imported post
Thanks for the reference material, especially to Ronnie's dissertation. I find it interesting that a number of postings here agree with my original remarks about 270 being confusing. THAT was mostly the basis for my entire premise, and I think we are all agreed that it needs to be re-defined.
Having said that, since all the doo-doo flying yesterday I have done some further reading on the subject, notably the training bulletins for Olympia, Bellevue and Seattle. From these I can see that strictly speaking OC is legal, but there is a fine line, again created by the ambiguity in .270 about the meaning of "causes alarm". If an OC'er causes some citizen alarm, that person will make the "man with a gun" call to 911, and without exception in these training bulletins, police have to respond. This is the confrontation that I personally do not want to risk, no matter the outcome.
I wanted to find out what local LE's position is on this so I went to the station and asked to speak to an officer. He confirmed that they know OC is legal and cited a case just last week that he personally responded to. Someone reported a man carrying a rifle in the downtown area. The officer approached the man as his department's policy required, and asked for ID. He did NOT confiscate the rifle, or even temporarily take possession of it as hewould have beenallowed to do. After determining that this man was no threat, the incident ended. The point is, even though what this person was doing was entirely legal, he was contacted by police because of his activity.
As to the police training bulletins: There are a number of statements in these that cause me some concern. For example, in the Seattle document the instruction to Responding officers there is an item which states "Consider and document any victim(s) who are reasonably fearful of the conduct of the suspect." This leaves it entirely up to a citizen who reports an OC to define whether he/she is fearful, and if this is stated to the responding officer it appears to me it is grounds to arrest. So, if I am open carrying and get into an argument with someone, and the argument grows heated, just because I have a visible weapon that person could rightfully claim that I was a threat. Someone on the street might see the gun and start such an argument. A situation like this would put me in an indefensible position with no exit. And in this case, I am certain I would be in violation of .270 and subject to arrest. Not my idea of a good day.
The Bellevue bulletin cites a number of cases involving .270 that I found interesting. State v. Mitchell, at the end of the bulletin was about a person walking down a residential street at night. "When ordered to stop and raise his hands, he tossed his weapon into nearby shrubbery. Openly carrying such a weapon at that time and place was sufficient to warrant reasonable suspicion that this statute was being violated." Two elements come to mind about this case: 1. this guy was pretty stupid to toss his gun when he must have known the police knew he had it; 2. The court ruled he was in violation simply for having the weapon at that time and place, yet if he had it in what may have been reasonable circumstances calling for self-defense, why did the court rule against him? The answer to that may have been my first item, but the court seemed to be saying he should not have had it in the first place. Perhaps there was suspicion that he was about to commit a crime --- we can't know that without reading the case.
Nuff said --- I'm winded.
