Let’s clear the air. TTAG has been critical of law enforcement from day one. Some have even called us anti-cop. While I don’t think that’s a true statement, I do think we hold Johnny Law to a very high standard. And, in an intellectually honest move, I think we hold armed citizens to the same standard. With that disclaimer out of the way, I’d like to spend a few minutes talking about two absolutely amazing interactions I’ve had with local law enforcement over the last few weeks . . .
The first happened while my wife’s car was in the shop. She drove my EDT (every day truck), so I took the motorcycle. I’ve been riding for over a decade and in that time have been stopped several times for various infractions. I’m largely a safe rider, but I can be heavy handed on the throttle.
On my way to work, I exited I-35 and kept pouring on the steam to find myself with an unmarked police car following closely, lights a-blazing. This would be largely unremarkable except that I was also carrying and it was my first time getting pulled over since receiving my CHL last March. I was close enough to work that I engaged my flashers, raised my hand to acknowledge the stop, and pulled into the parking lot at work. I don’t get pulled over often, but when I do, I’ll drive a bit further to get off a major highway for my own safety and the safety of the officer.
Unlike some of the fellows I’ve seen on YouTube, I don’t start my LEO interactions with “Am I being detained?!?” I highly recommend staying calm and being polite. More flies with honey and all that. As the officer walked up, my bike was turned off, keys on the instrument cluster, DL & CHL ready to hand over. The officer took both IDs, handed my CHL back and said, “You can keep this.” followed by, “Can I see your insurance?”
I explained that I keep it under the seat, and asked if he would like me to dismount and retrieve it. He said yes, I handed over my most recent card (expired), and apologized for not having a recent copy handy. He checked with dispatch that I was current (I am), and went back to his car to run my license and plates. He then returned with a warning.
While he was writing it out, I quizzed him about his carry piece. Austin PD carries the M&P 40. We talked Apex Triggers and he explained department policy on modifications (they are a no-no). I happen to work in the second worst zip code in Austin so we talked about the work APD is doing to clean up the neighborhood and I thanked him for his commitment to that. He advised me to slow down and I went on my way.
Professionalism offered is often professionalism returned.
The second interaction happened over the weekend on my way out to the family ranch. I had some downtime and my dad wanted to borrow my AR for some pig control. In Johnson City (home of LBJ), I was stopped by an officer for a burned out tail light. Again, I pulled well off the road, turned on my dome light and handed over my DL, CHL and insurance card. The officer asked if I was carrying and I replied, “Yes.” He asked me where. I pointed to my abdomen and said, “In the appendix position.” He asked if I would step out of the vehicle to which I replied, “Of course.”
On the side of the road, he explained that I had a light out and that I should pick up some bulbs in the next town over. He asked about the backseat filled with rifle cases, asked if I was headed out to do some hunting and we chatted about opening morning. He ran my license, wrote me a warning and I asked him what he was packing. Apparently Johnson City is a small enough town that the local LEOs get to pick the sidearm of their choice. In my officer’s case it was an XD 40. I started gushing about my EDC XD(m) and he said that he’s waiting for Springfield to make the XD(m) in .357 SIG.
[edit: JCPD Officer carries a XD .45 Caliber. JCPD does have a policy for on duty carry and they provide a city issued Glock 21 .45 caliber handgun . However, if the officer has their own handgun .40 caliber, .357, .45 or .38 super they can choose to carry it on duty as well.]
He asked if he could check out my Compact since he had not had a chance to put hands on one. I put my tailgate down and told him that I’d be removing my gun and holster from my body and setting them on the tailgate. He had a moment of pause and said, “Your gun has been on you the whole time?”
I replied, “Yes, I told you that I was carrying in the appendix position. Sorry for the miscommunication.” I set the gun and holster combo down on the tailgate, he removed it, popped the mag out, and ejected the bullet in the chamber. At no point did I feel unsafe and he complimented me on how nice a gun the XD(m) is. Once he was done, He handed me my mag, extra bullet, gun, holster, and told me to have a nice evening. With that, we were finished and I headed on to the ranch.
There are bad cops and there are good cops. That’s a universal truth. But I want to make sure TTAG steals a little of Fox’s mojo and presents a “fair & balanced” report on law enforcement. I’ve had two great interactions in two weeks with officers in a big city and a small town. Both went well and I was treated respectfully. Hopefully, our readers will have similar interactions in the future.
I have always had positive interactions with Texas LEOs. I treat them with respect and let them control the situation. In return I have been treated with respect. I have never once felt like they violated or tried to violate my rights. When I have been pulled over, it was always for a valid infraction and I owned up to them.
There’s good and bad in all walks and professions. We do well to remember that lest we become shrill and shrieky like the antis.
About 2 months ago I came out of retirement and got myself a job requiring me to run all over the bay area in a company car. About a week into the new job I got nailed dead to rights for making a right turn on a red that was clearly marked not to. I was on the side of the rode with the cop for less than 10 minutes and he gave me a warning.
Not the first time a cop has cut me some slack.
Kinda cool, if too expensive for myself.
Speaking of .22LR replicas, the S&W M&P 15-22 is pretty kick brass, as their marketing is wont to advertise. Eats all brands of ammo, and satisfyingly has the same functional major controls. Good rifle for <=$400.
I know it’s against my best interests, but I’ve never been comfortable with cops being allowed to decide when to cite someone for an infraction. I don’t like the latitude. I feel that it benefits people they like and goes against people they don’t like, and it also reduces the annoyance factor on the number of laws we have. If laws were enforced strictly and consistently, we’d be electing more politicians that didn’t make so many laws.
Thanks for the follow up.
This is truly impressive terminal ballistic performance.
Wait until a cop comes by the guy wearing this and plugs him.
I have an Etsy shop. Where does one buy those surplus flare guns? I could make some hella steampunk stuff with them.
Great backup gun for hog hunting: Glock 20, 10mm. Drop in a 6″ bbl and use full-power loads, +4 mag extension gives you 19+1 rounds. You can even go so far as to put a red-dot sight on that sucker.
That’s a scary round if you’re a bad guy.
Looking forward to the .380 CHAMPION!
so for $12 worth of stuff and 30 seconds worth of work, he is trying to make $200?
and here i thought i had good get rich (not very) quick schemes….called work
Most officers I know have no problem whatsoever with a lawfully carried concealed weapon… in fact, it might be a slight positive. After all, cops know better than almost anyone that they can’t be everywhere at once.
This thing still creeps me out… Ill take a donkey for the win thanks… Love new tech though
The real life term for this is Bullet Magnet. Might as well strap on a flame thrower, if only to increase it’s lethality to Friendly Troops.
HC: those Creeps this thing gives you is probably due to it’s resemblance to the Empire’s Snow Walkers from Star Wars
Regarding the .50 cal video…that was API ammo, you can see it detonate after it exits the first xbox
That LS3 and its ilk are no more than a collection of shrapnel that hasn’t detonated yet. Give it to the least-popular squad mate to tend.
The trot is a very unstable gait for walking. Is there any way to contact the designers of this thing? It’d be an almost trivial S/W mod (at least for a geek like me) to give it a walk gait, which has three feet on the ground at all times and doesn’t have to balance on just two feet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrmWtGXK4Q4
But when it was recovering from an almost-fall, and picking its way over the blocks, it did look very, um, “organic.” On the ice it was reminiscent of a video I once saw of a cow with “mad cow disease” stumbling.
Per the first video, I would hate to be the wounded Marine in that thing, it would be a bullet magnet. Especially when one of our enemies sees the first wounded soldier being carried off in one and they spread the word. I may be wrong, this is just, my humble opinion.
Neither. I’m not a gun grabber.
😉
That mule thing is incredibly stupid. You could make a treaded vehicle that could do every thing that that thing can do even if that technology was perfect. And the treaded vehicle would cost way less to research, produce, and maintenance would be a lot simpler.
Seriously what benefit is there to a legged walker robot in combat as compared a treaded/wheeled design even if you had a perfect walker system that never lost its step and completely stable.
This review has really caused the butt hurt among some. We’re all adults here, if this rustles your jimmies then get one. Otherwise just let us chuckle in peace.
Robert you are right as to how to interact with law enforcement,as when I was a Deputy how I reacted to someone was how they first reacted to me,also I would even ask them if they had had some type of stressful incident happen to them,if they acted belligerent,and in most cases they had,most of the time it was family oriented.But things do happen and it is good when both sides do interact positively,now for some people it is just hard for them to accept that maybe they did do something not right,but if you approach in a positive manner and advise “do you want to know why I pulled you over”?,instead of just asking for their license and insurance,they tend to be more cooperative,a lot of the time when I ran someone’s license and it came back clean I would only give a warning,but if it came back with excessive driving history they would get a ticket,as these drivers are an accident waiting to happen and could get themselves or someone else hurt or killed,in alot of instances tickets are just a form of letting a driver know that they need to change their driving habits.Be prepared and ready.Keep your powder dry.
I’ve been wondering about bullet stability. Is it still going front-end first at 20 to 30 yards? Or will it keyhole? That could make a big difference in expansion
The seller is out of Washington DC, what do you expect.
I joke that Illinois gun owners are some of the most law-abiding citizens, because we have so many laws to abide by. While hunting several years ago, I was approached by two Illinois DNR police officers for a routine check. As they approached me, I laid my loaded shotgun inside my vehicle to show my intention to disarm myself before interacting with them.
One of the officers almost arrested me on the spot, because in the tension of the moment I had forgotten that you are not allowed to store a loaded weapon in a motor vehicle. Fortunately for me, the more senior officer was a little more level-headed, and I was given a stern warning.
The “smart gun” idea stinks to me like a project dreamed up by people who are relatively unfamiliar with firearms but enamored with technology, believing that it can be applied and refined to solve any problem.
The problem they think they’re trying to solve is that “guns are dangerous and don’t discriminate.” However, the real problem is that they don’t understand guns as life *saving* equipment, which absolutely *must* work when it is needed. If they did, they would realize that adding additional potential points of failure to any firearm design is stupid from the outset.
All this is going to do is cause commanders to expand the gear list because “Hey, we’ve got that new thingie to shareload so bring more stuff”, and the mule will break so then you’ll have squads carrying more shit that they really don’t need anyways.
Police, like the rest of us, are human. Some are willing to interact with you on a human to human basis and be reasonable. Some of them are hard line “cops” and only talk/hang out with other cops and are jaded and unable to interact on that human to human level. Some of them are just jerks, like the rest of us.
Always be optimistic and give the human to human thing a shot. With guys set up to write traffic tickets, you’re probably wasting your breath, but you can be mad about how a department allocates it’s resources toward policing after the fact.
For the record, my last two tickets (in 5 -6 years or so) have been with robocops, I shot for the human to human thing but still no avail. Oh well. Anyone trying to catch speeders on 285 in Atlanta is a tax officer, not a police officer, I’m convinced.
I looked at the Armatix website, and it appears that one of these “smart” devices is a rod that you stick in the bore of a 9mm firearm and can only remove with some kind of PIN code. The problem is that if someone is unaware of this “smart” device and tries to fire the gun with it in place, bad things are going to happen. Maybe I misunderstood the product. I hope I did.
Last January, I was leaving Las Vegas after attending a trade show. It was 5:00 a.m., and dark, and I got pulled over by two of LV Metro’s finest. Turns out I had my running lights on, and had forgotten to turn on my headlights. I had an NRA Member sticker on my back window, so the cop asked me if I had a gun in the car. I replied that I had a Webley MK IV .45 in the door pocket. He asked me to turn off the engine and step out, which I did. He then asked if I was carrying. I indicated that I had a Ruger LCP in my hip pocket. He fished it out and unloaded it. I showed him my license, registration, insurance form and AZ carry permit. He asked if I had been drinking. I replied, “What, before breakfast?!” He and his partner tried not to laugh. After checking my info on their radio, they gave me back my gun and sent me on my way. All very courteous and professional. Next January, I have to go back to Vegas, but NV no longer recognizes an AZ carry permit, as of 3/1/2013, so I have to check out their laws on vehicular carry before I go back there.
I might be the only person more interested in what the author rides, haha. I’m in Austin this weekend with some friends for F1. I though about trailering my XR650L or 954RR down with us, but it was just too much of a pain in the ass, and fuck riding either of those for 16 hours straight.
Are there *any* sport bikes out there that are comfortable for 100 miles plus?
Aftermarket seats?
If someone tries to attack me with any kind of weapon there wont be a fight just a body
Snap your fingers to the future?
Well ,Silver, Trigger, Toranado and Francis all came to serve with just a whistle, I’m sure that with directional sound detection software, it will do as well as Equine 1.0
People see open carry of rifles, along with the confrontational tactics employed, and associate the movement with some kind of right wing paramilitary “militia” neo-somethingorother survivalists like the Branch Dividians or Timothy McVeigh.
In makes it all that much worse that only the eventful videos are circulated, and eventful usually means some kind of confrontation, whether wholly hyperbole or not.
Handguns, on the other hand, don’t have that baggage – non-confrontational, and post the video of nothing-to-see-here.
Yes, people tried to “normalize” gay rights in the 80s with excessive public displays of affection. Sticking peoples face in it, even if they agree with it, is a turn off. Being petulant is an even bigger turn off. Gun owners will disassociate with other gun owners being seen as petulant.
That can go both ways , the founders did grant us a right to carry firearms, but The also said as long as it did not put overdue fear in public places ,that means they are saying open carry is legal, but don’t over due it, like having , a sword, knife, pistol, and rifle all at the same time say to go shopping, now returning from militia training and stopping to eat you would leave your rifle and sword parked by the front door etc or in church, but if fear of Indian’s attacking , if no door man on watch yes keep all arms at hand etc. and yes even a cannon would be ok even for a parade or again returning from militia training etc…but not a cannon for everyday travel except to move form one area to another , so you would put a dust cover on the canon for travel. And the public could see your intents by the way you dressed and so camo and body armor , and lots different arms , YES would be FEAR to public safety.
Although I voted “Against”, the argument “For” seemed to be better crafted. You can tell which way the debate was biased.
I have no idea on sales figures, but I assume Masterpiece ARMS is a small manufacturer serving small niche markets. Obviously FN 5.7 handgun owners have enough income to spend very close to or more than $1000 on their guns, so is it surprising MPA seeks to exploit that market?
I have been fascinated with the FN 5.7 often reading and educating myself for 3 years but I’ve never “pulled the trigger” and purchased one. Well shucks, as I type I’m turning more and more against this MAC-10.
Dramatic Statement ;^) — If i went to a garage sale and found a full pallet of 5.7 cartridges for 10 cents each, I’d buy the FN Pistol, then an AR57 upper. Then after the lottery win I’d buy a PS90, but at no point would I buy this MAC-10 in 5.7.
However, to each his own!! Even stupid guns can be fun to shoot!
KD
I try to change mine out every 6 months if I can, then I just shoot the old stuff.
Is that too long? or too quick?
Once every couple months I shoot my current ammo and then use a new box.
What? You guys don’t use live ammo? Nothing a few pictures won’t fix to hide the holes in the wall.
That is cool.
Mo better is seeing somebody compete with seemingly rather stock AR. Refreshing!