Why I No Longer Carry a Gun

June 29, 2010

Back in the 1970s and 80s I was a police officer. At one point I left police service with a private investigator’s license and was able to obtain a concealed pistol permit from my county.

In those days the authorities were real picky who they allowed to carry a gun.  You had to either have politcal connections or be a former police officer.

During the 1980s the county prosecuter and county sheriff who were both pretty progressive (based on a pretty good “Reagan Democrat” voting base) decided that anyone who didn’t have a criminal record could obtain a permit. The so-called shall issue decree.  My county was the first in the state to do so and by doing so eventually generated enough support for activists to change state law.

Of course when laws change they tend to water them down as I found out when I had to renew my old permit. Under the old permit I could carry anytime, anywhere. Under the new permit, carry was restricted to certain places. There were more places you couldn’t carry than there were where you could.

It was about that time that I started thinking about the Second Amendment to the constitution. The part about the “right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”.  Up to that point I was happy to be of the privledged class of citizens who were allowed to carry without having to bow and scrape to authorities.   I was one of the good guys,  not a common citizen.

One provision of the new law that particularly bothered me was that one had to disclose to any police officer who stopped you that you were carrying a gun. This was despite the fact that your permit was tied into the police computer system (LEIN) when they ran your license plate number.  If the police did a traffic stop and ran your plate it would tell them if you had a permit or not.  Even if they knew you had a permit and you didn’t inform them anyway, they could cite you for failure to disclose.

This fact was brought to light one day when I was driving home from work and a police officer in a marked car followed me and pulled me over for no apparent reason while I was driving slowly through my subdivision.  He approached and after some pretext about being suspicious (apparently driving home from work through a subdivision in which one lives at 5:30 pm in broad daylight is suspicious) he asked me if I was carrying a pistol in my car. I asked him why he was asking.  His reply was that I failed to disclose to him that I had a permit when he stopped me. I said my understanding was that disclosure was only required if one was actually carrying a gun and since I wasn’t, I didn’t need to disclose anything.

It was pretty obvious that this officer simply ran my plate, learned that I had a permit and was trying to trip me up. He was fishing for permit violations. At that point the conversation became somewhat cyclic. He asked me if I was carrying and I said “no, I just told you I wasn’t”.   He asked if he could check me for weapons and search my car. I said “no, I told you I wasn’t carrying, if I had been I would have told you.”  He said “well, how do I know you are not carrying?” I said, I am compelled by law to tell you if I was, and even if I was why wouldn’t I tell you since I have a permit?” He said, “I would feel better if you would cooperate.” And I said, my dinner is getting cold, can I leave now?” After some more attempts to bargin a search he simply let me go. The issue wasn’t about one’s rights it was about his authority to question me under the pretext of law.

Later  I renewed my permit and had to go infront of the gun board. The were  polite but bored and were simply going through the motions.  At the end of the three minute interview they asked me if I had any questions. The only question that came to mind was “why do I have to get your permission to carry my gun? ” I continued…”I’ve never committed a crime so I could carry my gun anyway and you would never know because I am a good person and have never committed a crime. If I did commit a crime you would either not know about it or I would either be in jail for my crime or out by now. If that was the case I could easily obtain a gun until I got caught.  I am only here because I chose to comply with a meaningless regulation, which brings up the question again of why do I need your permission to carry my gun?”  They kind of stared at me and the state police representitive started to say something about being a nation of laws.  I interupted him and said, “nevermind, it’s just  a rhetorical question”.

So the question again is…Why does a person need to seek permission from the state to carry what he already has a enumerated right to keep and bear?

After the first renewal of my permit I decided I didn’t want to play the game anymore. My thought was that if I needed a gun for some reason I would simply carry one and worry about the consequences later.  On the other hand it isn’t really fair to my family if I was to get arrested for knowingly violating the law.  The decision therefore was simply to avoid trouble and not carry a gun. When my permit expired I decided not to renew.

Soon after my stand on principle some brave souls in my state started to open carry handguns. This has caused all kinds of hysterics with the police and press. As with many governmental entities they grudgingly allow one to keep arms, but God forbid you bear them.

Eventually, the state Attorney General opined that open carry was in fact legal. One need not have any type of permit to openly carry a firearm in this state.  Of course there are still problems and many police simply don’t like the average person carrying guns let alone openingly carrying guns. People doing so have been arrested and or harassed.

Of course things aren’t always so clear. For example the laws that pertain to carrying a concealed weapon in certain areas do not apply to open carry. In some cases it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon but legal to carry openingly in the same place but only if you have a permit to carry concealed. In some places you can carry concealed but not openly and in some places you can carry openly without a permit but not concealed.

In one case a man was arrested for openly carrying outside a sports stadium. The police saw him carrying and decided upon questioning that he was violating the law by carrying in a venue that seated more that 2500 people even though he was on a public sidewalk outside the venue separted by a large fence. They also added a charge of failing to disclose  that he was carrying a gun. The man had a concealed weapon permit which would require him to disclose if questioned by police had he been concealing his pistol. In that the reason the police stopped him was because they saw the pistol kind of defeated there reason for arresting him.  He did beat the charges but not before spending a ton of money on legal fees. His law suit for unlawful arrest is still pending.

This revisits the issue I struggled with earlier. Why do I have to have permission from the state to carry a gun? Open carry allows me to carry without question except in certain areas or under certain circumstances. Then again, I really don’t want to walk around with a pistol on my hip for everyone to see. I don’t wan’t to have people looking at me or thinking I am some kind of attention seeking cowboy. I just want to be able to mind my own buisness and carry a pistol for self defense when I need to.

I know people will argue the laws prevent people from breaking the law. That gun laws prevent people that shouldn’t have guns from obtaining them and those with guns from using them illegally. Laws however don’t prevent anything,  they simply add consequences to actions.

As I write this, the Supreme Court of the United States just struck down the ban from owning guns in Chicago.  It is inconceivable to me that a mayor of a city can take and oath of office and continue to deny his fellow citizens their civil rights. What part of “shall not be infringed” don’t they understand?

I get the thing about society having to have laws and rules.  I am certainly no extremist.  I bought the American Dream and lived it. I am a good compliant citizen respectful of our system of government.  I am however fed up with having to seek permission from that government to exercise my constitutional rights.  In a way, complying with those infringments against our civil rights perpetuates them.

So why support a system that perpetuates infringments upon one’s own rights?

Bottom line?   I have decided not to.  I won’t violate the law by not taking part in the issue. I will remain unarmed until my rights are restored.

Posted in The Spice of Life