So open or concealed, what happens when you reach a certain point? I have seen signs on shopping mall doors - no guns allowed (looks weird to us Canadians). I assume they expect you to leave it in the car. What about, say, court buildings or other government offices? Do they have a “check your gun here” policy, or you just have to go back to the car or not go in?
What about private buildings? Can they charge someone who violates the “no guns” sign, or just ask them to leave?
Sounds like sometimes (unless you are hiking) it’s more trouble than it is worth…
The last time I entered a court building (Pennsylvania) I had to check a small (tiny, free give away knife with a company name on it) penknife on my keyring.
Depends on the jurisdiction. Attempting to bring a gun into a court house can be considered a crime.
The last time I went to the Dakota County court house, I had a small swiss army knife in my pocket. The deputy merely said I couldn’t bring it inside. I walked back out to my car and left it in the dash.
When I worked for Loomis, we picked up from all of the Hennepin County Government buildings, including two stops in the County Jail (court desk and property room). The only time I was relieved of my weapon was when the elevator and surrounding area to the property room was closed down for maintenance and security reasons and they had to walk me completely through the solitary confinement areas.
There was one incident where a new deputy, all in a panic, ran up to me and stated that I wasn’t allowed in the building with my weapon. As she was telling me that, a more experienced deputy walked up and said “No no, we WANT them to pick up our money. You will consider him a badged officer”. The first one protested that I wasn’t Law Enforcement. The second one said it didn’t matter, I was in uniform and the county had an agreement with us to pick up their money and that’s what I was there to do.
Interestingly, we were not allowed to carry our firearms within the Federal Reserve Bank. I always thought it was so odd that we serviced an ATM in a place where I’d seen literal mountains of cash.
There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for this statement. As a matter of fact, it’s more likely to be the exact opposite. You may not like it, but open carry has a deterrent effect.
Sometimes that happens–not always. Some people confront the open carrier, thus proving that they’re not nearly as scared of guns as they claim to be.
You do realize, don’t you, that the anti-gun nuts are saying the same exact type of thing about YOU. If you don’t realize it, you should.
In 14 months of open carry for Loomis, I only had ONE person “confront” me over carrying a weapon. And I put confront in quotes there because I was wheeling a hand truck with $106,000 in cash and coin into an office building (where the bank was located) and she walked by, yelled “no one should be allowed to carry guns!” and quickly hustled away.
I told quite a few of my fellow officers that crap wasn’t going to work out for them. And it didn’t. Several agencies ended up paying out settlements, some as high as 30K.
When the CCW law went into effect so did a subsection of the DC statute. Hopefully this will put a stop to cops trying to push it on people doing nothing more than exercising their rights:
Wisconsin 947.01 Disorderly conduct. (1) Whoever, in a public or
private place, engages in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous,
unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly conduct under
circumstances in which the conduct tends to cause or provoke a
disturbance is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor.
(2)* Unless other facts and circumstances that indicate a criminal
or malicious intent on the part of the person apply, a person is
not in violation of, and may not be charged with a violation of, this
section for loading, carrying, or going armed with a firearm, without
regard to whether the firearm is loaded or is concealed or
openly carried.*
It really depends where you are. We own a house in Colorado and visit quite frequently. In ranch-land Colorado, it is quite common to see people out and about with a gun holstered on their hip. I’m sure a number of them put it on in the morning like a piece of clothing. I wouldn’t call them “needle-dicked trouble makers.”
We live and work in Philly/suburban Philly. Here open carry is very out of place and might result in the type of reactions you are talking about. Open carry may even be illegal in the city, I don’t know.
While one does not need a permit to open carry in the rest of the state, Pennsylvania law does mandate that you need one to open carry while in Philadelphia.
Nor would I. But at the mall in Atlanta? Downtown Philly? Miami Beach? Just attention whores who want confrontation so they can shout down anyone who objects and be right about something.
And I’ve had numerous calls on me carrying where they apparently couldn’t see my badge right by the holster.:rolleyes:
If you’re wearing a Loomis uniform, I wouldn’t expect you to get any harassment. I mean, people know you’re working bank security with lots of cash around.
I think the implication is people in civilian clothes can get harassed.
Let’s avoid potentially inflammatory comments like characterizing other people posting in the thread as “needle-dicked troublemakers,” or referring to “anti-gun nuts.” No warning issued, but don’t make similar comments in the future.
This goes for everyone. Further comments of this kind may be subject to a warning.
Once again, let’s limit this thread to the issue of the legality of carrying guns. Whether or not it may subject you to harassment is a side issue, and is probably better addressed in IMHO or GD. Let’s drop the subject here.
Careful. Recording the cops is about as likely–perhaps more likely–to get you in trouble with them as openly carrying (and often with about as much legal justification, though state laws vary).
One more thing to note is that “gun” is pretty broad.
In Texas, to give one of 50+ US examples, it is illegal to openly carry a handgun. It is legal to carry a concealed handgun only with the appropriate license.
For long guns, such as rifles and shotguns, the rule is different. There are no restrictions to openly carrying them in public.
So, a rack of rifles in your truck is perfectly legal, though, even if licensed, you need to conceal any handguns that are also in the truck. If not licensed, you can only legally transport a handgun in a case in the trunk of a car or in the cargo area of a truck or SUV.
Keep in mind, though, that while you can legally march down the street in Houston openly carrying a rifle, the police are probably going to keep tabs on you, as that’s still not a normal thing to do in any US city.
True enough. With a permit, you can conceal or open carry a handgun in your car here in MN. Without it, it needs to be stored unloaded in a case in your trunk with the ammunition stored separately.
But I don’t believe the permit allows you to carry a loaded rifle or shotgun in your vehicle. That always has to be unloaded in a case in the trunk (or other not easily accessible location) with the ammunition stored separately.
Bottom line is that transporting a weapon from state to state requires it to be unloaded and cased and stored in the trunk, with the ammunition stored separately. This is always legal transport, even in states where they will try to tell you otherwise.
Each state has it’s own laws regarding places that are off-limits while carrying. Court buildings and government offices are almost always included in those lists. If you know you are going into a government building, you keep it in the car (although PA courthouses have gun checks). Schools (elementary and high school) are almost universally on the list as well (I believe that Utah is the sole exception as it allows permit holders to carry in schools).
Private property is also state dependent. In some states, “no guns allowed” signs mean absolutely nothing. The only thing that could come of it is that if you are discovered with a gun, you could be asked to leave. If you refuse to leave, it would be criminal trespass, same as refusing to leave for any other reason.
In other states, those signs are given the force of law. Other states, like Texas, specify a particular format that the signs must follow in order to have the force of law.
You also have institutional penalties to worry about. For example, I attend West Virginia University College of Law. There is no law that prohibits me from carrying concealed in the building. But the University itself has a rule demanding expulsion for first time weapon possession, permit or no, even in the car. So, I have to be cognizant of that if I want to earn my degree.
So, I would disagree with your summary that it is too much of a pain in the ass to carry daily. It would depend on your state law and where you generally go daily. For some it very well might be, but for most people, it’s not too hard to follow the law.
Here’s where it gets interesting. The Minnesota carry law very specifically states that colleges and universities cannot bar possession or carry in their parking lots and goes so far as to state the university administrators do not have the power to overrule the law(!!).
This became an issue when I was working Security at Hamline in St. Paul. Someone reported seeing someone wearing a holster in the parking lot of the law school (given the number of LEOs attending law classes, what a shock!). We were sent over to investigate and detain him. Our idiot (retired cop) management called the cops to come over and made a big stink about it. The guy left the building and drove away before the cops arrived. I “did not see” him leave (I knew the damned law even if they didn’t). The cops arrived, said “big deal, he didn’t break any laws”, and left, rather irritated at the entire call.
I understand the law is incredibly restrictive in New York City. Is that a state law passed for their benefit, or does the city have the right to create that sort of criminal law?
Do permits from NY State allow carry in NY City?
I saw a comment once that NYC automatically denied almost any private permit request for non-LEO types.