DezaraX
New member
imported post
The story begins with five people, including me, sitting outside my townhouse in Lynchburg, VA at around 11:30pm on a Thursday night about 4-5 weeks ago. We were all sitting in chairs in front of the residence chatting casually and smoking cigars. We hadn't gotten into any particularly lively discussions and were just mellowly relaxing and having a good time since most of us were off work that Friday. Our seating arrangement was two people sitting looking towards each other and my girlfriend was on the hood of her SUV.
Sometime around 11:45ish, my next-door neighbor comes bursting out of his front door yelling and screaming about how "Some people have to work in the morning" and complaining that we were being too loud for him to sleep. No warning, no request, nothing. He opened his door and just started going off on us. It was the strangest thing I'd seen in awhile. Even more strange was that his sister (whom he lives with), had just come out about 15 minutes earlier to smoke a cigarette and we even briefly chatted with her and everything seemed great. I had just moved in about a month prior to this event and hadn't really had much interaction with the male neighbor except for a few casual hellos and goodbyes in passing.
The guy then demanded that we go inside and be quiet so he could sleep, to which one of my friend's replied, "We'll go in as soon as we're finished." At that point we were already a bit aggravated at the manner in which this guy just came outside yelling and making demands without any prior requests or warnings. Finally, after a few seconds of him clamouring on more about needing to sleep, he said he was calling the cops and slammed his front door shut.
Well, we continued on with our business for about 10-15 minutes and decided that he must have gotten over himself and went back to bed without calling the police since they had not shown up.
Here's where the guns get involved. Just about all five of us own guns and some of us carry on a regular basis, so once the conversation died off about my strange neighbor, some of the guys wanted to see my Glock that I had in my car. So I went in the car and put it on my waist and let them see it. A few minutes later, it went right back onto my holster and stayed there.
Probably 5-10 minutes later, three police cruisers pulled into my subdivision. As they were just about to get out of their vehicles, I remember stating out loud, "Oh, well here we go. That took awhile." And just as I was turning around in my chair (since I was facing away from the subdivision entrance), I saw two cops coming up quickly yelling "Get your hands in the air" and had us at gunpoint with flashlights in our eyes. I then heard one of the cops say "There it is. He's got it on his right hip." And one of the cops came and yanked it out of my holster. At that point there was nothing I could do to prevent myself from being disarmed without the cops thinking I could be going for my sidearm, so I let them have it. They unloaded the mag and chambered round and set it on the nearby sidewalk.
I quickly asked why I was being disarmed and what was going on and they cops replied, "We got a call reporting someone brandishing a firearm." Needless to say, my friends and I were all extremely appalled at this claim and started to chime in with our own rebuttals. Once I could get everyone to be quiet, I explained the situation to the officer and about our recent encounter with my neighbor and then proceeded to state that it was well within the bounds of the law for me to be openly carrying my handgun (I also have a CHP so it wouldn't matter whether it was concealed or not). The cop agreed that I was legal and proceeded to knock loudly on my neighbors door and went in and spoke with him for a couple minutes. I don't know what was said, but the two first responding officers (who seemed younger--possibly late 20s) seemed to be on our side and were respectful. They returned my handgun to me shortly thereafter with the extra mag and round still unloaded from the weapon and requested that I wait for them to leave to reload it.
As they were about to leave, the third cop (who was probably around 60 years old), came up to us and tried to explain the city noise ordinance to me. I responded stating that I fully understood the noise ordinance and that it is based on sound levels which we certainly had not exceeded. He claimed that because there were five of us we "Most likely were violating the ordinance at some point." I said, "Well that's just an assumption, officer. We were not raising our voices to any unreasonable levels." The two officers behind him kind of looked at each other, and then at me with an apologetic look. We all felt like this one was trying to make us feel guilty for something when we had done absolutely nothing wrong.
Then the police officers left and we continued on with our business. Of course, the topic of conversation changed quite a bit after that altercation. At first I was irritated that the cops disarmed me when I had done nothing wrong, but they did say that with any firearm-related call that is standard operating procedure for their own safety. After talking it over after the cops left we agreed that it was understandable, even though I didn't like being disarmed without initially knowing the reason. I suppose in those situations that's just going to happen since they can't just sit there and explain the reason for dispatch during the inital confrontation.
It just seems ridiculous that anyone would want to irrationally call the cops on his/her neighbor that they will see on a daily basis. ESPECIALLY one who owns and carries handguns.
Anyways, I thought you guys might enjoy the story. It wasn't really THAT exciting, but it was the first time I've ever been held at gunpoint--even if it was just for a couple seconds.
The story begins with five people, including me, sitting outside my townhouse in Lynchburg, VA at around 11:30pm on a Thursday night about 4-5 weeks ago. We were all sitting in chairs in front of the residence chatting casually and smoking cigars. We hadn't gotten into any particularly lively discussions and were just mellowly relaxing and having a good time since most of us were off work that Friday. Our seating arrangement was two people sitting looking towards each other and my girlfriend was on the hood of her SUV.
Sometime around 11:45ish, my next-door neighbor comes bursting out of his front door yelling and screaming about how "Some people have to work in the morning" and complaining that we were being too loud for him to sleep. No warning, no request, nothing. He opened his door and just started going off on us. It was the strangest thing I'd seen in awhile. Even more strange was that his sister (whom he lives with), had just come out about 15 minutes earlier to smoke a cigarette and we even briefly chatted with her and everything seemed great. I had just moved in about a month prior to this event and hadn't really had much interaction with the male neighbor except for a few casual hellos and goodbyes in passing.
The guy then demanded that we go inside and be quiet so he could sleep, to which one of my friend's replied, "We'll go in as soon as we're finished." At that point we were already a bit aggravated at the manner in which this guy just came outside yelling and making demands without any prior requests or warnings. Finally, after a few seconds of him clamouring on more about needing to sleep, he said he was calling the cops and slammed his front door shut.
Well, we continued on with our business for about 10-15 minutes and decided that he must have gotten over himself and went back to bed without calling the police since they had not shown up.
Here's where the guns get involved. Just about all five of us own guns and some of us carry on a regular basis, so once the conversation died off about my strange neighbor, some of the guys wanted to see my Glock that I had in my car. So I went in the car and put it on my waist and let them see it. A few minutes later, it went right back onto my holster and stayed there.
Probably 5-10 minutes later, three police cruisers pulled into my subdivision. As they were just about to get out of their vehicles, I remember stating out loud, "Oh, well here we go. That took awhile." And just as I was turning around in my chair (since I was facing away from the subdivision entrance), I saw two cops coming up quickly yelling "Get your hands in the air" and had us at gunpoint with flashlights in our eyes. I then heard one of the cops say "There it is. He's got it on his right hip." And one of the cops came and yanked it out of my holster. At that point there was nothing I could do to prevent myself from being disarmed without the cops thinking I could be going for my sidearm, so I let them have it. They unloaded the mag and chambered round and set it on the nearby sidewalk.
I quickly asked why I was being disarmed and what was going on and they cops replied, "We got a call reporting someone brandishing a firearm." Needless to say, my friends and I were all extremely appalled at this claim and started to chime in with our own rebuttals. Once I could get everyone to be quiet, I explained the situation to the officer and about our recent encounter with my neighbor and then proceeded to state that it was well within the bounds of the law for me to be openly carrying my handgun (I also have a CHP so it wouldn't matter whether it was concealed or not). The cop agreed that I was legal and proceeded to knock loudly on my neighbors door and went in and spoke with him for a couple minutes. I don't know what was said, but the two first responding officers (who seemed younger--possibly late 20s) seemed to be on our side and were respectful. They returned my handgun to me shortly thereafter with the extra mag and round still unloaded from the weapon and requested that I wait for them to leave to reload it.
As they were about to leave, the third cop (who was probably around 60 years old), came up to us and tried to explain the city noise ordinance to me. I responded stating that I fully understood the noise ordinance and that it is based on sound levels which we certainly had not exceeded. He claimed that because there were five of us we "Most likely were violating the ordinance at some point." I said, "Well that's just an assumption, officer. We were not raising our voices to any unreasonable levels." The two officers behind him kind of looked at each other, and then at me with an apologetic look. We all felt like this one was trying to make us feel guilty for something when we had done absolutely nothing wrong.
Then the police officers left and we continued on with our business. Of course, the topic of conversation changed quite a bit after that altercation. At first I was irritated that the cops disarmed me when I had done nothing wrong, but they did say that with any firearm-related call that is standard operating procedure for their own safety. After talking it over after the cops left we agreed that it was understandable, even though I didn't like being disarmed without initially knowing the reason. I suppose in those situations that's just going to happen since they can't just sit there and explain the reason for dispatch during the inital confrontation.
It just seems ridiculous that anyone would want to irrationally call the cops on his/her neighbor that they will see on a daily basis. ESPECIALLY one who owns and carries handguns.
Anyways, I thought you guys might enjoy the story. It wasn't really THAT exciting, but it was the first time I've ever been held at gunpoint--even if it was just for a couple seconds.