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Suspicion is in the eye of the beholder. Some of those beholders will be patrons of restaurants, some will be patrons of movie theaters, some will be people on the street, some will be law enforcement officers.

You look suspicious if you look suspicious. It's not up to you to decide if you are suspicious. It's up to the person deciding if you look suspicious to decide what looks suspicious.

This has nothing to do with rights either. You will have the right to open carry and everyone else on the planet has the right to decide if you look suspicious to them or if they are alarmed and they have to right to act on that by calling 911. And LEO has a right to investigate and you have the right to explain yourself.

Everyone has lots of rights. Plenty to go around. January 1 should be interesting.

tex

This is a difficult piece of pride to have to swallow for law abiding, constitution waving gun carriers. What do we expect law enforcement to do? Here's a better question. Since law enforcement works for the state, what do we expect the state to do?

Imagine a scenario where it is illegal to drive without license plates. Then one day the state makes a law that if you pay a fee you don't have to have license plates. How does law enforcement deal with that? Ignore all cars without license plates? How do they 'enforce' the law? They can investigate any car without a license plate under a reasonable suspicion theory. Or we can scream UNCONSTITUTIONAL! and expect them to do nothing. Oh, we won't have a problem with them stopping a car that hasn't paid the fee, but don't DARE stop me because that violates my constitutional rights! What's the idea of the state making such a law and not adequately dealing with it's ramifications for the enforcement of the law.

Same situation here. We have now been given the right to openly carry a gun which by any other standards screams PROBLEM, MWAG!, yet expect law enforcement to have their hands tied and not act on the obvious suspicious activity. Yes, it is suspicious by its very nature. And why did the state refuse to provide a solution to this obvious problem. Now we have given cover to any criminal with a gun to just simply carry on his belt and blend in.

We need to quit worrying about the possibility of being stopped by a LEO to prove we have a license. Do you really want to live in a community where anyone can carry a gun and they can't be stopped for anything less than being in the process of committing a crime?

tex

Jumping Frog wrote:

" I can see that is perfectly reasonable for a LEO to see a man with a gun as worthy of investigation especially in this day and age. "

I don't agree with that at all.

You don't see police routinely pulling people out of cars to prove they have a driver license. Absent other evidence of criminal behavior, I do not regard simple law-abiding carry of an openly holstered handgun to meet constitutional standards of reasonable articulable suspicion.

I don't agree with it either! We should live in a society where a man can carry a firearm openly and it be as natural as carrying groceries. We should live in a society where hoodlums with guns don't use them to rob banks and kill people and use them as an instrument to facilitate a crime. We should live in a society where the moral upbringing of right and wrong is taught in the home by loving and nurturing parents whose primary mission as a parent is to raise upstanding, law abiding and respectful young men and women. We should live in a society where the police do not feel they are targets of random violence as they try to fulfill their mission to protect us.

In a world where the showing of a gun is statistically associated with something bad going to happen, and where the police are trained to look for bad things that are going to happen we can't expect to insist that the police do not take notice of someone carrying a gun. And that has nothing to do with your constitutional rights.

You can constitutionally carry a gun. You can constitutionally carry a sign around town stating that you do not like this race or another race. You can constitutionally do alot of things. We have to be careful that we CHLers don't turn into a bunch of tough guys with something to prove like has been the case with many of the long gun demonstrations of late. I'm all for standing up for one's rights but we also need to remember that we are supposed to represent the law abiding, community welfare oriented citizens of the state.

I don't have to prove anything. I KNOW I have a right to be on the street with a gun on my belt. And I am happy to remind any officer of that fact by showing him my license. When it becomes harassment then I will have a problem with the harassment not with them asking me for the license. And I will pursue legal steps against the harassment not against them asking me for my license.

This will take a while for law enforcement and CHLers to settle into a routine, possibly years. In the meantime I will go about arming myself,(probably in a concealed manner; and not because I'm afraid of being stopped) and I will expect and even insist that law enforcement continue their work of stopping anyone who fits the profile of being suspicious in their pursuit of protecting all of us.

The equilibrium will not happen overnight and everyone would do well to lighten up a little especially in the beginning until we see how this is going to play out. We and law enforcement are on the same side in the respect that we all want a safer community and each in our own way, CHLers in carrying a weapon and LEOs in patrolling and watching out for us all which will inevitably involve some stops.

That being said, as I stated earlier, when asked I will produce my license. I have no problem with that. But that had better be the end of it. Once I have shown that I can carry I expect to be quickly on my way. If it goes beyond that then I will be at the head of the parade to get something done about the harassment.

tex

Agreed.

The law is clear that the triggering mechanism for you being required to show the license is the officer's demand for you to produce an ID. That statute does not discriminate between righteous and unrighteous demands or stops.

One can protest all you want at your own risk, expense, inconvenience, and peril but when it is all said and done you will, at a minimum, be in violation of not producing your license if you choose to make a constitutional stand right then and there.

Although, yes, you should be able to walk down the street with a properly licensed, properly holstered gun without having to be stopped. However, I can see that is perfectly reasonable for a LEO to see a man with a gun as worthy of investigation especially in this day and age. Just think how easy it would be for criminals to mimic a legal CHLer under the camouflage and protection of the law enforcement's hands being tied and not being able to stop someone. I am more willing to undergo a little suspicion especially in the early months of the new privilege if it will help weed out the pretenders. However, when it becomes obvious harassment then I will be first in line to work to do something about that. I am willing to trust the 98% of the trustworthy police to do the right thing...at least in the beginning. We will have to see how that works.

It is going to take both sides growing into this new system with a little give and take.

That said, if I am stopped and asked, it better not take any longer than just flashing the license and be on my way. Any longer and I and my lawyer will want to know why.

tex