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Citing authority when posting

joshmmm

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2007
Messages
245
Location
Bellevue, Washington, USA
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Ok, so some of you may have read my short rant in the silencer thread but I wanted to make sure this gets the proper attention.

When a board member poses a question such as "I can't find a definitive answer to whether I can legally attach a silencer to a gun..." or "Does anyone know for sure if a liquor store is or is not off limits for carrying" or states "you can't carry a gun into a montana rest stop restroom" etc. it is NOT ok to respond with an answer such as "illegal" "certainly it is banned" etc.

If Lonnie posts a short reply I have good reason to trust him as an authority on the subject. Dave Workman is another person I would trust to have researched something before posting. (If you don't know them either through these boards or personally--you should not trust them) However, if either of them simply made either of these statements I would still want to know where or how they know the answer. It is even more important for people who haven't spent years working on Washington gun rights to qualify their opinions with articulable, citeable facts.

Don't post for the sake of posting. Just agreeing with a previous statement clogs up the board with useless posts. As does disagreeing. I feel as though lately people have been trying to simply increase their "post number" for their profile. If you want to write back please do some research and write an insightful post. Provide new information. Think back to school and the guy who always had to answer every question and comment on everything--how often was what he had to say useful, interesting, new, etc? Now, being that we are all sitting at computers, we have access to a wealth of information and the ability to do research before hitting reply.

I am very concerned for the non-discerning reader, the person who stumbles upon our site or even an anti who reads our site... If anybody goes around giving out false information because they read it on this site it is bad for everybody and will ultimately kill this board. No information and "I don't know" or "I think this but I am not 100% positive" are all 1000 times better answers than a non-researched, possibly incorrect statement. Imagine the consequencesof being wrong. A person is told it is OK to carry openly in a liquor store but a WSLCB agent knows otherwise and has the person arrested. Or, knowing that it is legal to carry in a Montana truck stop Lonnie enters the restroom carrying his gun openly. A trooper on a bathroom break, who happens to have read the thread stating that it is illegal, relies on the thread as correct information and arrests Lonnie. Both situations are equally bad--a person is arrested who had reason to believe he wouldn't be and neither would have been had correct information been posted to this board.

Back to the original posts to illustrate. We have been debating, mostly finished as we couldn't find a correct answer, whether persons under 21 are officially allowed in liquor stores. Nobody has found a definitive answer from any official source or person. Today, a new poster states that since the liquor control board doens't allow anyone under 21 in a liquor store it is not allowed to carry a weapon. We all know that if they ban minors from a liquor store guns are not allowed. We DON'T know if they ban minors-- the closest we have found, which is certainly very weak anecdotal evidence at best, is that they have a sign posted at most stores that allows minors with a parent. Does this answer whether we can carry guns? NO-- we don't yet know if that sign is official, based on a law, etc. Would we have a good defense if chaged with violating the applicable statutes--probably--but who wants a good defense--I'd rather be 100% in the clear and not spending months of time and thousands of dollars presenting a pretty good defense. I'd also like to legally carry my gun if it is in fact allowed by law. Not knowing sucks--and knowing the wrong answer is worse than knowing that you don't know.

Please don't take this whole post as a reason to not post--just think before posting baseless opinions--or at least inform the readers that it is your opinion and how you came to that opinion.
 

GreatWhiteLlama

Regular Member
Joined
May 29, 2007
Messages
287
Location
Bothell, Washington, USA
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Welcome to opencarry.org. We are a free discussion forum dedicated to helping people understand the shifting landscape of open carry laws in the US. All are welcome but we do have a few rules.

1) Since we are a site dedicated to open carry, freedom, liberty, firearms and gun rights, all posts should relate in some way to one of these topics.

2) Keep the profanity to a minimum. While an expletive may be the only way to convey the depth of anger / surprise or frustration you are trying to express, please do not use them gratuitously.

3) Links to spam/membership sites not related directly to firearms are NOT allowed under any circumstances!

4) While you may disagree strongly with another poster based upon their opinion, we will NOT tolerate any personal attacks based upon race, religion or sex.

5) We reserve the right to remove posting for any reason, at our sole discretion.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

All advice posted on this board should be considered nothing more than hearsay.
Even if a poster identifies themselves as an attorney, law enforcement official or expert in a given field, there is no way to verify that fact. Therefore, any and all advice you glean from this forum should be independently verified!
 

joshmmm

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2007
Messages
245
Location
Bellevue, Washington, USA
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T-RaV wrote:
any and all advice you glean from this forum should be independently verified!
And posters should provide the links/citations for others to independently verify the information--otherwise it is useless banter.
 

G27

Regular Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2007
Messages
573
Location
Kitsap County, Washington, USA
imported post

I agree with what you say to a point. But anyone that reads something and doesn't research it on their own is just asking for trouble. If a person owns a gun, I'd expect them to at least be somewhat mature, and thus an intellegent person. I know that isn't always the case but when it comes to matters concerning law I always, always, always personally verify it twice to make sure I understand every aspect and I can find a code for it.
 

Dave Workman

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Joined
May 23, 2007
Messages
1,874
Location
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joshmmm wrote:
If Lonnie posts a short reply I have good reason to trust him as an authority on the subject.  Dave Workman is another person I would trust to have researched something before posting.  (If you don't know them either through these boards or personally--you should not trust them) 


Joshmmm: I think this might need a little clarification.

You'd trust Lonnie and me, but othrs who don't know us shouldn't trust us, or is it others who do not know some "other" source should not trust them..

or is it forum members who read something here from another forum member they do not know personally should not trust their information?

;)
 
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