“I don’t agree that people should be allowed to carry a weapon openly. I have instructed my officers to challenge anyone they see carrying a weapon openly to make sure that they have the right to carry a weapon. Some people, like felons, cannot carry a weapon. They (people carrying weapons) will be treated with respect and dignity but they will be challenged.” – Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steve Anderson
Holy Bat Shit!! “I don’t agree that people should be allowed to carry a weapon openly.” Okay Chief, had you stopped there or added “but the laws of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and the 2nd Amendment allow it so thus what I personally think doesn’t matter. My job is to enforce laws; not to agree or disagree with them.” I might not be so pissed about your stance. But, let me rephrase the spirit of your message into the crap that a free citizen like myself hears spewing from your pie hole.
“I don’t agree with the laws of Alabama, the laws of Tuscaloosa, or with citizen’s natural rights protected by the United States Constitution. Thus, I will take it upon myself to disregard the law and to interject my own personal views and opinions upon the law abiding citizens of Tuscaloosa. So, I will violate the 2nd, and the 4th Amendments and even if I cannot make a legal case I will in fact make it so inconvenient for my fellow citizens who wish to open carry that I will, in effect be bypassing the 5th, 6th, and 7th Amendments as well.
I wish I still lived in Alabama. Free weekends might find me in Tuscaloosa openly carrying with every thing I have.
I emailed Chief Anderson earlier and received this response:
I am happy to know you are a law abiding citizen. I am well aware of the open carry law and the rights of an individual to openly carry a firearm in Alabama. My personal opinion as stated in the Tuscaloosa News article is just my opinion regarding the law and not an interruption of the law. I hope you are not naïve enough to believe criminals and felons would not disobey the law. As someone who deals with criminals and felons I am not naïve enough to believe if they discovered they could carry a weapon openly and not be challenged by law enforcement some of them would not give it a try. I do expect my officers to respectfully speak with any one they come in contact with openly carrying a firearm in an effort to determine if they are legally within their rights to do so. We won’t know if we don’t ask. Thank you for your email.
Exactly what is this challenge going to consist of? Are they just going to ask everyone carrying openly if they are legally disqualified from carrying? That would be annoying and fruitless since felons would hardly be above lying. Are they going to detain everyone carrying openly until they can verify their answers? That would be a gross violation of civil rights; there’s no way such a blanket policy passes the “reasonable suspicion” test.
I don’t like that he doesn’t like open carry. But I do respect the right of the police to ask for my carry permit since that is legal. I’d rather make open carry completely legal, as long as your carry isn’t unsafe to others or you aren’t doing anything stupid.
In Terry v. Ohio, Chief Justice Warren wrote
And in justifying the particular intrusion the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion. (392 U.S. at 21)
Chief Anderson in the above email response backpedals slightly: I do expect my officers to respectfully speak with any one they come in contact with openly carrying a firearm in an effort to determine if they are legally within their rights to do so. Okay Chief. SPEAK with is a different term than CHALLENGE. Hear us all now. Openly carrying a weapon in Alabama is LEGAL thus by simply observing someone doing something within the LEGAL confines of the law does NOT by itself constitute reasonable suspicion of involvement in criminal activity which the Supreme Court (remember those guys?) in Terry Vs. Ohio wrote a landmark decision.
By the way Chief Anderson, I hope you great success in catching, arresting, jailing and prosecution of criminals. We law abiding citizens only have the best wishes for you on this, but, you seem to be confused on the actions and behaviors of law abiding citizens.
Think about this for a few minutes:
Why is it that any of us have any desire to carry our weapon concealed?
The first and foremost principal of self defense (IMHO) is deterrence.
Deterrence (as defined by webster’s dictionary): : the act or process of deterring: as a : the inhibition of criminal behavior by fear especially of punishment b : the maintenance of military power for the purpose of discouraging attack
How does a concealed weapon (again from webster’s, Conceal: transitive verb 1: to prevent disclosure or recognition of 2: to place out of sight ) serve this first principal of self defense?