Friday, June 20, 2008

Licensing the Right intention

Via The Breda Fallacy - An Ohio man was stopped by cops for open carrying (OC) and recorded the whole thing. He says that the cops were very professional, with the exception of the sergeant who had this to say:
Sergeant: "Your permit allows you to carry concealed. It’s not an invitation, it’s not a permit to carry with it exposed so you can go on your self-righteous tangent about educating people about the Second Amendment. I'm all for the Second Amendment, I’m a huge supporter, NRA card carrying member, all that good shit. I’m not talking down to you as a gun grabber or anti gun piece of shit. Bottom line is you did do something wrong. We can charge you with inducing panic or disorderly conduct. It’s not the intention of the law. It’s not the intention of the right you went and got the license for."
This is yet another reason why I hate being "permitted" to carry my little pistol. I covered some of my reasons awhile ago. The Constitution doesn't protect my right to "keep and bear arms only in the possession of a valid state permit, and only concealed." It doesn't protect my right to carry "in the manner that some federal, state, or local law enforcement officer or elected official says it does."

It says I can keep and bear them. Period.

"Licensing" or "permitting" me to exercise my right is as close to having it taken away as I can possibly stand. There is also this disconnect within the gun rights community as far as "I'm a gun owner too, but...," mantra, and it seems to be the the case with this cop as well:

While Bryan is talking about the Second Amendment:

Sergeant:
"Shut up, don’t talk to me about that, I taught the goddamn class. It doesn’t allow you to walk around with it exposed."

I can't see that we're gaining any ground as long as we're condoning the outright control of our rights with these little cards that say what someone else thinks they are.

4 comments:

Mike W. said...

actually the moron is right, the permit doesn't allow you to walk around with it exposed.

We have the right to walk around with guns exposed, and we're permitted to hide them. Huge difference. If there's no law against something it is thereby legal. That's a basic tenet of our legal system.

As for me, well my State Constitution says I can bear arms to defend myself, family, home, state etc. No ambiguity there, nothing about a permit, concealment etc. Unless the cop can tell me specifically what law prohibits my actions I don't care how he "feels" about it.

Someone else's opinion is not law, and it has no bearing on my actions, even if that opinion is coming from an LEO.

Unknown said...

I've heard that Delaware is a pretty gun friendly state. Is that true?

I don't normally travel North of VA. There is a stigma with northern states around here because of NY and NJ, and most don't realize that states like NH are pro gun.

Unknown said...

I've heard that Delaware is a pretty gun friendly state. Is that true?

I don't normally travel North of VA. There is a stigma with northern states around here because of NY and NJ, and most don't realize that states like NH are pro gun.

Mike W. said...

Yeah we're pretty good considering we're surrounded by Philly, MD/Baltimore, NJ and DC.

The only really "bad" law we have is that we're still "may-issue" for CCW and I suspect a huge part of that is because the Brady's will do whatever is necessary to avoid having Sarah Brady's home state go "Shall-Issue." That'd be really bad PR for the anti's.