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Southfield Police On The Ball

NervisRek

Regular Member
Joined
May 3, 2008
Messages
20
Location
Royal Oak, Michigan, USA
imported post

My son is a Southfield Officer and when I was at his house this weekend we had a conversation about open carry. The Chief of Southfield PDwas an instructor at the academy when my son went through 5 years ago, and he was there when my son took my book titled "Travelers Guide To The Firearms Law In 50 States" to question the fact that Michigan is an open carry state, and what would happen to someone who did so. It caused quite a stir that day as you can imagine. Well, last week each shift at SPD was briefed about the current "movement" towards open carry and how to use some common sense when dealing with a call for such. Each shift was also read the law and quoted the definition of "brandishing". The best part was when my son told me that the opencarry.org website was brought up, and a few of the officers mentioned that they had been following the sites forum. So if any of the SPDarereading this, I'm glad to know that you guys are keeping your heads outta' your butts.
 

John Pierce

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
May 5, 2006
Messages
1,777
imported post

NervisRek,

First let me say "Thank you very much!" to your son both for his service to his community and for his willingness to help improve the interaction between law enforcement and law-abiding gun owners.

As I said in an earlier thread ...

The most obvious reason that law enforcement officers are unaware of the legality of open carry is that there are literally far too many laws on the books for anyone to know them all and far too few people open carrying in many states for it to be given special attention in the academy or in update training.

One of the driving forces behind why Mike and I created this site was to provide information that could be carried with an open carrier to educate law enforcement officers and, if needed, magistrates about the legality of the practice.

Once more people start to legally open carry and have LEO encounters which are positively resolved, the departments will begin update training their officers and the rate of confusion will go way down. That is the trend we have seen in VA, WA and other states where open carry in becoming VERY common.
It sounds to me like your son has given us a HUGE shortcut in his community. If we had more allies like him, it would be a much better world!


John


NervisRek wrote:
My son is a Southfield Officer and when I was at his house this weekend we had a conversation about open carry. The Chief of Southfield PDwas an instructor at the academy when my son went through 5 years ago, and he was there when my son took my book titled "Travelers Guide To The Firearms Law In 50 States" to question the fact that Michigan is an open carry state, and what would happen to someone who did so. It caused quite a stir that day as you can imagine. Well, last week each shift at SPD was briefed about the current "movement" towards open carry and how to use some common sense when dealing with a call for such. Each shift was also read the law and quoted the definition of "brandishing". The best part was when my son told me that the opencarry.org website was brought up, and a few of the officers mentioned that they had been following the sites forum. So if any of the SPDarereading this, I'm glad to know that you guys are keeping your heads outta' your butts.
 

Michigander

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2007
Messages
4,818
Location
Mulligan's Valley
imported post

Some friends of mine have had some less than good encounters with them which I won't be posting here, but the SFPD always puts on a good public face. Given what happened with my friends I don't admire that department like I do the MSP or some of the County Sheriff's departments, but I very much applaud them for this. I am impressed.
 
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