Yes, that’s one of the many reasons it was a dumbass law.
I do, however, give it credit for helping raise the profile and popularity of AR-15s and its cousins. I have little doubt that a good number of Americans would not have purchased them without liberals like RTFirefly calling for their ban.
FWIW, I think that unless you have immediate plans to use it, any long gun carried in public should be cased or scabbarded. I don’t mind holstered handguns, but I’d be worried if someone was walking around with a pistol in hand.
Yeah, well, like I said, in a urban area, carrying such a weapon means you’re jerk- but not (in the proper state, of course) a criminal.
But yeah, to get back to the OP. Say you saw a man, carrying a AR15, shouldered or slung, in a urban area- in a state where open carrying is perfectly legal. Should you call 911? Should the police stop and question him? I think the answer has to be -** No. **
Could you be concerned if it was in your neighborhood, and you didn’t know him? Sure, just like I am concerned if I see a strange car “cruising” up and down my suburban street. I might even note his lic #, perhaps mini-vid on my cellphone. But since what he is doing is 100% legal- I wouldn’t call 911.
Now if there had been a spate of car break ins, reported as being done by “guys cruising slowing in the neighborhood”, then maybe.
Just liek if you hear gunshots, then saw a guy with a Ak47 walking away.
I’m not a fan of open carry long guns, but I don’t think it should be illegal because I don’t trust those opposed to guns to not use that as a launching point for further restrictions. I prefer social ostrtization than criminal penalties.
As such it shouldn’t be considered grounds for Terry stop unless there are other circumstances that in conjunction would support one. A Terry stop for open carry would be silly - it checks for weapons when being temporarily detained - uh yeah, there are weapons.
I’m not well versed in these laws but if it’s legal to carry, then carrying at sling arms should not be suspicion of crime. OTOH carrying at port arms should be considered an imminent threat.
I’m really not a fan of open carry of assault rifles and I wish it were illegal so we didn’t have to make such distinctions.
This is what you’re talking about, right?
I certainly see how it’s more aggressive than having the rifle slung across one’s back, but I wouldn’t consider it “an imminent threat” either. Someone pointing a rifle at me is a really damn imminent threat. Someone with a rifle at low ready is slightly less imminent. Someone carrying at port arms? That’s at least a step or two down the scale of “imminent threat”, although not quite as far as slung, which itself is not quite as far down the scale as cased.
If I see you carrying an AR-15 across your back someplace where there are no varmints to hunt, targets to shoot, or insurgents to fight, I think it’s entirely reasonable to assume that you’re intending to threaten me. Essentially if there’s no other possible reason why you’re carrying the thing, then that’s the reason you’re carrying it. So if I were to see somebody carrying an AR-15 strapped across their back in my local supermarket, then yes, it’s an imminent threat, even if they’re not pointing it at anybody yet.
In my state (Wisconsin) the answer is emphatically NO, and this is backed up by court precedent and statute.
Unless I can show other extenuating factors I can not detain someone who is legally openly carrying a weapon. Simply openly carrying an AR-15 is not PC nor RS. I can talk to them if I wish, but I cannot force them to stop and talk to me. If they choose to keep walking while I’m talking to them there is nothing I can do about it.
YMMV depending on where you are.
You are what is colloquially known among the special forces community as a “dumb fuck”. People who have a reasonable need to carry such weapons make a legitimate effort to conceal them unless they are in an actual war zone. Carrying an assault rifle (or the civilian equivalent thereof) in a casual context in a non-warfare state is done specificially to provoke a response.
Stranger
What was its effect on deaths and injuries involving that particular class of weapon, and what was the effect when the ban lapsed in 2004?
Hmmm…a law that kept assault weapons from getting into wider circulation in the first place was a bad idea.
Seems like the lifting of the ban might’ve also had something to do with it. In fact, I have NO doubt that a good number of Americans would not have purchased them without conservatives like HurricaneDitka successfully ending the ban, because, y’know, it would have been illegal to purchase them.
Ignorant, drivelsome, rubbish. You’ve clearly never been to Israel, for instance.
Making use of that thesaurus, I see.
The United States is not Israel, and reservists do not publically carry weapons on sling outside of training because the nation is not bordered in all (or indeed, any) sides by enemies dedicated to its eradication. I’ve been around firearms and those who have used them in professional contexts my whole life, and among such people the prevailing mentality os to avoid unnecessary display or presentation so as not to make others nervous or give false sense of imminent need. People who walk around parading their weapons in public in the United States without reason are precipitators of angst and discomfort purely for their own gratification.
Stranger
Well, that one will earn you a warning. I don’t believe any explanation is needed.
I think there will be a lot of “golden calf” discussions at the pearly gates for a lot of 2nd ammendment enthusiasts. Those discussions may or may not go the way that the new arrivals to the pearly gates want.
I say this as a owner of a Savage 12 gauge with ducks and stuff etched on it. I’m not a “proud” owner of it, much like I’m not really a “proud owner” of an Oldsmobile. Both are tools to do a thing.
This is why I never understood the whole assault rifle thing. Are the firearm “un-initiated” that naive they believe further obfuscation and complexity in the law(s) can possibly have any effect on gun violence? The simple fact the OP framed the discussion as such is telling.
Military grade weaponry is clearly regulated in great detail, if you’d care to review ATF regs on explosives and so forth. The line(s) have long since been drawn. It’s legal to own guns. It’s illegal to murder people. There are always going to be murderers preferring guns. There’s always going to be mass murderers preferring bigger guns.
At least the gas-guzzler taxes don’t effectively ban Ferraris.
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Cool.
Really, I guess this is fodder for another thread, but really? You have no problem with someone getting behind the wheel of the car when they are drunk?
I suppose if your idea of freedom is that you get to do anything you want to do, no matter how much danger it puts others into, then I can see that.
If your argument is that .08 is too low, and that a more reasonable limit is .12 or something, that’s a debate we can have. If it is simply that we should simply allow people to take control of a car when they are under the influence of intoxicating substances, we simply have a complete breakdown of shared moral framework here.
As an ex-smoker who was a smoker at the time that many of these laws were put into place, I can agree. There are some laws that I think went overboard, but to the general effect, you do agree that some of the laws are acceptable. Is that because of the harm that it can potentially cause others?
and a vocal minority of your political side would like to ban Muslims. Debating based on what a vocal minority says, rather than what the person that you are talking to says, gets us no where.
Presumably? Presuming the position of someone else’s argument is a poor way of arguing against someone who isn’t making that argument at all.
I see that most people who are for a full ban are pushed there by the gun rights advocates who declare that nothing short of a full ban will have any effect. I personally am in favor of keeping the right to bear arms among well qualified individuals, but I can be pushed out of that position into a full ban as well, if I am convinced by your side that there is no room for reasonable regulations and restrictions that will lead to a lowering of gun violence.
I don’t either. But restricting AR-15s and AR-15 style rifles to people who have demonstrated a certain level of responsibility and mental stability would be much more good than bad. I would only support a complete restriction on AR-15 style rifles if it were insisted that having to show responsibility before owning and carrying one was just too much work for the gun owners.
It was a terrible bill because the gun advocates prevented it from actually having any teeth.they ended up only being able to “ban” certain cosmetic features that gun manufacturers immediately got around.
You know the Beltway sniper? He used a legally obtained AR-15 style rifle that had enough cosmetic changes to get around the Assault Weapon Ban.
Maybe instead of fighting against legislation and then complaining that you managed to make it ineffective, we work together to come up with ideas to lower the gun violence?
So, you are making another “make the liberals cry” motive? These are expensive guns, you know, how much are you willing to pay per tear?
I would say that what has really encouraged people to go out and buy them is the mass shootings that they are used for. If you look at gun sales you see that they spike up quite a bit after someone uses their gun to kill a bunch of people. So, while you may enjoy the idea that people are just buying these guns to upset liberals, they are actually being inspired to buy these guns by people who are using them to kill people.
It’s a great sales pitch, isn’t it? 11 dead, 6 wounded. What a great gun!
Cite? I don’t dispute that carrying a pistol is not RS for a crime. It is not. But a rifle?
As was mentioned before, crime detection is noticing something unusual and then investigating. Even if that “unusual” thing is otherwise perfectly legal. Just like in the Terry case, nothing the officer observed was in and of itself illegal, but sufficiently suspicious.
AFAIK, there is no law against carrying an axe or a chain saw down the street. Wouldn’t you look at a guy carrying an axe down the sidewalk or into a restaurant as something needing further investigation?
There are many, many things which are absolutely legal, but nonetheless suspicious.
Why? I mean sure, he’s a jerk show off. But would you call the police on a guy with a handgun strapped to his belt in a holster?
It was heavily limited and gutted to make sure it wouldn’t have much effect, thereby enabling the gun lobby to say “See? It doesn’t work!”
A semiautomatic rifle is a good tool to* hunt small game*? :rolleyes: