nakedshoplifter wrote:
I was the driver, I will be writing a seperate post with the details as soon as I have time... I'm slammed at work today.
OK, here's the skinny...
I was driving home with Agent19 after the Culpeper council meeting. The speed limitvaried between 45-60 mph during the drive with a few 30mph zones when we crossed train tracks or were in incorporated areas. Well, I was pulled over by a PWC officerwhen we were about 10 miles from A-19's home. The stop went like this:
I pulled over and immediatly grabbed my wallet (has my DL inside) from my back pocket so as to NOT be grabbing for it later when asked for ID. I did this because my pistol was on the same side and I didn't want any problems. I held my hands (including wallet) on the steering wheel and A-19 placed his hands on the "oh @#$%" grab handles of my car. This is the smart thing to do when pulled over (even if you aren't armed).
Officer approaches car and shines flashlight in back seat area inspecting the car.
Officer then shines light on my chest, then in my face, then on A-19's chest and face. He keeps doing this 2-3 times and I'm starting to think he's performing some kind of sobriety check.
The first question the officer asks is "What agency do you work for?"
I'm now very confused, how did this officer know we had firearms (the question normally is asked when officers see guns). Did this officer have some sort of ESP to know we were armed? Both firearms were on our right side and covered by seat belts.
The officer, seeing the confusion on my face pointed to my chest and said "You have an orange sticker on your shirt which says "Guns Save Lives", do you have a gun with you?"
A-19 and I laughed at the situation and told him who we were, what we had been doing that night (lobbying Culpeper) and we did indeed have handguns which were carried openly. We also informed the officer that the reason our hands were on the steering wheel and the "oh @#$%"handles was because of the firearms. The officer asked me what I thought the speed limit was, I told him it had varied from 45-60 along our route and the officer told me the limit where we were stopped was 45 but I had been going 59.
The officer understood everything we told him concerning the firearms with no further explanation, and told me he was going to run my DL and if everything came back good we would be free to go with no ticket.
The officer ran my DL and returned to the car. He told me we were free to go and I told him I would be driving with cruise control the rest of the way home!
Long story short, not only do "guns save lives" but that evening the sticker may well have saved me from a ticket!
The PWC officer (I did not get his name) is to be commended for acting cool and professional after being informed we had firearms. He clearly understood thelegality of open carry and it was not an issue for him. I wish I had his name so I could write his supervisor and tell him he represented PWC PD well.
