Jacksonville LEO on the subject of OC

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I recently saw a JPD officer at a gas station and asked himabout the LEO perspective on OC in Jacksonville. He told me that OC is legal but it is a touchy subject due to the fact that if a citizen gets their panties in a wad over seeing someone OC, they can call the police and have the law abiding gun carrier arrested for Armed to terror the public. Just wanted to post that to see you all's opinion.

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Too bad theofficers of that citydon't have enough collective sense to explain to the panty-wadders thatjust because they don't like open carry, a law was not broken.



I don't care for people riding Mopeds in the street, even though it's legal. Sometimes they scare me. Maybe I can have them arrested.

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see, that's what i'm saying. That crap doesn't fly with me. the anti gun hippie tree huggers have no right to infringe on anothers constitutional right. I have as much of a right to OC as they do to spit that liberal hippie crap out of their mouths every day. and being a former LEO i just can't understand why any LEO in their right mind would enforce a law like that.

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The LEO you spoke to does not understand the GAttTotP law. If other LEOs on the JPD believe this, and use this "custom" as a normal way of conducting business with regards to Lawful Carry, they are in DIRECT violation of Federal Civil Rights Code, specifically [size="-1"][font="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"]Title 18, U.S.C., Sections 241[/font][/size][size="-1"][font="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"], because their actions would constitute a conspiracy to deprive rights under color of law. Perhaps someone needs to go to a Jacksonville City Council Meeting and bring this to their attention. The JPD, individual officers, and the City of Jacksonville could be held financially liable for these Civil Rights violations, and be made to pay substantial damages, and could even face imprisonment of up to 1 year.

The only way to deal with these people is to use their own system against them, and show them that they CAN and WILL be held liable--financially and legally--for their unlawful actions and misinformed operating procedures...
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To be legitimately charged with this violation, the person with the gun must be doing something "terrifying"--OTHER than wearing a gun secured in a holster. OC has been ruled as legal and legitimate in NC case law, and carrying a firearm is NOT per se, a violation of the GAttTotP statute. Please refer to "State v. Robert S. Huntley":

http://www.guncite.com/court/state/25nc418.html

Also, the mere fact that another person gets their pantys in a wad over seeing a "civilian" carrying a firearm is NOT automatic grounds for a LEO to charge the person with GAttTotP. A "MWAG" call sets in motion a chain of events that initiate an investigation that LEO's MUST follow up on. But once they establish that you weren't waving your gun around, or acting like an a$$hat, or making threatening remarks or whatever, they should let you be on your way.

A lot of 2A-unfriendly LEO's throw around the GAttTotP thing like it is just a charge they can file agains ANYONE with a gun at any time, to discourage OC. Nothing could be further from the truth. This charge has VERY specific conditions that must be met to be a legitimate charge, and unless all three "prongs" of this charge are met, it WILL NOT stick in a court. Throwing a GAttTotP charge at someone who is lawfully carrying is tantamount to "discrimination under color of the Law", and is a FEDERAL offense. Any time this charge is made against an OCer and later dismissed by the Court, the accused should IMMEDIATELY file a Federal Civil Rights suit under [size="-1"][font="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"]Title 18, U.S.C., Sections 241[/font][/size], 242, and 245, and possibly under Section [size="-1"][font="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"]14141 as well[/font][/size]. Any lawyer who can tie his own shoes and wipe his own a$$ should have a "slam dunk" on cases like this--the Federal Code is pretty straightforward:

http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/civilrights/statutes.htm

Personally, I think that any time a citizen calls in a MWAG to the police which is determined to be a "non-event", the caller should be charged with filing a false police report, and fined a sum of money sufficient to cover the lost time required to investigate the situation...

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AMEN brother, i couldn't believe what came out of this guy's mouth. someone who swore to defend the and enfore the LAW. and thanks for the references dreamer. definately gonna print that info out and carry it in my wallet

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Thinblue,

You might also want to print out the definition of the GAttTotP ruling as printed in the NC AG's "North Carolina Firearms Laws" booklet, which states: Please notice that this is NOT a "Statutory Law", it is a NC "common law". Also note that this violation has THREE distinct stipulations, and all three MUST be met for the charge to be valid. This means you 1) must be armed, 2) must have the PURPOSE to terrify others, and 3) be going about on the public highways in a manner to cause terror to others. If your actions of Lawfully Carrying do not meet all three stipulations, then this charge is NOT valid...

Under State v. Huntly, simply carrying a firearm lawfully DOES NOT fit these requirements, and is not a violation, even if someone is upset by seeing you carrying. The following quote is from the final paragraph of the Huntley ruling:LEO's are NOT lawyers or judges. We can't expect them to know ALL the laws--statutory AND common. However, if an LEO decides to charge people under a specific law, or hand out "legal advise" to the public, they SHOULD be aware of the nature, stipulations, limitations, and scope of the laws they are attempting to invoke.

If a law enforcement officer KNOWS the law and acts against it because of his personal opinions, then he is in violation of the "color of law" Codes under Federal Civil Rights law, and should be held responsible for his unlawful actions.

If an LEO doe NOT know the law, and makes something up because he thinks "there must be a law against that", then he should be sanctioned just the same, because for a "citizen", ignorance of the law is no excuse, and LEO's should at the VERY LEAST, be held to the same level of knowledge and civic responsibility as the People in matters of the law.

To give LEO's a "pass" on matters such as this is a gross miscarriage of our civic duty as Citizens, and also does a disservice to the Community at large because it allows "our trusted agents of the law" to continue to commit acts in direct violation of State and Federal Law, and as such, is the height of Civic Irresponsibility.

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6. Going Armed To The Terror Of The People
By common law in North Carolina, it is unlawful for a person to arm himself/herself with any unusual and dangerous weapon, for the purpose of terrifying others, and go about on public highways in a manner to cause terror to others.
So if I'm not on a public highway they can't charge me with GATTP????

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thinbluelines&w40ve wrote:

see, that's what i'm saying. That crap doesn't fly with me. the anti gun hippie tree huggers have no right to infringe on anothers constitutional right. I have as much of a right to OC as they do to spit that liberal hippie crap out of their mouths every day. and being a former LEO i just can't understand why any LEO in their right mind would enforce a law like that.

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I will point out that lumping hippies with tree-huggers and anti-gun nuts isn't too fair considering quite a few of them practice their 2nd amendment rights to the fullest, especially here in North Carolina.

REX681959 wrote:

6. Going Armed To The Terror Of The People
By common law in North Carolina, it is unlawful for a person to arm himself/herself with any unusual and dangerous weapon, for the purpose of terrifying others, and go about on public highways in a manner to cause terror to others.
So if I'm not on a public highway they can't charge me with GATTP????

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HA! Nice try, but since there is no statute defining GATTP then I can assure the history of case law on it will show plenty of convictions outside of being on a public highway.

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Dreamer wrote:
[



Under State v. Huntly, simply carrying a firearm lawfully DOES NOT fit these requirements, and is not a violation, even if someone is upset by seeing you carrying. The following quote is from the final paragraph of the Huntley ruling:

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Yea i just sent an email to the sheriff and the chief advising them of the situation, if i get no reply, i will go higher with the issue.

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Also, we need to remember that the NC common law ruling regarding GAttTotP is based on a case ruling under ENGLISH common law from the late 1600's, which was essentially repealed and overruled when the NC State Constitution was ratified in 1813, and was further bound and counteracted by "State v. Huntley"...

How the LEA's and DA's in NC can keep throwing the GAttTotP charge at people because of their personal dislike for Lawful OC is somewhat of a mystery. Technically, there is enough legal precedent to render the original GAttTotP ruling invalid under current NC case and common law.

About the ONLY time this charge sticks is when the accused was actually using a firearm to commit a REAL crime (such as assault or robbery), and they just throw it on the pile of charges to bulk up the case and extend sentencing.

Very few GAttTotP charges brought against citizens who were otherwise Lawfully carrying hold up in court. But the fact of the matter is that they should NEVER be brought in the first place, and even if a LEO issues a citation for this charge to someone for simply Lawfully Carrying, any DA who knows ANYTHING about NC case and common law SHOULD summarily dismiss the charge because of his oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of NC.

The fact that NC LEO's, DAs and the AG office continue to use this "violation" as a legal bludgeon to oppress the lawful exercise of our RKBA is a gross miscarriage of justice, a potential criminal conspiracy to deprive rights under color of law, and perhaps even edging dangerously close to a breach of Federal Civil Rights law...

Unfortunately, because the GAttTotP "violation" is not "statutory law", there is no way to remove it from the books, short of someone volunteering to become a "test case" and having the backing of a phalanx of very astute attorneys to fight the case, and get this "violation" ruled invalid in a trial. And even THEN, you would have to have a sympathetic judge or DA who would "publish" the ruling so that it would be entered formally into the case law record. This might happen someday on the State level, but I think it would, unfortunately, be nearly impossible to accomplish on the Federal Court level...

Perhaps we need to collect a list of LAC's who have been charged with GAttTotP here in NC, and file a class-action suit against the State. Anyone know any good lawyers who would take such a case on contingency?

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once again Dreamer, thanks for the info...How can i get some of those cards you hand out?? do i have to make em myself??

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Dreamer, wholly agreed and regardless of where "going armed" came from, the fact that there are convictions on the books since NC constitution was put in place and ratified, you're right, getting it dealt with statutorily will take an act of Congress.... well, the NC State General Assembly.

I think any law should be expressly defined on the books and common law thrown out. It leads to overly complicated cases, mainly for those that don't have easy access to case law resources, and it leaves things open too wide for LAC's to be tried and convicted.

A case was quoted to me of a guy walking around with, what I took as two single-action .45 LC revolvers, openly on a gun belt, old-style with bullets on the belt as well. He entered a financial institution, a woman got hysterical and the cops arrested the guy. He was charged with GAttTotP and I was told the charges stuck....

Why? I can only assume that the prosecutors and perhaps even the judge believed that even though the guy was not waiving his gun around or terrorizing people directly with it, his "unusual" or "ridiculous" display of the firearms could have only been meant to scare people. If the person was convicted, that opens up a world of anyone else being convicted, or not. The case and similar ones like it may be spun multiple ways possibly resulting in open-carriers being charged and possibly convicted more often. We'll see.

That's a scary thing.

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Thinbluelines,

I'm planning to have a BUNCH of my cards printed professionally this week. If I get them back in time, I'll bring them to the Jacksonville OC Dinner later this month and hand out a handful to everyone who attends...

(BTW, I tried to PM you, and there is something weird about your username that doesn't allow it to go through...)

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BTW, do you think I would be less likely to get hassled if i go out OCing with my Wife and two kids?

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Thinblueline,

Without a doubt, having your wife or other family members along will help keep things cool. The way our culture is, people (LEO's and "civilians) are more likely to try and "make an example" out of someone they don't like if that someone is alone. But if you are part of an obvious group, and ESPECIALLY if that group is a family unit, these pseudo-authorities seem to be MUCH less likely to stomp all over your rights under color of law, or through some self-perceived level of authority. They are also much less likely to spout nonsense that they just make up on the spot, because there are reliable witnesses around who are almost GUARANTEED to take your side if it goes before a judge...

I get a fair amount of "looks" when I'm out on my own, but when I'm with my wife or daughter, or a small group, people don't even seem to see that I'm carrying. I think when they see me with my family they assume that I'm an off-duty LEO...

Funny thing is, almost every department in NC actually PROHIBITS their officers to open-carry in public while off duty. Most folks don't know that. It iritates me to no end when some self-important "manager" comes up to me in a store and asks if I'm a LEO--like that matters one bit under NC law as to my to carry. And if I WAS a cop, they would never see my firearm, because I would be required to CC whil off-duty in most municipalities. People are stupid...

I think the reason many "managers" ask if you are a cop, is because they think that they'll throw you off by invoking the police. Most folks who are OC "activists" are knowledgeable enough in the law, and with Situational Awareness, that we sort of expect this sort of foolishness, and most of us have rehearsed it hundreds of times in our heads, so that we can give a calm, measures, appropriately authoritative response that will usuall throw THEM off. That is when the "spluttering" usually begins with these "anti's" in the retail world...

It's a strange society in which we live. The citizens have absolutely no idea what the law is but seem to think that if they've heard it on TV or seen it in the papers, it MUST be true, and the LEO's are specifically trained in the law, yet choose to ignore the parts that conflict with their personal opinions or egos...

Orwell's 1984 is here folks. History is being flushed down the "memory hole" every day--in our schools, on TV, and in the print media. Its up to us, through exercising our RIGHTS as outlined in the Amendments--1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 10th--to ensure that the People do not have these rights erased from their memory. It's also up to us to ensure that our Government does not erase these rights through the creeping intrusion of "policy" and "conventions"...

Talk about Open Carry.

Walk about while Open Carrying.

Do not allow people to question your right to carry.

But the most important thing is to CARRY every day, everywhere you can, and to conduct yourself with a relaxed, polite and "normal" demeanor. Normalization is a LONG process, and we've got DECADES of brainwashing of the public to overcome.

Its going to take MILLIONS of man-hours to achieve this.

Every day we DON'T lawfully carry in public is one more day the anti's have to pile up lies against us...