"Alarm" and Terry Stop Court Ruling

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Mortech wrote:

Hmm , I wonder if this will having any bearing on that one Tacoma police officers behavior ?

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It may... and since Mainsail's the one that had the incident and he's seen this thread (due to posting at the top of the second page), I would assume he's using this information to his advantage.

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Mainsail wrote:

Alarm is "warranted" if the circumstances are such that a reasonable person would be alarmed. While it is not unlawful for a person to merely possess a firearm in public, the statute at issue does not violate one's right to bear arms because "in the vast majority of situations, a person of common intelligence would be able to ascertain when the carrying of a particular weapon would reasonably warrant alarm in others."

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As firearms continue to be vilified in the media, I’m glad to see a court recognizing a difference between ‘alarm’ and ‘shock’.

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I'm also glad they're able to distinguish the differance. However, what I found to be quite disturbing was found in the last paragraph,

Sixth, nothing about the size and type of weapon would warrant alarm.
Unlike in Spencer and Mitchell, Casad had hunting rifles,
not a semi-automatic weapon.

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I'm not sure where it began (media ignorance or legislative pressure) but the continued inability to distinguish between an 'Assault Rifle' and 'Semi Automatic' is something that needs to be changed. By their definition, my little Kahr P9 would be considered an 'Assault Pistol' since it is semi-auto.

Am I the only one that takes issue with this?

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T-RaV wrote:

I'm not sure where it began (media ignorance or legislative pressure) but the continued inability to distinguish between an 'Assault Rifle' and 'Semi Automatic' is something that needs to be changed. By their definition, my little Kahr P9 would be considered an 'Assault Pistol' since it is semi-auto.

Am I the only one that takes issue with this?

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‘Alarm’ in this law is an apparition; there is no tangible or specific definition. Like I said earlier, there is no ‘fine line’ that you can clearly see and stay on the good side of, it’s all fuzzy. It comes down to the totality of the circumstances.

Your semi-auto in and of itself is not alarming.
You wearing combat fatigues is not alarming.
You walking through a ghetto area at night is not alarming.
You having an angry look on your face is not alarming.
Combine two or more of those and mix in other factors, like carrying your semi-auto ‘at the ready’ and with the magazine attached, and you are alarming.

Understand that there is some brilliance to the wording. If I saw someone displaying all those characteristics, I WANT the police to stop and question the individual. Mass shootings do not benefit the continued free exercise of our firearms rights, and the drafters of that RCW segment were helping all of us on both sides of the issue.

Dave Workman has said it twice in this thread:

I encourage everyone to behave themselves

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Always err on the side of caution...and good manners

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Sage advice. You see, a police officer is not supposed to detain you for mere open carry, and certainly cannot arrest you for doing so. If, however, the totality of the circumstances warrant, he can detain you and even arrest you. In my case on the waterfront, the detainment was improper because if you take all the factors into account, the only thing that gave Officer Olsen suspicion was my open carry. There was nothing else that was ‘alarming’ about what I was doing.

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To add to my post above, I initially misunderstood what BobCav posted back on page one. He was pointing out that ‘alarming’ to a gun owner and ‘alarming’ to an anti are very different, and perhaps we should use a gun owner’s definition for our purposes. In reality the difference is moot. Alarm isn’t any one thing, it cannot be defined in some cold hard way.

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T-RaV wrote:

Mainsail wrote:

Alarm is "warranted" if the circumstances are such that a reasonable person would be alarmed. While it is not unlawful for a person to merely possess a firearm in public, the statute at issue does not violate one's right to bear arms because "in the vast majority of situations, a person of common intelligence would be able to ascertain when the carrying of a particular weapon would reasonably warrant alarm in others."

Click to expand...

As firearms continue to be vilified in the media, I’m glad to see a court recognizing a difference between ‘alarm’ and ‘shock’.

Click to expand...

I'm also glad they're able to distinguish the differance. However, what I found to be quite disturbing was found in the last paragraph,

Sixth, nothing about the size and type of weapon would warrant alarm.
Unlike in Spencer and Mitchell, Casad had hunting rifles,
not a semi-automatic weapon.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure where it began (media ignorance or legislative pressure) but the continued inability to distinguish between an 'Assault Rifle' and 'Semi Automatic' is something that needs to be changed. By their definition, my little Kahr P9 would be considered an 'Assault Pistol' since it is semi-auto.

Am I the only one that takes issue with this?

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Assault rifle is a BS term. The correct term is "Battle Rifle". Any weapon used in an attack is an assault weapon (even as baseball base is an assault weapon if used to beat on someone) as "assault' is a verb.

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Mainsail wrote:

To add to my post above, I initially misunderstood what BobCav posted back on page one. He was pointing out that ‘alarming’ to a gun owner and ‘alarming’ to an anti are very different, and perhaps we should use a gun owner’s definition for our purposes. In reality the difference is moot. Alarm isn’t any one thing, it cannot be defined in some cold hard way.

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Precisely what I meant. "Alarm" is relative to the alarmee (?)

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BobCav wrote:

Precisely what I meant. "Alarm" is relative to the alarmee (?)

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Bob:

Under the Washington statute, the "causes alarm in another person" is pretty much determined by the other person; that is, you could be minding your own business but if Sarah Brady is walking down the street and spots your pistol and she interprets your gestures or facial expression or whatever to be threatening, she can call the cops and if she chooses to file a complaint, it could take some sorting out.

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Yep I see that Dave. It should state "causes REASONABLE fear in another" or something like that. Who writes these junk statutes and where's the litmus test?

It's obvious that you cannot legislate "reason" since most of the legislators are unreasonable themselves! Then again,they are merely the reflection of our largely unreasonable society.

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BobCav wrote:

Yep I see that Dave. It should state "causes REASONABLE fear in another" or something like that. Who writes these junk statutes and where's the litmus test?

It's obvious that you cannot legislate "reason" since most of the legislators are unreasonable themselves! Then again,they are merely the reflection of our largely unreasonable society.

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I don’t agree that it’s a junk statute, that’s the point I’ve been trying to make. It’s not poorly written, it’s poorly interpreted, usually by the police. I think it’s good that the police can stop someone IF that person’s actions warrant alarm. The courts have ruled that simply carrying a firearm exposed, while it may be shocking, is not all by itself ‘alarming’ enough for a police officer to detain someone.



Alarm is NOT relative. It doesn’t matter if the officer or concerned citizen is pro or anti gun, there has to be other factors besides the open carry of a firearm to warrant detaining a person.

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BobCav wrote:

Yep I see that Dave. It should state "causes REASONABLE fear in another" or something like that. Who writes these junk statutes and where's the litmus test?

It's obvious that you cannot legislate "reason" since most of the legislators are unreasonable themselves! Then again,they are merely the reflection of our largely unreasonable society.

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Alas, Bob, what it perhaps "should" say ain't what it says. This particular statute was written back in 1969 when there had apparently been a fear that armed Black Panthers would come visit the capitol in Olympia as they did in Sacramento, CA.

Sure, we would like to change it, or actually repeal it, but gosh darn it, goldangit, shucks, nobody abdicated their seats in the Legislature and left us in charge.

That said, the statute has had at least some benefit in that it just might cool the jets a bit for some people who, for whatever reason, just can't resist the urge to be noticed.

Mainsail, I'm not sure if the statute is poorly interpreted. The only person I've heard about who really got nailed over this was Spencer, and considering the circumstances, there's room for some presumption that it was a deserved conviction. He was, after all, legally carrying a pistol, so absent any clear and present threat to his well-being, carrying a loaded rifle down a residential street could easily be viewed as an attempt to intimidate anybody within eyesight. The Appeals court panel in Casad appears to clarify the distinction.

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Then make it uninterpretable by changing the wording! I agree, exercisingour rights should no way EVER cause alarm in anyone or be interpreted as "possibly" causing alarm in anyone.

What does it say for us as a nation when the exercise of our constitutional rights causes alarm in others? Are we that far gone? Is there no road back?

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BobCav wrote:

Then make it uninterpretable by changing the wording! I agree, exercisingour rights should no way EVER cause alarm in anyone or be interpreted as "possibly" causing alarm in anyone.

What does it say for us as a nation when the exercise of our constitutional rights causes alarm in others? Are we that far gone? Is there no road back?

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The law specifies a ‘person of reasonable intelligence’ instead of gun owner or gun hater. This seems ambiguous to us now because there are two distinct political ideologies at play. Guns were viewed much differently when the law was written. Thus, even a person of exceeding intelligence today can be ‘alarmed’ at the mere sight of a person’s open carry of a firearm.



I think it’s important to remember that you can also carry a bat, tire iron, or machete down the street and you’re not breaking any laws either. Now, if the totality of the circumstances warrants alarm, the police will stop and question you about it.



Guns, however, are a whole different ball of wax. Gun ownership and carry (keep and bear) is protected by the WA Constitution, thus they have to write something into the law that doesn’t infringe on your rights while at the same time allowing police to interrupt a chain of events that could lead to a catastrophic tragedy. I guess that’s the price we pay for being ‘civilized’. The way it’s written must have a lot of ‘wiggle room’ for the police to allow them to investigate firearms crime without stepping on the rights of the lawful masses. The seemingly ambiguous language of that RCW segment is the wiggle room. The onus is on the police because they are supposed to be trustworthy, although some officers will play fast and loose with that much leeway as we have seen.



So then, how would you rewrite that little piece of RCW in such a way that our rights are protected while at the same time allowing the police to investigate the goth 19 year old with the M4 walking towards the high school? You can adjust the language to say, ‘person carrying a gun while behaving in a threatening way’ or something along those lines, but even that is indistinct.

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Dave Workman wrote:

BobCav wrote:

Precisely what I meant. "Alarm" is relative to the alarmee (?)

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Bob:

Under the Washington statute, the "causes alarm in another person" is pretty much determined by the other person; that is, you could be minding your own business but if Sarah Brady is walking down the street and spots your pistol and she interprets your gestures or facial expression or whatever to be threatening, she can call the cops and if she chooses to file a complaint, it could take some sorting out.

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I disagree on this one. The statue says "Warrants alarm for the safety of other persons"

That is only a partial reading of it. If you put the beginning in front of it then it reads like this.

It shall be unlawful for any person to carry...any firearm...in a manner, under circumstances, and at a time and place that warrants alarm for the safety of other persons.

The term "warrants" is what gives us a little more freedom than having the word "causes". With the useage of warrants it makes it clear that the intent was thatthe person carrying the firearm, weapon, what have you, had to give reason or justification to the alarmed persons to be alarmed. I don't think simply causing alarm toa Sarah Brady, who saw your firearm, fits within the scope of this statute.

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Right you are, Joeroket.. In my many years, I've seen some rather bad behavior by gun-toters who evidently thought just because they had a gun, everyone else needed to know it.

Those who just go about their business tend not to attract any attention, even if they were to be packing two guns.

Others just as well might wear a neon sign declaring "Hey, I'm packing a gun, See??! Ain't I cool??"

It's a matter of demeanor.

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Dave Workman wrote:

Right you are, Joeroket.. In my many years, I've seen some rather bad behavior by gun-toters who evidently thought just because they had a gun, everyone else needed to know it.

Those who just go about their business tend not to attract any attention, even if they were to be packing two guns.

Others just as well might wear a neon sign declaring "Hey, I'm packing a gun, See??! Ain't I cool??"

It's a matter of demeanor.

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I fully agree with that Dave. It is definately those folks that have the wrong demeanor that make it very difficult for the rest of us.

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Then make it uninterpretable by changing the wording! I agree, exercising our rights should no way EVER cause alarm in anyone or be interpreted as "possibly" causing alarm in anyone.

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Bob, if someone other than you had said this, I'd consider him to be one of those chest-thumping cretins who always seem to have skipped school the day they talked about the legislative process.

You, of course, know that it is nearly impossible to get such a thing accomplished with a leftist legislature. We can't simply trot down to Olympia and point a finger at the legislature and say, "Change this to make it uninterpretable, or just eliminate it."

One simply does not repeal a "comfortable" statute after 20+ years with the bunch we have in Oly.

And of course you understand that one does not easily take the next "logical" step and just elect a new legislature. I have no idea where some people get the notion that replacing idiots we don't like is oh soooo easy. You know what I'm talking about because you guys have been through it.

Most of the gun-hating lib/Democrats are in virtually bullet-proof districts. And they are now the majority. Right now, our work is preventing them from closing gun shows and stopping what surely will be an attack on state pre-emption; our state has one of the earliest such preemptive statutes in the nation.

We'll do what we can with what we have, and when we can do it. Thankfully, our state constitution is strong on RKBA and that tends to stop a lot of the B.S. in its tracks. But not always.

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joeroket wrote:

I fully agree with that Dave. It is definately those folks that have the wrong demeanor that make it very difficult for the rest of us.

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Well, how to solve this behavior is the challenge, Joe. As you no doubt would agree, the bozos who make "our" lives difficult are typically so thick between the ears arrogant that they will not be corrected in their behavior by gentle chiding or a soft elbow to the ribs.

"Hey, this is MY RIGHT! ... And NOBODY is gonna tell ME!"

I've been working this issue for at least 30 years, and figuring out where some of these people get their blustery notions is like trying to find WMDs in Iraq.

Maybe they don't really understand the language in State v. Spencer (the court was trying hard to do us a favor and keep the scope narrow, while gently reminding all of us to behave ourselves and use a bit of common sense) or merely choose to deliberately minunderstand it or ignore it outright. I dunno.

I'm trying to reach the appellate attorney in State v. Casad in an effort to get a petition to the court in progress to have that opinion published, so it will be available for precedent. So far, the calls have not been returned.

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Dave Workman wrote:

joeroket wrote:

I fully agree with that Dave. It is definately those folks that have the wrong demeanor that make it very difficult for the rest of us.

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Well, how to solve this behavior is the challenge, Joe. As you no doubt would agree, the bozos who make "our" lives difficult are typically so thick between the ears arrogant that they will not be corrected in their behavior by gentle chiding or a soft elbow to the ribs.

"Hey, this is MY RIGHT! ... And NOBODY is gonna tell ME!"

I've been working this issue for at least 30 years, and figuring out where some of these people get their blustery notions is like trying to find WMDs in Iraq.

Maybe they don't really understand the language in State v. Spencer (the court was trying hard to do us a favor and keep the scope narrow, while gently reminding all of us to behave ourselves and use a bit of common sense) or merely choose to deliberately minunderstand it or ignore it outright. I dunno.

I'm trying to reach the appellate attorney in State v. Casad in an effort to get a petition to the court in progress to have that opinion published, so it will be available for precedent. So far, the calls have not been returned.

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I was wondering exactly thier reasons for not publishing that decision myself. I hope you are successful in geting them to publish it.

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Dave Workman wrote:

Then make it uninterpretable by changing the wording! I agree, exercising our rights should no way EVER cause alarm in anyone or be interpreted as "possibly" causing alarm in anyone.

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Bob, if someone other than you had said this, I'd consider him to be one of those chest-thumping cretins who always seem to have skipped school the day they talked about the legislative process.

You, of course, know that it is nearly impossible to get such a thing accomplished with a leftist legislature. We can't simply trot down to Olympia and point a finger at the legislature and say, "Change this to make it uninterpretable, or just eliminate it."

One simply does not repeal a "comfortable" statute after 20+ years with the bunch we have in Oly.

And of course you understand that one does not easily take the next "logical" step and just elect a new legislature. I have no idea where some people get the notion that replacing idiots we don't like is oh soooo easy. You know what I'm talking about because you guys have been through it.

Most of the gun-hating lib/Democrats are in virtually bullet-proof districts. And they are now the majority. Right now, our work is preventing them from closing gun shows and stopping what surely will be an attack on state pre-emption; our state has one of the earliest such preemptive statutes in the nation.

We'll do what we can with what we have, and when we can do it. Thankfully, our state constitution is strong on RKBA and that tends to stop a lot of the B.S. in its tracks. But not always.

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Dave, I'm far from a legislative scholar. I'mjust a simple American citizen, not just a resident. (http://bobcav.blogspot.com/2007/04/resident-or-citizen.html)

Yeah, I know full well it can't just be changed and I fullly appreciate the process, but am also aware of it's faults as well. So many things slip through the cracks and the only time we hear of them is when they fail. Me? I let my legislators know that I read everything, that I'm watching them and that I vote. When I think they've failed me, I let them know. And when I think they've done good, Ilet them know that too! Can't have only negative reinforcement without any positive.

One thing I am not is a defeatistand have always said it's never too late to do the right thing. To paraphrase, you cansee things the way they are and ask why, orsee things the way they could be and ask why not?

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Wow - I had to register and post after finding this thread discussing this case. I'll just say that I recently became intimately familiar with it -- and I have a lot of respect for the quality of the discussion in this forum.

The "would your display of a firearm warrant alarm in a reasonable person" ruling is, as others have indicated, a little problematic.

One of my concerns, for the average daily OC peeps like those on this forum, is that cirumstances can change around you in the merest of moments. Circumstances that were safe/legal to OC could suddenly become circumstances during which a reasonable person WOULD be alarmed, and that change (even if not the OC'ers doing) could make what was once an okay situation to display become not okay. Examples could be fistfights, riots, violent crimes.

[My noob status is that I just got my WA CCW permit and I have yet to buy a handgun.]

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It brings up my larger question/concern about OC in general. It seems that it could cause more problems and uncomfortable situations than just keeping the firearm concealed. I know there's a deterrent effect, but I find a worrisome escalation effect as well.