freedomdepartment
Regular Member
imported post
Just had my first OC interaction with a cop. This was in Nashville (Nash County).
I was at a gas station, and was pulling away from the gas pump, when I drove into the side of a moving vehicle I didn't see coming. Totally my fault, no injuries, no major vehicular damage, very low speeds, no biggie.
My issue, though, was what happened after we waited for the cop to show up to type up an accident report. The cop pulls up to our vehicles, gets out of his cruiser, I step out of my truck OC'ing, he looks at me and says something like "Put that gun in your truck NOW." (I forget exactly how he worded it, but that was the general jist of it). Being that I didn't want to get myself in trouble with a cop, especially in a public place with everybody already staring at me, and being at-fault in an accident, and being that I was driving without insurance (and thus a suspended registration), I decided to say "Yes sir. Is putting it on the passenger seat okay?" and comply.
After waiting for half an hour while he typed up the citation and all that, he walked up to my window and explained the citation, etc., and after that he added (again, these weren't his exact words, just paraphrasing) "But sir, there's one other concern I have here today. Why did you walk up to a police offier with a gun?" I told him "I was under the impression that open-carry is legal in North Carolina." He said "No sir, it's called 'to the terror of the people', that's why only police officers in North Carolina can open-carry. If you want to do it on your own land, that's fine, but not in public."
I'm under the impression that he is incorrect - HOWEVER, that's from reading things I've seen on pro-open-carry websites online, not talking to a lawyer or reading the actual legal cases for myself. Either way, even if he was incorrect, he could have jammed me up on so many violations (again, driving without insurance, etc.) which he didn't, that I figured it was in my best interest to not look a gift horse in the mouth by giving a hard time to an officer who just let me off on a whole bunch of charges.
Do you think I handled it right? What would y'all have done?
Just had my first OC interaction with a cop. This was in Nashville (Nash County).
I was at a gas station, and was pulling away from the gas pump, when I drove into the side of a moving vehicle I didn't see coming. Totally my fault, no injuries, no major vehicular damage, very low speeds, no biggie.
My issue, though, was what happened after we waited for the cop to show up to type up an accident report. The cop pulls up to our vehicles, gets out of his cruiser, I step out of my truck OC'ing, he looks at me and says something like "Put that gun in your truck NOW." (I forget exactly how he worded it, but that was the general jist of it). Being that I didn't want to get myself in trouble with a cop, especially in a public place with everybody already staring at me, and being at-fault in an accident, and being that I was driving without insurance (and thus a suspended registration), I decided to say "Yes sir. Is putting it on the passenger seat okay?" and comply.
After waiting for half an hour while he typed up the citation and all that, he walked up to my window and explained the citation, etc., and after that he added (again, these weren't his exact words, just paraphrasing) "But sir, there's one other concern I have here today. Why did you walk up to a police offier with a gun?" I told him "I was under the impression that open-carry is legal in North Carolina." He said "No sir, it's called 'to the terror of the people', that's why only police officers in North Carolina can open-carry. If you want to do it on your own land, that's fine, but not in public."
I'm under the impression that he is incorrect - HOWEVER, that's from reading things I've seen on pro-open-carry websites online, not talking to a lawyer or reading the actual legal cases for myself. Either way, even if he was incorrect, he could have jammed me up on so many violations (again, driving without insurance, etc.) which he didn't, that I figured it was in my best interest to not look a gift horse in the mouth by giving a hard time to an officer who just let me off on a whole bunch of charges.
Do you think I handled it right? What would y'all have done?