Perhaps they will accidentally turn off their body cams, give you a beat down and arrest you and later say “He was pointing his gun at us and we were afraid”
Then later, nobody will believe your story because you MUST have done something to get a beat down by the police.
There is always that chance that they will forget you aren’t African-American and teach you “a lesson”.
It is possible that they are simply “jackasses.” It is also possible that they just got bad news from work, were sent home, and are coming back for revenge.
The simplified version of my reasonable articulable suspicion is that:
As a gun owner, a 2nd amendment supporter who agrees with Heller and McDonald, and generally hates gun restrictions, I believe that the above creates reasonable articulable suspicion.
The test is not whether we can craft another plausible legal scenario. Again, in Terry, maybe those three guys were walking back and forth in front of the store and conversing about whether their wives would kill them if they bought the expensive item in the display. Walking is legal, talking is legal. Indeed, as the Court noted, looking in store windows is legal as that is why they are there.
However, the sufficiently unusual situation caused the officer to have reasonable articulable suspicion.
I don’t think my axe example has been answered. Is that not RAS without more? Even though axe carrying is legal?
I think an axe would raise even less suspicion of a crime. People actually use axes around town to chop things. He might be on his way to a neighbor’s house to help chop a tree down for example. While rifles are quite rarely used in crimes, I believe axes are even less so.
I wouldn’t object to a cop initiating a voluntary encounter (“hey man, where you headed with that axe?”), but I’d probably take issue with them detaining the guy.
“Hey Carl, whatcha gonna do with that lawnmower blade, huh?”
I believe you are who you say you are. And I won’t question your expertise. But why can you not actually provide a cite? Either you are relying on a statute or case law.
It’s always possible the law doesn’t actually say that, but people assume that’s the case, but it’s never been tested. Or it’s possible a legal opinion made it explicit, or even that there is a clear definition in the statute.
I would assume he’s basing it on many years of “required inservice training”, which may not be that big on giving legal cites, or the participants might not have at the forefront of their mind for instant recall.
I don’t have time right now to post some of the legal precedents and such. But at one time open carry of handguns and rifles was getting people arrested for DC and police agencies were losing law suites over it. Courts were ruling that OC of both handguns and long guns was legal and the arrests were illegal.
In 2011 the legislature amended the DC law to make it explicit:
Emphasis mine:
*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 a firearm, or for carrying or going armed with a firearm or a knife, without regard to whether the firearm is loaded or the firearm or the knife is concealed or openly carried.
That is not the only law/court case that makes OC legal.
The occurrence of OCer’s getting harassed has dropped to near zero and open carry is a far more common thing around here than it used to be. There has been no problems with it in my experience.
Law Enforcement is well trained in Wisconsin on the fact that openly carrying a rifle or handgun in public is legal and not PC nor RS to detain someone in and of itself.
Sorry if you don’t like it. Don’t come here then.
Clearly there are few places where you can legally be arrested for packing a howitzer strapped to your back. But isn’t there a graduated scale between “giving them a high five” and “tackle and arrest”? Admittedly this thread started out being about terry stops, but wouldn’t seeing one person in a crowd loaded for bear justify police attention for the person, if only at a respectful distance?
I never said you could be charged with a crime for openly carrying a rifle. I said that it may be RAS for another crime. Your personal experience is not a cite. This is not a cite.
Maybe if you have really shitty aim and a healthy ammo budget (money you could use to go buy meat instead), or are interested only in killing the animal as spectacularly as possible.
IANAL or a cop, but it’s not clear what you are saying or how to follow your logic. The law makes it clear that legally carrying a weapon doesn’t give police a reason to stop someone. You claim that the presence of a gun by itself gives police reasonable suspicion of a criminal act. A straightforward reading of the law says there needs to be some additional fact or circumstance for police to have reasonable suspicion. Your scenario doesn’t have any additional facts or circumstances so police have no reason to stop. How do you get around that?
So that’s a “no” on the hunting experience question then?
It isn’t unless other factors are present. Detaining someone just because they are openly carrying a rifle is an illegal seizure in my state. If I cannot articulate what other factors lead me to believe this person has or was about to commit a crime I cannot legally detain him/her just for openly carrying an AR-15. I can try to talk to them, keep an eye on them, just like anyone else in public can do. But OC of a rifle in and of itself is not reasonable suspicion. I know how to do my job, slick.
But don’t take my word on it. Call the Wisconsin Attorney General @ (608) 266-1221. He’s the one that sent out the memos advising agencies on this.
Better ye, contact Assistant Attorney General Dave Perlman @ 608/266-1420. He’s done actual training conferences on this topic. He has a Q & A on WILENET in which he recently got a question on it:
Dear Dave:
Has DOJ formed an opinion on approaching subjects open carrying a rifle? A Terry Stop does not seem to be automatically justifiable. A consensual contact seems to be the only/best option. Do you have thoughts on this issue?
Dear Is It Legal, Is it Ethical, Is It Smart:
Right, a consensual encounter is the only way to handle this. Thanks for the question.
I’d link to it but that part of the website is restricted to law enforcement only and you wouldn’t get in.
I stand by my statement: In Wisconsin openly carrying a firearm, be it a handgun or a long gun, is not RS or PC to detain someone, absent other factors.
Rather than insinuate I don’t know what I’m talking about, why don’t you prove it?
Damn, Wisconsin has come so far in such a short amount of time.
Brief history lesson:
Open carry has always been legal here per state law. However, until the mid-1990’s counties and municipalities were allowed to have home rules and many had ordinances against open carry. BTW, ordinance violations in Wisconsin are not crimes.
Then in the 90’s the legislature passed a preemption statute (66.0409) wiping out those local regulations on open carry, and as there was no state prohibition on it, making it fully legal everywhere. As Wisconsin was the 2nd to last state to have any form of concealed carry for non-peace officers a lot of people started exercising their right to openly carry.
However, some LEO’s harassed and arrested open carriers under the state disorderly statute law. None of those prosecutions were successful, for one thing the state constitution protects open carry. Lawsuits over false arrests were successful. The legislature had enough of that and changed some laws, for one thing codifying the open carry of firearms (not just handguns).
The DOJ here has had lots of training for agencies and officers regarding this topic. The Assistant Attorney General has been irreplaceable in the amount of work he has done in training law enforcement.
A LEO may approach an open carrier, may speak with them, ask them what’s going on, watch them, etc… But if that citizen continues to walk or refuses to answer questions there is nothing that can legally be done, absent other circumstances.
A guy carrying an AR-15 screaming “I’m going to kill Jews” could certainly be an exception. He’s voicing an intent and exhibiting a delivery system.
You gotta be nuts to call the police unless you are certain something is afoul. Government police are guaranteed to unnecessarily escalate the situation. I would alert a private security force or property owner however. The problem is public property in general. The police have no incentive to deescalate because like George Zimmerman and unlike everyone else in society, they have been given permission to escalate armed conflicts.
It has to be reasonable articulable suspicion of a crime. Therefore the second clause of your first point means that it is not RAS.
And your fourth point misses the point. “It is possible” is not RAS. It is possible that I am driving my car on my way to run someone over. But the police can’t stop me because it is possible.
Regards,
Shodan
It is possible people’s outlook and perspective is clouded by things like insecurity, doubt, fear and ignorance.
In order for the police to stop and question you, they must have reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime has happened, is currently happening or about to happen. In the youtube videos they live in a state where open carry is legal. So just carrying an rifle (the AR-15 is a rifle) is legal, so no RAS there, so unless they are breaking another law, say pointing the weapon at someone, walking onto school grounds, all the police can legally do is make consensual contact. During consensual contact, you can walk away refuse to show ID, etc. In Texas the only time you must produce ID is after you’re arrested I point that out only because most of these video seem to come out of Texas.
Some people would find walking in front of a department store 20 times and having a conversation with two other people suspicious, and would want you stopped and questioned, but you’re not breaking the law. Same with carrying a rifle in a state were it is legal for them to do so, you might want them stopped but legally there is no RAS.
The best course of action by the police is observe, if they break a law, then the police would have RAS to stop them.