Miss. police: Open carry laws kept us from arresting shotgun-toting man who terrorized shoppers.

Used car dealership.

I think I am as pro gun as anyone, but I honestly don’t understand your position in this thread. We aren’t talking about carrying pistols for protection, or even open carrying pistols. I support those things. I support them without a need for a state issued license.

But carrying an uncased shotgun, racking the slide, and loading it in a public place is certainly something sufficiently unusual that it would scare the shit out of me. I don’t see whose rights are being violated by prohibiting such a thing. I agree that brandishing and assault would be viable charges, at least around here.

I don’t see the need to show support for gun ownership by defending these guys who are clearly nut cases. There is not a need for a “never give an inch no matter how extreme” argument. It would be like pro-choice people not being “pure” in their beliefs if the don’t support placing abortion clinics in elementary schools and forcing the kids to watch. One of the best ways to get open carry outlawed is to lock and load fucking shotguns in the middle of Wal-Mart.

A private business can discriminate against someone for any reason except those covered under laws. The 2nd amendment isn’t protected in such a case. This is universal regardless of gun laws.

It looks like the 2013 Mississippi Brandish code, MS Code § 97-37-19 (2013), differs from the one steronz linked to in post #16: MS Code § 97-37-19 (2014)

MS Code § 97-37-19 (2013): If any person, having or carrying any dirk, dirk-knife, sword, sword-cane, or any deadly weapon, or other weapon the carrying of which concealed is prohibited, shall,** in the presence of three or more persons, exhibit the same in a rude, angry, or threatening manner, not in necessary self-defense**, or shall in any manner unlawfully use the same in any fight or quarrel, the person so offending, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined in a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars or be imprisoned in the county jail not exceeding three months, or both. In prosecutions under this section it shall not be necessary for the affidavit or indictment to aver, nor for the state to prove on the trial, that any gun, pistol, or other firearm was charged, loaded, or in condition to be discharged.

This version seems oddly worded and ambiguous to me. Apparently you could threaten two people with a deadly weapon with impunity, but if you rudely dangle you weapon out your zipper in front of three people, you’re in trouble.

I suppose both versions give too much legal wiggle room for the guy racking his gun in Walmart for the police to feel confident arresting him without repercussions—but, that’s unfortunate. Did the people who quickly left the store or made their way to the safe room feel threatened by the guy racking shells into his shotgun? I think they obviously did. More importantly, were they justified in feeling threatened by what they saw? IMO, yes they were—I too would feel threatened, and potentially in mortal danger in that circumstance.

To me, these are the only facts relevant to this discussion: did the guy bring his own shotgun into the store and rack shells in view of others? Did the observers feel justifiably threatened by the guy’s actions? I believe the answer to both is yes. I think the guy could have been arrested under at least the 2014 version of § 97-37-19; the police chief felt otherwise. A 2015 version should be expanded to make racking your weapon in a public area unambiguously illegal.

I don’t get the common notion that tightening laws making things that the majority of people find offensive, or threatening (so long as protected classes aren’t discriminated against) should be avoided, or in some way erodes our basic freedoms and necessarily leads down a slippery slope toward social anarchy.

Brandishing a deadly weapon in public should be against the law in all states, period. I believe the majority of people would welcome that law and the only people it adversely affects are deadly weapon brandishers, and they aren’t a protected class…at least not yet. (I think obscenity laws should be broadened to include overt public displays of sexual fetishism too, like walking your girlfriend on a leash at the mall, but I admit that may not be a majority held belief).

I mean, how would you feel if your dear old nana, with the lumbago and weak ticker, was shopping at Walmart for cake mix and icing in order to bake you a birthday cake (it’s not even your birthday, but the poor gal has Alzheimer’s, so she thinks every day is your birthday) and as she rounds the corner in her electric geri-scooter into the “bake goods” aisle, she zips square on into the business end of a 12-guage shotgun, just as it’s being ratcheted? Frightened nana then pops up from her scooter, urinating copiously into her Depends, and attempts to flee from what she perceives as a premature date with the grim reaper.

The only problem is that her “fleeing” is akin to a lame turtle trying to outpace a hungry cheetah. Poor nana’s support pantyhose drops to her ankles, she trips, breaking the osteoporotic neck of her left hip’s greater trochanter. She’s fallen and she can’t get up. Your nana’s jitterbugging days are over for good, all because some attention whoring shotgun brandisher wanted to make a scene.

Do you understand the scope of this tragedy? That’s right, it means no cake for you.

Technically, a scrapyard. Poor thing folded up like an accordion when I hit that pick up truck.

So, you also run an automobile wrecking company.

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I would still like to know what information was passed along to 9-1-1 that made it necessary to dispatch SWAT to the Walmart.

You assume this was something sufficiently unusual. However, as I understand the poorly vetted media articles, someone open-carried a shotgun into two other businesses before they entered the Walmart. No SWAT team was dispatched to the other businesses. Hmmmm.

The Chief says they did nothing illegal. I’ll take his word for that. The Chief said he would like to have arrested them. Much to his credit, the Chief obeyed the laws of Mississippi.

If you wish to attempt to change the laws of Mississippi, I’m not going to stop you. Depending on how you write your new law, I may even support you, but I don’t vote in Mississippi so my support won’t carry much weight.

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Your highlighted (bold) section - “in the presence of three or more persons, exhibit the same in a rude, angry, or threatening manner, not in necessary self-defense” - suggests that the old, 2013-version required three witnesses to the act. It says nothing about your zipper, or your dangle.

Yes, it depends on what the law actually says. If state law only stated that residents of that state can open-carry firearms within that state, any business that banned firearm carriers from entering their premise would be in violation of that state law. In this example, state law says they can carry.

However, many states have passed additional laws that allow individual businesses to decide if they will allow firearms on their premise. If someone were to illegally bring a firearm into a business that chooses not to allow firearms, they can/will be asked to leave, and escorted out by LEO’s if they refuse.

Where are you getting this from?

And yet this person had carried into two other businesses before entering the Walmart. There’s a lot missing in this whole scenario.

If I feel chest pains, I’m calling for EMT’s. If it’s 03:01, and I see armed men outside of my home, I’m calling the police. If I hear one of the armed men outside of my home take my call, I’m calling EMT’s for my chest pains. :smiley:

But the same reason doesn’t seem to apply to the other two businesses?

Maybe it’s because you assume that everyone with a gun is a bad guy, while I know that the vast majority of people with guns are good guys?

Did you have any comments pertaining to the Great Debate Thread: Miss. police: Open carry laws kept us from arresting shotgun-toting man who terrorized shoppers?

Did they load & rack in the other two places, or just open carry?

That’s a GREAT question.

What actually happened, and who said what, and when? Unfortunately, asking questions has been frowned upon, by some people, in the past. Fortunately, I’m expecting the media to provide answers to our questions, at any moment.

It doesn’t matter if the guy brought his shotgun into ten million businesses before going into the Walmart. His actions stand on their own.

Name any activity that is potentially criminal, and at the very least is threatening and disruptive, and it doesn’t matter how many times someone has gotten away with it before.

Are you sure? Because the way I interpreted it, Mississippi Brandish code MS Code § 97-37-19 (2013) was specifically alluding to my zipper and the manner in which my penis/deadly weapon dangles forth from it. :smack: I’m relieved to learn that the ordinance was not targeting (clever word choice) me…specifically.

Or, perhaps I was poking fun at the inclusion of the word “rude” in a brandishing a deadly weapon ordinance, and highlighting the absurdity of making 3 people being threatened a minimum requirement for enforcement of said ordinance.

I’m curious to know what law this chief thinks prevented him from arresting the man. Regardless of brandishing laws, open carry laws, or anything else, the man definitely entered a public place of business in the state of Mississippi and while therein created a disturbance. If the store has been evacuated, a disturbance has been created, regardless of whether that was the man’s intention or not.

http://statutes.laws.com/mississippi/title-97/35/97-35-13/
[QUOTE=§ 97-35-13. Disturbance in public place.]
Any person who shall enter any public place of business of any kind whatsoever, or upon the premises of such public place of business, or any other public place whatsoever, in the State of Mississippi, and while therein or thereon shall create a disturbance, or a breach of the peace, in any way whatsoever, including, but not restricted to, loud and offensive talk, the making of threats or attempting to intimidate, or any other conduct which causes a disturbance or breach of the peace or threatened breach of the peace, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars ($500.00) or imprisoned in jail not more than six (6) months, or both such fine and imprisonment.
[/QUOTE]

Did the police chief simply forget about the basic charge of disturbing the peace, or is he intentionally being misleading by claiming “If there was something I could have arrested these people for, I would,” or is there some other law that specifically prevents this statute from being applicable?

That’s what confuses me about this.

We’re all looking at the statutes, but could there have been court rulings that set precedents that make it difficult for the police to do anything?

How do you “get away” with not violating a law that doesn’t exist? Are there any potentially criminal laws on the books that could result in an actual arrest?

All right, buddy. Pull it over. You were very close to exceeding the speed limit, and we don’t allow that in this state.