Standard letter to Police Chiefs requesting local policy on open carry and MWAG responses

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Judge Blackstone said "It is better that ten guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer"

That in a nutshell is how our judicial system should work. Innocent until proven guilty.

In the case of open carrying which in CT does require a permit (either to open or conceal) UNLESS there is reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime has, is, or is about to happen then they have no legal justification for demanding to see your permit to carry pistols and revolvers.

If you are walking down the street minding your own business not breaking any laws etc and a police officer happens to notice your lovely sidearm he MAY legally engage you in conversation and in doing so try and gain some evidence of a crime in progress, if you are not being "detained" then you are under no legal compunction to converse with him. If he believes he has reasonable articulable suspicion then he will detain you in the hopes he can find out more and get the next level of probable cause in which case you will be arrested.

You gain very little by talking to the police if they initiate an informal investigation trying to find out something about you they can use against you.

The most often repeated advice in any of the state forums in this site is along these lines:

You: Am I under arrest?
PO: No
PO: Yes (go to arrested)
You: Am I being detained?
PO: No ( You: if I am neither under arrest nor being detained then I am free to go - and leave)
PO: Yes
You: (stop talking and answer no questions)

Arrested: Demand to speak to a lawyer and answer NO questions without counsel.

I thought this line of behavior was a bit heavy handed until I read more stories of what happens when you DON'T establish the ground rules early on.

If a police officer acting under color of law holds you against your will with no probable cause to suspect you are guilty of a crime then he/she has violated your civil rights. There is NO qualified immunity in civil rights violations.

If you, like Mr Goldberg in Glastonbury, are arrested and carted off to jail for doing NOTHING illegal, your rights as a human being have been violated. You may then bring a civil rights suit against the department and the officer(s) personally for this violation and the damages awarded for such are usually quite steep.

The police are supposed to know this stuff cold, and many do but prey on the public that do not know it and that's how a lot of regular Joe's wind up in a jackpot. If you're going to be arrested you will NOT be able to talk yourself out of it and you will make things worse for yourself in trying.


Now if a cop were to walk up and say hello and ask what model pistol it is, well it's up to you if you want to talk guns with them. The second it goes from being a pistol lovefest to a question/answer session your spidey senses should be going into overdrive and your mouth should be clamped shut.

Good discussions though, it's a lot to think about.

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Judge Blackstone said "It is better that ten guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer"

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Sounds good in theory & in a perfect world it would work that way. But how many people end up with restraining orders etc being treated guilty with no trial or before a trial. These days its more common to hassle a whole bunch in hopes of preventing one crime.

You may be under no legal compunction to show your permit when walking around minding your business, but I'd say in most cases refusing to do so will not make the incident any better.

I do agree totally with keeping your yap shut if showing your permit doesn't end the situation. Arguing or pleading your case to a cop will never help.

Guns & open carrying in particular are going to be a hot topic for awhile now in CT and creating the impression that we cooperate with reasonable police activities can, I'd tend to think only help. If time proves out that people OCing is no biggie then it'll become accepted, possibly to the point that it no longer raises eyebrows and these discussions will be moot.

As it stands now, every Norwalk cop I'v asked said if they got a call about a man with a gun, upon arrival they'd ascertain what was going on & if the person had a permit. If he/she has a permit & did nothing wrong its over. I'll have to ask about what if the guy refused to show his permit, but I expect that the officers would have no option at that point but to treat it as if he/she had no permit.

I think we need to admit that carry, open or concealed is NOT treated as a right in CT at the moment. You dont need permits to excercise civil rights, and carrying on as if it were will do us no good. Its kinda like worrying about a fire in the fireplace while the house is ablaze.

Now if we had a "right" to carry it'd be an entirely different tune from my mouth. But if I have to beg from an issueing authority, the permision to carry a gun, I just dont see a problem with showing that authority my permit if asked in most situations.

I dont think the issue in Golbergs case was them asking to see a permit. It was them deciding to arrest him anyway. I think also his criminal case might not have turned out the same if he had not cooperated with the police upon their arrival.

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I understand what you are saying. We live in an imperfect world and the best we can do is make positive changes as we go.

Reasonableness would be a huge part of my decision making process. If I get approached (versus accosted) by a police officer and asked versus demanded for a look at my permit then I may be more inclined to show him/her the permit.

I'm not suggesting that every police encounter will go poorly, but if they are coming down like a ton of bricks over a basically non-issue then don't expect me to behave to them like they are doing me a favor.

We can show ourselves to be a reasonable bunch IF we are treated with courtesy and respect. If we are not treated that way and get steamrolled over because a cop has an opinion that doesn't jive with ours (or the statutes) then he can learn his lesson at the end of a judges gavel. Not my choice that's on him/her.

We are all civilians here, even the cops. They have no more right to interfere with a lawful activity than another non-uniformed person. The only people that aren't civilian are military and thankfully the police aren't military (yet).

We've been treated as 2nd class citizens for far too long, personally I'm glad the Tea-party and Obama protestors chose to open carry and get the issue squarely out into the open (if you'll pardon the pun). There's no real reason why an openly carried firearm in the possession of a lawful person is any more or less an issue than a concealed one. People react to things they don't know or don't have experience with yet but that perception doesn't affect the legality of what they are reacting to. That's like me getting a sunburn and then claiming the sun is hot and dangerous because I got a sunburn. Give enough exposure (or sun screen) the suns rays would have little to no effect on me - same with getting the public used to firearms in the hands of good guys.

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Please add Ridgefield, Danbury, Wilton, Norwalk to your list

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GoldCoaster wrote:

I understand what you are saying. We live in an imperfect world and the best we can do is make positive changes as we go.

Reasonableness would be a huge part of my decision making process. If I get approached (versus accosted) by a police officer and asked versus demanded for a look at my permit then I may be more inclined to show him/her the permit.

I'm not suggesting that every police encounter will go poorly, but if they are coming down like a ton of bricks over a basically non-issue then don't expect me to behave to them like they are doing me a favor.

We can show ourselves to be a reasonable bunch IF we are treated with courtesy and respect. If we are not treated that way and get steamrolled over because a cop has an opinion that doesn't jive with ours (or the statutes) then he can learn his lesson at the end of a judges gavel. Not my choice that's on him/her.

We are all civilians here, even the cops. They have no more right to interfere with a lawful activity than another non-uniformed person. The only people that aren't civilian are military and thankfully the police aren't military (yet).

We've been treated as 2nd class citizens for far too long, personally I'm glad the Tea-party and Obama protestors chose to open carry and get the issue squarely out into the open (if you'll pardon the pun). There's no real reason why an openly carried firearm in the possession of a lawful person is any more or less an issue than a concealed one. People react to things they don't know or don't have experience with yet but that perception doesn't affect the legality of what they are reacting to. That's like me getting a sunburn and then claiming the sun is hot and dangerous because I got a sunburn. Give enough exposure (or sun screen) the suns rays would have little to no effect on me - same with getting the public used to firearms in the hands of good guys.

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I do agree with much of what you say. The "second class citizen" goes a bit far though. The OC demonstrations in NH & AZ were great but have little bearing on CT. Even if OC here is accepted we still need a permit to excercise a God given right, that makes us second class citizens more than the limitations inherent in that permit.
My position is that CT, in regards to handguns, does not recognize our RKBA. You have no right in this state to carry at all lacking a permit, so its perfectly reasonable IMO to be asked to show it when found carrying in public by a LEO. Heck hunting & fishing licenses must be shown.

The only reason OC gets more reaction is because people see it, likely a concealed one would cause a greater issue when seen anyway.

At any rate the only places we seem to really disagree is regarding the showing of a permit if asked. I'd think it would make us look more responsible to simply show it & be done with it than make a big deal out of it. If they are going to arrest you anyway it can only work in your benefit to be able to say you cooperated & they still arrested you for not breaking the law. What benefit would a person gain by refusing to show their permit & getting arrested for it instead of cooperating & getting arrested? Also I'd think it would place more culpability on the LEO if he arrested you anyway even after having been shown that you have a permit to carry.

But these are just my thoughts, I'm not a lawyer or scholar. Just a CT citizen trying to excercise my rights.

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Rickie201 wrote:

Please add Ridgefield, Danbury, Wilton, Norwalk to your list

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Soon as this is done I'll send one to Norwalk. Its probably a good idea for these to come from a resident of the town/city in question.

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It's more than semantics but I agree with you on a lot of points.

If a LEO makes a DEMAND to see your permit, legal or not, they are going to see it. You are going to be cuffed and stuffed and hell, perhaps even tased if they haven't used theirs in a while.

What my objection is to this is if everybody just acquiesces to their "forcefully stated requests" then you are making the request consensual. You can't go back later and say "It was an illegal search and seizure of my person" because they will say "We asked for his permit and he gave it to us".

If they decide they ARE going to see it, it makes no difference to them if you say yes or not. You have to ask them "are you asking or demanding?" if they say "demanding" then you answer with "I do not consent to any search of my person but I am not going to resist your unlawful actions" or something. That statement (when captured on a suitable voice recorder) will show that (A) you did NOT give up your 4th amendment rights and (B) you did not resist them in the process of violating them.

When you find yourself in a federal civil rights suit it will show the court that YOU refused a consensual search/seizure, you notified them of such and they went and did it anyway. That makes their actions willful at that point if they continue.

We do need to show ourselves to be responsible adults when carrying (and at other times too) but we should also NOT just cower in the face of authority.

Do you see what I'm trying to say?

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GoldCoaster wrote:

It's more than semantics but I agree with you on a lot of points.

If a LEO makes a DEMAND to see your permit, legal or not, they are going to see it. You are going to be cuffed and stuffed and hell, perhaps even tased if they haven't used theirs in a while.

What my objection is to this is if everybody just acquiesces to their "forcefully stated requests" then you are making the request consensual. You can't go back later and say "It was an illegal search and seizure of my person" because they will say "We asked for his permit and he gave it to us".

If they decide they ARE going to see it, it makes no difference to them if you say yes or not. You have to ask them "are you asking or demanding?" if they say "demanding" then you answer with "I do not consent to any search of my person but I am not going to resist your unlawful actions" or something. That statement (when captured on a suitable voice recorder) will show that (A) you did NOT give up your 4th amendment rights and (B) you did not resist them in the process of violating them.

When you find yourself in a federal civil rights suit it will show the court that YOU refused a consensual search/seizure, you notified them of such and they went and did it anyway. That makes their actions willful at that point if they continue.

We do need to show ourselves to be responsible adults when carrying (and at other times too) but we should also NOT just cower in the face of authority.

Do you see what I'm trying to say?

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Yup, put like that it makes more sense in a bunch of ways.

I can see resisting like that if theyre being abusive or an arrest is obviously going to happen.

But I can also see people arbitrarily refusing to show it, just because they can, creating arrests where there would have been none otherwise. Even though in the end that person may well win out in court, my fear is that those instances will publicize the confusion & misunderstanding of current law, and cause the introduction of more legislation to "fix" what we dont see as broken. Most non shooters I talk to seem to think the problem is that open carry isn't forbidden, not that the police dont know the law. They arent necesarilly afraid of people OCing, but seem more perplexed as to why someone would want to & they sympathise more with people getting nervous than with us getting hassled. In short I dont find it hard to see support for required concealment gain momentum. Thats something I surely dont want to happen.

In many or most instances where no crime has been commited most LEO will, I think, let you go once they find out you have a permit. I cant see many letting you walk if you refuse, the liability would be too great, regardless of if that liability is realistic or not.

Anyway, while I certainly do agree with most of what you & Rich are saying, in most cases I dont see showing my permit to a LEO or even a concerned citizen who asks for it as cowering before authority. If anything I cowered before authority already just to get that permit. What reason do I even need it for if not to prove to reasonable inquiry that I can legally carry?

Thats why I can see the rationality of it being very wrong in NH, AZ, VA & other states like that for the law to question you just for carrying, because everybody there has a right to carry openly. But not here where only permit holders can. In those states very few people can not carry while here only very few can and because of that it seems, to me, reasonable that an officer, especially if responding to a complaint, ask to see your permit.

I want to say thanks for indulging me with reasonable respectful discussion on this issue. Theres a wide spectrum of opinions on all this among the gun owning community and we need to stick together and understand each other to be effective.

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Likewise!

I'm not saying do it my way or you're a coward, far from it! to each their own, all I wanted to do was shine a light on the other side of the equation which I apparently did pretty well.

I enjoy a bit of scholarly dialog myself so thanks for that.

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GoldCoaster wrote:

Likewise!

I'm not saying do it my way or you're a coward, far from it! to each their own, all I wanted to do was shine a light on the other side of the equation which I apparently did pretty well.

I enjoy a bit of scholarly dialog myself so thanks for that.

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Scholarly.:lol: My wife bout spit up her coffee just now seeing a discussion involving me called scholarly.

Anyway, thanks again & rest assured I'll be forwarding this or something similar to our chief & mayor soon.

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I have my non-resident Ct license going on 6 years.I just renewed it.I have relatives in Bloomfield & always cc while there.I oc almost all the time here in Pa.Now reading about the oc movement in Ct,does anyone oc in theBloomfield & Hartford areas?I would like to start oc when I am up there next time.

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I OC in Hartford. No issue yet, and a forum member mentioned that Hartford PD is now training officers that is has always been legal.

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When I was at Cabelas in Hartford last year I was talking to a guy there.He said that its is legal to oc but at the time the police would arrest you & revoke your license.Then the charges would be dropped but they would make you spend lots of money to get your license back.The police here in Pa last year had an oc class with their yearly training.Hardly any problems here anymore.

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Just a couple of thoughts.

1) Rich B made a point about better educating dispachers. I can't agree more. A friend of mine has land in Deep River. We started shooting up there last year.
Where we shoot is about 1000 ft from the nearest house and we are shooting away from the house.

The first time we went shooting a trooper and a local showed up and asked us what we were doing. My friend identified himself and said we were shooting in compliance with all state and local laws. We were in the midst of packing to go home, so we really weren't able to make a stand. But I made the point of telling the trooper that if someone is ignorant of the law and becomes alarmed, its not our problem. I'd appreciate it if he could educate the citizen.

Then my friend told the LEOs to get off his property. They complied.

Cops respect assertiveness when they know you have done nothing wrong.

The next time we went shooting, I called the dispatch folks and gave them the address where we would be shooting. I suggested that if they got a "gunfire" call to ask if the caller was near there then tell them that legal target practice was going on.

I don't know what they said, but no LEOs showed up. And we were much louder that day than we were the previous time we shot there. (AR15s with muzzle brakes)

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One other thing.

I would love to get some clarification as to if you need to show a pistol permit if requested.

My assumption has always been that you do. Simply put, if you are doing something that requires you to be licensed, then law enforcement can ask to see your license.

I know this to be the case when driving a car and flying an airplane. But then again, driving and flying aren't guaranteed by our Constitution. Also the law explicitly says you must present your credentials if requested, when it comes to cars and airplanes.

So Goldcoaster, Ed Peruta, you guys are legally savvy. Any thoughts??

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Referring back to a FOIA (that Ed Peruta snagged from DPS) as instructions to the CSP when attending the 2A march in Hartford.

"State Police personnel should not request individuals to produce their pistol permits unless such individual has become the subject of a law enforcement investigative inquiry for another reason."

That tells me that DPS legal knows that barring any OTHER investigative reason for asking to see your permit, the mere presence of a pistol is not sufficient grounds to request such.

As for flying an airplane, that's not a licensed activity it's a certificated activity. My pilots "license" is not a license at all but a certificate. It doesn't expire and to lose it you have to have it revoked (for cause one would hope) - However that doesn't mean that when an FAA inspector walks up to you on the ramp and asks to see your pilot certificate and medical that can tell them to pound sand.

I wouldn't say I'm any more legally savvy than anyone else but I read a lot and ask questions. The more you know, the more you know you don't know and take steps to fill in the gaps.

At the end of the day why do you need to know the law and your rights within them? Because chances are if you are needing to know the law it's because law enforcement is in your face making demands which you need to know if they are lawful or just his/her interpretation of legal.

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dcmon, I believe, first, that all one is required to give in any contact is your name and place of residence when out and about. Unfortunately, case law allows LEOs to expect that from you.

As far as drivers licenses, it is only by state law that you are obligated to give your license, per CGS 14-217: http://search.cga.state.ct.us/dlsurs/sur/htm/chap248.htm#Sec14-217.htm

Unless there is Probable Cause that you are committing a crime or in the process of committing a crime, they have no legal authority to expect to see your pistol permit. I suppose the slippery slope would be for the LEO to say that you might be committing a class D felony by carrying without having a permit, or an infraction for not having it on you. But, the fact of having a gun on you is not enough grounds to suspect you are doing so illegally.

Caveat Emptor: I am not an Attorney

A good book to read is "You & the Police!" by Boston T. Party: http://www.amazon.com/You-Police-Bo...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276010650&sr=8-1

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dcmdon wrote:

One other thing.

I would love to get some clarification as to if you need to show a pistol permit if requested.

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I am working on this analysis now -- pouring through state and federal case law. I will start a thread as soon as I come to a conclusion.

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Thank you very much.

Knowing unequivocally whether we need to show a pistol permit or not will be a great help.

conversely, finding out that the law is vague or silent on this matter would be good to know.

Like I've said in the past. As a father of 2 little girls, I'm willing to do my part, but I'm not willing to be on the bleeding edge. Family responsibilities require that I retain my pistol permit.

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Good CCLD Meeting on 6/8/2010 Rich B.on O/C.RIGHT.1 MORE FOR CT.To Bear Arms