Great meeting. Glad to see you guys.
The uber-statist candidate for Loudoun sheriff was a joke. I was definitely unimpressed. He just confessed to being part of a vast sucking sound near my tax money and the national debt. Bet he just loves no-knock warrants.
The first speaker was a little better. At least he informed us on the state of our rights regarding defensive lethal force, rather than spend most of his time telling us how great he was. I would have liked to hear what he meant exactly when he said he supported 2A. We're a saavy crowd. We wanna hear the particulars; we know how politicians say they support 2A, but then say 2A only means guns for the National Guard.
I almost fell out of my chair laughing at the cop who did most of the speaking. Early on he said he wanted cop-armed citizen encounters to not be adversarial. Then later, during scenario role-playing with Philip Van Cleave, totally contradicted himself by saying he was checking to see if Philip was drunk and (insert two or three other characteristics here). Not adversarial? Suuuuuure. What a buncha double-speak. They want us to be un-adversarial is what they mean, to not know they are in fact being entirely adversarial. The old wisdom applies: The cop is not your friend. He is looking for a violation.
Oh, and that business about going in Philip's pocket for his CHP! What a hilarious over-caution. The damn statute (18.2-308H) says, "...shall display...". It does not say a goddam thing about me having to let a cop reach in my pocket, get my wallet, and have access to all the contents of my wallet. Oh, and don't forget. If there is anything in your wallet that could somehow be construed to give reasonable suspicion or probable cause of a separate offense, you just just consented to the cop looking in your wallet, and anything else he finds (or puts there, although hopefully rare) might now be admissable in court.
And, did you notice the way he pestered Philip when Philip didn't want to talk, saying he was busy and had to go? Philip clearly refused consent to an encounter in his first response, but cop wasn't willing to respect his right to refuse, trying to get Philip to change his refusal (rather than respect it) by suggesting it will only take a moment, and, after that was refused, even offering Philip a ride. This was the same cop who earlier had said there were three types of encounters, including consensual.
And, they wanted to build support and respect. <snort>
