and did not know them! it was a threat! A lot more work to do there!