Understood, DanW.
Equinox137 perhaps you are a cop, thin blue line and all that, and are taking this as a personal attack on you/your profession. Please don't- I don't take your attempts to be condescending personally. I'm certain you are a nice guy and upstanding citizen and not a troll, despite all appearances.
No sir, I'm not taking anything as a personal attack. I'm also not trying to be condescending, I'm trying to provide others with a perspective most people likely don't have.
Notwithstanding (or because?) of all your extensive training, exhaustive knowledge & world-class experience you appear to view everything as a privilege that must be approved by authorities or else you are asking for trouble. Rights certainly come with responsibilities- but not an approval checklist. You are promoting serfdom not citizenship.
Not at all - I don't view everything as a privilege. However in this day and age, carrying a weapon on your person is legally a privilege. As I said before, I don't like that myself, but that's the way it is.
If I was "promoting serfdom not citizenship", I would be saying "just leave your guns at home and let the police handle it" like most of the sheep in our society.
Back to the discussion: Are you claiming a policeman can say whatever he wants in his capacity as an officer and it's protected free speech? That is what I understand you to be arguing.
Yes, that is correct....and there is plenty of case law to back that up. Departments have a very hard time disciplining officers to the point of termination on something like that because the facts of what was said can easily be disputed, not to mention that the FOP and other LE unions would be all over them, as well as getting spanked in the courts. You'd have to say something pretty scandalous, such as the repeated use of a racial slur, before something like that would begin to stick.
Departments don't just fire an officer and walk him/her out the door. It doesn't work like that. There has to be "progressive discipline" and even when the decision to terminate an employee is made by a chief, sheriff, or department head, it's still not over. The termination almost
always goes to a civil service commission, a merit commission, etc... where the documentation is reviewed and a hearing is held where testimony is obtained and most of the rules in criminal court apply. IF the commission upholds the termination, then the employee has the option of filing suit in both state and federal court, where the same thing happens again. It's not a matter of "you're fired, clean out your locker" and it's done with the employee never to be seen again...like it is in the civilian workplace.
There are also sticky issues such as the "Garrity Rule". This generally states that statements an officer makes to IA investigators can not be used against him/her during a criminal trial. That would make it very difficult for an officer to be fired AND prosecuted for a statement made during the course of one's duties.
How exactly did he make firearms owners look bad? Please be specific.
To quote you 'Errrr....ummmm..." if 'bear arms" doesn't explicitly & exactly mean carrying a gun what does it mean? Please be specific.
How did he make firearms owners look bad? Primarily because Mr. Miller's stated purpose was to "to spark dialogue about Second Amendment rights" i.e. he went there with the intention of causing a scene. He wasn't just sitting in the park enjoying an apple when the knuckle-dragging, jack-booted police showed up and hassled him - he was deliberately looking for a confrontation over the open carry issue. My guess is that Mr. Miller went to the park in the hopes that he would get arrested and his gun confiscated so he could sue and get precedent setting case law on OC - and when the cops didn't take the bait, he sued anyway in the hopes he might get at least a little bit of lemonade out of that (dry) lemon. Either way, he is going to lose...
big... when his case goes to court, and when he does, he might do gun rights more harm than good. This is especially in CO, where they're fighting over whether or not colleges can ban CCW on campus. I'd rather have CCW on campus right now. You're giving away your tactical advantage with OC anyway.
Because of guilt by association, he makes it look like firearms owners everywhere are like that...to the sheep. I'm certainly not. I carry everywhere I go, but I always make sure my weapon is concealed - not only because I'd rather have the element of surprise during an engagement, but I also have the responsibility to not cause undue alarm among other citizens. You might say "well, they're just ignorant sheep". That may be true, but those are the same ignorant sheep that vote in the politicians that support or oppose gun rights. Mr. Miller is not succeeding in "opening eyes" - he is alienating people....people that don't have gun rights on the front burner in their lives. Most people don't. Look at the proportion of CHP holders in Nebraska compared to the overall population...
The right to bear arms means specifically owning arms. That's what
McDonald and
Heller was all about. Even Scalia stated that the right to bear arms doesn't mean that there can't be "reasonable regulation" attached. Now the fight is going to be about what's reasonable. Not whether or not a citizen can own a handgun, as was the case in Chicago.
You state the Police had a duty to respond to the call- no argument there. The issue comes from how it was handled.
One of the common complaints that LEOs have about the public is that "everybody knows how to do the job better than we do."
Since you asked me for specifically how Mr. Miller made firearms owners look bad, and I answered you - I think it's fair for you to reciprocate. How would you have handled this call? Keep in mind that you don't know the subject personally, his intentions, mental and emotional status, etc..
The rub is that you believe, by your words, it is not 'common sense' to exercise your rights (in this case under Colorado law specifically) and doing so is stirring up trouble.
He wasn't "exercising his rights", he was doing something that was not statutorily illegal. There's a big difference. There is nothing in the Colorado Constitution that guarantees the public the right to carry a weapon openly and publicly. Colorado could ban OC next year and there's not much anyone could do about it, otherwise you'd be able to strap your Smith to your hip in downtown Chicago, right?
It appears you think the Minutemen should have laid down their muskets at Lexington, Rosa Parks should have just sat in the back of the bus and Dick Heller should have accepted the status quo in DC. After all, again in your words, 'that's just being realistic'. Society has dictated 'guns are scary' the cops are enforcing that and we all need to comply. To do otherwise makes one a rabble-rouser that deserves extra police attention.
1. The Minutemen was a military force confronting another military force. Apples and oranges.
2. Rosa Parks defied authority because the law discriminated against her based on something she could not possibly change -
not something she chose to do and accept the responsibility for.
3. Heller fought within the law and with the help of the SAF, and won big - not by trying to generate unnecessary attention.
As for your assertion that he wasn't detained by force, I again disagree. If he had briefly explained himself then politely refused to submit to further scrutiny would he been free to walk away? No, he was detained and not free to leave. He would have been arrested by force if he didn't comply. Explain to me that implied or threat of force is not force.
You just contradicted yourself here. You're claiming he was detained with force, yet you yourself stated "he
would have been arrested
by force if he didn't comply".
When you do not put hands on someone, use intermediate weapon control (i.e. OC or tasers), or deadly weapons to gain compliance from a subject - you are not using force. This isn't merely my assertion, this is case law and departmental policy at just about every agency in the U.S. Officers give verbal commands everyday, yet they're not filling out use of force reports on every verbal command given.
Now was this episode the very picture of tyranny? No, but it shows how far we have to go regarding gun rights, obviously including some gun owners in our midst.
I agree, we still have far to go. Letting property owners put up a ridiculous "gun free zone" sign and have that sign backed up by force of law is assinine, IMO. I certainly hope that portion of NRS 69-2441 (1)(a) goes away in the next few years, but I'm not going to march in front of Westwood Plaza with my weapon strapped to my hip to demonstrate my point. As I stated earlier, all that is going to accomplish is to make me look like an idiot and alienate people that might not otherwise care about my personal hot-button issue.
