OC in LA County

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As with the other "OC in ___" threads, the purpose of this thread is to log my OC experiences and allow others to comment. Most of my OC experiences will take place in the city of Santa Clarita, which is where I currently live.

1/11/08

The Situation

My wife and I are in the process of moving to a bigger apartment that's in the same complex as our current one. I decided this would be the perfect time for my first OC experience. The two apartments are on opposite ends of the complex. While we made use of several cars to transport our stuff from one unit to the other, several walking trips between the apartments were neccessary to transport light objects that were too big for any of the cars.

The Carry Set-up

I carried my new, all-black Springfield XD-40 tactical. I only have two magazines for it, so I thought it prudent to carry both of them loaded while carrying the gun without a mag inserted. Just the previous night I had read an article by Massad Ayoob about carrying spare magazines, and I didn't want to be caught with only 10 rounds if I happened to need them.

I don't have a good holster yet, so I used the cheap XD-gear holster that comes with the gun. It doesn't have the best retention, but I tightened it up to the point where the gun could not be removed except with very deliberate force. Since we weren't really out in "public" I decided that carrying without a real retention holster would be OK (I will definitely get a real retention holster if I decide to OC anywhere but around the complex). I also didn't have any kind of recording device handy, which I will also need to acquire before carrying anywhere else.

I also printed out a copy of MudCamper's CA OC Flyer and kept it in my wallet.

They Carry Experience

One of the first things we moved was our queen size mattress. As we were loading it into our friend's van, two of our neighbors exited their unit from a door that was about 15 feet from where I was standing. They passed us as they walked to their car, and stopped to ask us where we were moving and if we needed any help. The entire conversation lasted about 1 minute. As far as I could tell, neither of them noticed I was armed.

Most of the day was spent moving furniture and boxes in and out of the vehicles. My car was parked in my reserved spot, which is grouped together with the spots of about 10 of our neighbors. I noticed people getting out of or into their cars several times while I was loading boxes into my car. As far as I can tell, only one of them might have noticed I was armed. This particular lady stopped as she was walking away from her car, stared at me for a few seconds, and then continued on her way.

Several of the people helping us move also noticed I was armed. At one point I noticed one of our friends staring at my right hip, and asked her if the gun was making her uncomfortable. She replied that she was simply shocked that I was carrying it outside with me, but that she was personally fine with it. It turns out she had never handled a handgun before (although she had some experience shotguns and rifles), so while we were inside I removed it from the holster, ensured that it was unloaded, and allowed her to handle it. She noticed that I was carrying it unloaded, and inquired as to whether that was a legal requirement or a personal preference. I briefly summarized the relevant laws, and told her that I would be glad to give her more specific information if she wanted it. Without assuming that an unloaded gun is useless, she asked me how long it would take me to load it and fire the first shot. Since I had been practicing my draw that very morning, I was able to tell her that during practice I can insert a magazine, rack the slide, and acquire a sight picture in around 3 seconds. She agreed that carrying an unloaded gun with readily-available loaded magazines was much more useful than having a loaded gun sitting at home.

Throughout the course of the day several people walked past me or near me, some even briefly greeted me or waved. I don't think any of them (except the one lady I mentioned above) noticed I was armed. Or, if they did, they must have assumed I was LEO or otherwise legal. In any event, nobody panicked, nobody ran away screaming, SWAT was not called, I did not get proned out on the ground while several cops pointed their guns at me, and I will live to carry another day.

Altogether, I was OCing for about 7 hours. Around half of that was outside.

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Good on ya, it's nice to see more open carry in California. I am just up over the hill from you in the AV

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CaliforniaCarry wrote:

I carried my new, all-black Springfield XD-40 tactical.

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As we all know, all-black guns are much more deadly in California.

Nice job. I did notice however, that you weren't wired for sound. But in prioritizing your needs, I would say a superior holster would preceed a digital recorder. In your particular circumstance- being active, distracted by moving things around, having your hands full- it makes you a little more vulnerable than if you were say, sitting in a restaurant, fully aware of your surroundings.

You may have alsowitnessed the halo effect of open carry. People wave or nod as if they know you or making a special effort to either be polite or to avoid you altogether... I dont know if this is part of what happened to you yesterday, but I deem it likely.

More importantly, this is another demonstration that lawful open carry even in California is NOT a cause for alarm, does not always end in police intervention, and is a reasonable option for those not licenced to conceal carry- the practicality yet, is still up for debate. I think with enough participants, frequent enough exposure, and regular practice this activity will attain significant levels of acceptance.

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Glad to see another person getting active in CA. We need more people flexing their rights if we're to get changes made here in CA.

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Howdy neighbors! I'm in the Antelope Valley as well.

I'm brand new and learning, but hope to eventually be OCing

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YellowHorse wrote:

Howdy neighbors! I'm in the Antelope Valley as well.

I'm brand new and learning, but hope to eventually be OCing

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Where abouts?

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Antelope Acres

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I've been lurking for a couple of days and just had to join up whe I saw you're in Santa Clarita. Greetings from Granada Hills!

Have you ever carried over here on the Dark Side? (For those of you outside the area, that would be L.A.).

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At this point I don't carry anywhere but around my apartment complex. I don't have the best holster, nor do I have what I would consider to be an appropriate level of voice recording capability.

When I finally get around to purchasing a retention holster and a proper voice recorder, then I might start carrying elsewhere. However, carrying around Santa Clarita is simply asking for harassment. This place is crawling with cops. I literally pass dozens of sheriff's cars every day. It doesn't help that I live just down the street from the station. You also have to realize that this is LASD we're dealing with. Santa Clarita doesn't have its own PD, but instead has a contract with LA County for law enforcement. LASD is notorious for many things, and being nice about gun-related issues isn't one of them.

Not that harassment is neccessarily bad. It's certainly a good opprotunity to educate local LEO's about the legality of unloaded open carry.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned school zones yet :?. It seems like there's a school every few thousand feet around here.

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CaliforniaCarry wrote:

At this point I don't carry anywhere but around my apartment complex. I don't have the best holster, nor do I have what I would consider to be an appropriate level of voice recording capability.

When I finally get around to purchasing a retention holster and a proper voice recorder, then I might start carrying elsewhere. However, carrying around Santa Clarita is simply asking for harassment. This place is crawling with cops. I literally pass dozens of sheriff's cars every day. It doesn't help that I live just down the street from the station. You also have to realize that this is LASD we're dealing with. Santa Clarita doesn't have its own PD, but instead has a contract with LA County for law enforcement. LASD is notorious for many things, and being nice about gun-related issues isn't one of them.

Not that harassment is neccessarily bad. It's certainly a good opprotunity to educate local LEO's about the legality of unloaded open carry.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned school zones yet :?. It seems like there's a school every few thousand feet around here.

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Yeah, I've noticed that within Lancaster/Palmdale as well. It didn't use to be like that, I could go to town several days of the week and see maybe 1 or 2 sherrifs that whole week. But now when I go into town I will see, at least, half a dozen sherrifsin oneday!

I've also noticed that I don't hear gunfire out here in "the Acres" anymore. I used tohearwhat sounded liketarget shooting on a regular basis. Or maybe a .22 or shotgun (shooting coyotes maybe) every once in a while. Now it is dead silence out here when it comes to those noises. All you hear now is the distant drone of the Willow Springs Raceway.

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I'm interested in hearing more of your experiences as they unfold. Interesting observations about the expanded presence in the non-LA portions of the county. I've had the feeling that Ive seen more cars in the Valley over the last few years but wasn't sure if that was accurate or not.

There is a gentleman in the West Valley that's documented a couple of UOC experiences that give me some encouragement, but fear of an LAPD beat-down or arrest, however indefensible in court, will probably limit my carries to my own yard for the time being.

Just for fun, I used the new "My Maps" in Google Maps that let's you draw radii around points. Did a search for schools, then drew a few 1000' circles. Practically impossible to go anywhere in the valley without crossing the lines!

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I'm interested in hearing more of your experiences as they unfold. Interesting observations about the expanded presence in the non-LA portions of the county. I've had the feeling that Ive ssen more cars in the Valley over the last few years but wasn't sure if that was accurate or not.

There is a gentleman in the West Valley that's documented a couple of UOC experiences that give me some encouragement, but fear of an LAPD beat-down or arrest, however indefensible in court, will probably limit my carries to my own yard for the time being.

Just for fun, I used the new "My Maps" in Google Maps that let's you draw radii around points. Did a search for schools, then drew a few 1000' circles. Practically impossible to go anywhere in the valley without crossing a circle!

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Mechanic wrote:

I'm interested in hearing more of your experiences as they unfold.   Interesting observations about the expanded presence in the non-LA portions of the county.  I've had the feeling that Ive ssen more cars in the Valley over the last few years but wasn't sure if that was accurate or not.

There is a gentleman in the West Valley that's documented a couple of UOC experiences that give me some encouragement, but fear of an LAPD beat-down or arrest, however indefensible in court, will probably limit my carries to my own yard for the time being.

Just for fun, I used the new "My Maps" in Google Maps that let's you draw radii around points.  Did a search for schools, then drew a few 1000' circles.  Practically impossible to go anywhere in the valley without crossing a circle!

Click to expand...

I can't find this radii feature, although I do see the "My maps" tap. Any hints?

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I used the "draw line" button to measure 1000 feet from the known schools in my town. I then used the "draw shape" button to box off the 1000 foot lines. I then removed the lines so I now have a map with 1000 foot shaded boxes indicating where the school zones are.

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As you can tell, it was hard to find the first time. Also appears to only work with IE as I tried it with Firefox with no success. Here are full instructions in case anyone else wants to try it.

1. Of course, start with Google Maps.
2. Go to "My Maps", then there is hyperlink "Browse the Directory".
3. Now locate "Circle Filter" and click "Add it to Maps".
4. Now click on "Back to Google Maps" in the upper left corner of the screen.
5. You should have a panel right under "Search Results" and "My Maps" select My Maps and this panel should show "Circle Filter" under the category, "Created by Others".
6. Check the box for Circle Filter, and then highlight it. Now when you click on the map anywhere, it will make an 820.2 ft. circle. You can stretch the circle out to 1000', then use the crosshairs to drag the whole circle to whatever location you want.
7. Once you know that piece works, zoom in to the target neighborhood and then search for whatever (I used "school"). Now click & drag the circles to your heart's content.

You're supposed to be able to save the map and overlays, and I had some success duplicating a single 1000' circle several times, but everything wouldn't restore properly when I exited and came back. I don't know if that's Google or me . Once you get things going properly, you don't have to be in the My Maps tab to make circles, either.

It's probably wirth noting that Google maps the street address of the school, not the school boundaries, so you may want to flip between map view and satellite view and adjust your circles accordingly.

There's also another map tool that looks like it lets you measure distances. Have to try that some other time.

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Thanks a lot! I was originally doing the same thing as Decoligny, but that exactly what I was looking for.

Unfortunately, I am required to use the Bay Bridge to get into San Francisco, and there is a school within 700 feet of it. :/

It appears my OC plan will become very complicated indeed before it is feasible.

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Yeah, after creating a school zone map for my area, I've come to realize I would have to do a lot of zig-zagging around my usual routs to avoid all the "land mines." :/

I didn't realize how many schools there were out here that I drive within a thousand feet of :uhoh:.

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YellowHorse wrote:

Yeah, after creating a school zone map for my area, I've come to realize I would have to do a lot of zig-zagging around my usual routs to avoid all the "land mines." :/

I didn't realize how many schools there were out here that I drive within a thousand feet of :uhoh:.

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Realize that not all those "schools" on a map are "school zones". Daycare center's are not "school zones" and LAUSD has a lot of closed "old" schools which would still appear on a map tocreate a school zone (I live by two such closed schools). Additionally private church schools and private "Silvan" learning centers (which instruct in K-12) may not appear as a school. Colleges may also show up as 1000' school zones but the lawonly deals with that schools real property. Then again a college my also have classes in k-12 somewhere on campus and trigger the 1000' rule. How is a person to know?

Other then on the routes you usually drive near your residence, I don't see how one could reasonably know they've entered a school zone anywhere else in town.

While626.9 is a felony, it is so vague and hard to know where the boundries areI don't see it resulting ina conviction provided one is truly not aware they're in what 626.9 defines as a school zone and are otherwise legal. Granted, defending one self against such a charge would not be pleasant in the least.

Hopefully Heller will help make the days of laws, like 12031, 626.9 and even 12050"may" issue,numbered.

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Hopefully indeed. I am basically "on hold" while I'm in CA. There's just nowhere I can carry that I go to on any kind of regular basis.

Of course, that makes it pretty hard to have an individual right to self-defense. We'll see...

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Here is my suggestion to those worried about school zones. . . Simply drive your normal route for a few weeks taking care to observe schools in your route. .

LOOKING ON OR USING GOOGLE OR SIMILAR MAPS TO FIND SCHOOLS IS INFORMING YOURSELF AS TO THEIR EXSISTANCE AND CAN BE USED AGAINST YOU IF DISCOVERED.

It is like those guys that use their computer to look up ways to murder their wives on google. . . duh! You can't claim stupidity if you googled it!

But that can also be an argument on the courts side. . . With sites and services such as Google. .. . a well informed citizen that spent the time to find out his rights should have also spend due dilligence finding the zones in his area. .. . A slipery slope...