Court upholds police pointing gun at lawful carrier

[Michael Brown]

I don't think the beginning of this story or the middle part is important.

Whatever steps led to the guy's needing to show the officer his permit is not of great import. Once the guy showed the officer he was legal to carry, the officer should have ended the dialog -- or perhaps given the guy a few friendly pointers on concealing (even if the attorney was being a jerk -- some hills aren't worth dying for).

Of course -- take all this with a grain of salt . . . I live in Oklahoma. I have had 3 or 4 run ins with the cops in the last year (I was on the good side of the law in each one). In all of them, at one point or another we talked about guns, and conceal and carry. I can't imagine this same story in Oklahoma.

Word.

Michael Brown

 

[Kiyot]

To be honest if the case was honestly about what the title of the article says it was a ridiculous case to bring. The issue that should have been taken up was the accidental flashing of a legally carried CCW gun and the resulting confiscation.

If you think that you aren't going to get a gun screwed in your ear just because you are legally carrying a gun you are mistaken. An officer has the right to his own safety, and I do not fault him for the initial pointing of his firearm. He initiated contact on what he thought could possibly be someone carrying a firearm illegally. Some might say that an open carry state this kind of ruling could be bad for all who carry but I don't think so. If an officer going down the street jumps out and points his gun at everyone carrying in the open then yes that is wrong. But once he decides to make contact with an individual, who is open carrying, based on him being possibly involved in a crime then yes if he feels as though he needs to have his gun out for his safety then so be it.

 

[helmethead]

its good the story got out though. that man standing up for his rights might influence other citizens to exercise their own.

 

[mons meg]

Does it matter?

Easy there, copper...

Only if it's a case of the officer saw this guy walking down the street and "didn't like the look of him" or some such. As it stands, the guy was probably acting weird. It's Massachusetts, so who knows what their standards are for making stops on suspicious characters. I agree the most important part of the story is the detention afterwards, though.

Like our independence?

Mike, I maintain that was the Massachusetts colony, not the Commonwealth of today.

 

[OKNewshawk]

Can't quite figure out what Georgia has to do with it, but this is pretty bad news, and might should go to SCOTUS, but they won't hear it.

It's in the article. Georgia's CCW laws are similar to those of Massachusetts in respect to verification of a "facially valid" CCW permit. The author cited a disturbingly similar court case in Atlanta concerning a person carrying concealed on the local subway system (MARTA). His assertion is that, absent the Georgia legislature instituting a system to ensure field verification of CCW permits, the same thing could happen to a CCW holder in Georgia and the Federal courts (and most likely the state courts, too) would look to the 1st Circuit ruling as precedent.

Furthermore, it must be recalled that Georgia, like Massachussetts and the vast majority of states, has no system to confirm the validity of a Georgia firearms license. The similarities between the MARTA federal opinion and the First Circuit opinion are startling, and the implications for Georgia are clear.