Posted on 09/24/2010 5:06:00 AM PDT by marktwain
Last Saturday the Madison, WI police department responded to a 911 call about five men openly carrying holstered handguns near a Culvers restaurant. Police soon arrived, detained the men, now referred to by some as the Madison Five, and demanded they produce identity credentials.
The police ultimately cuffed, searched, and charged two men who refused to provide ID with obstruction of justice. Days later Madison Police North District Capt. Cameron McLay said he believes officers acted appropriately in responding to . . . the [911] caller's concern that something might happen.
However the 911 call recording obtained by the Examiner.com pursuant to an Open Records Act request from Dane County does not support Capt. McLays characterization. The caller, Ms. Phyllis Micke, emphasized to the 911 dispatcher that the guns were in holsters, and that theres no problem . . . [the men are] just sitting there extremely relaxed.
After the dispatcher explained that open carry was legal unless they are threatening or disturbing people, Micke declared that
theres no problem and its no emergency . . .I feel bad then, if theyre not doing anything wrong then its my mistake.
Wisconsin Carry Inc. (WCO) President Nik Clark is not surprised by the tenor of the 911 call. Clark said that every time somebody has called the police about open carriers it has essentially been to ask if open carry was legal, not to report a disturbance.
This is a civil rights violation. I think what you meant to say is that, had the men been Mexicans, this would be TREATED as a civil rights violation.
Our wonderful government does not believe that ordinary white people can even have their civil rights violated. Or maybe they just think that white people have no civil rights to violate in the first place. Either way, the result is the same. That’s why the bastards need to be sued into oblivion.
No, you didn’t. You’re lying.
The five firearm owners ARE The Madison Five.
They had zero complaints.
The cops can show up if they want to and make observations. What they can’t do is demand that people about whom they have no reasonable suspicion have committed, are committing or are about to commit a crime provide them with identification or identify themselves.
The cops DO NOT have to respond to every 911 call, BTW.
As for loons, you need to sit down, shut up and read the law and your little constitution before you post.
Further, just because in the “real world” you cite conservatives have their rights violated by the government en masse every day and you’ve gotten used to it, not all of us have or ever will. Some of us want to live free instead of under the yolk of tyranny you seem to favor or at least find acceptable.
Suppose everybody in Madison who owns a gun decided to open carry all at the same time, and suppose 100 people scattered around the city called 911 when they saw the open carriers. Is there any point at which you think the cops could maybe stop responding, at least to the ones where the caller says they’re relaxed, eating their meal and not creating a disturbance and they (the caller) just wants to know if it’s legal? Ya’ think?
If you have to explain to a professional that is employed to enforce the law of the land, we're screwed. And the employee that doesn't know his job needs to be gone.
/johnny
I think there could be a way to make it work. Like the do in the miltary...every year I have to have sexual harrassment training (no not how to do it, but what you aren’t allowed to do) along with various other types of training like law of armed conflict.
So if I do violate the sexual harrassment policy or law of armed conflict then I can be tried in court. So possibly if law enforcement got routine briefings on this stuff then yes I concur it would be ok to nail them.
What's needed is a recognition that actions contrary to the Supreme Law of the Land are illegitimate(*), that illegitimate actions form no part of any government agent's legitimate duties, and the generally-broad immunity officers enjoy when performing their legitimate duties does not legitimately apply when they are acting illegitimately. Recognition of those points would help a lot.
(*) With the caveat that unconstitutional actions may sometimes require extra-constitutional remedies. For reasons somewhat analogous to the mathematical Incompleteness Theorem, no constitutional system of government can fully handle all cases where people try to circumvent it.
Whoa. Most of what I am talking about are local folks, your neighbors, who just don’t know any better. I’d save the litigation for scoundrels who truly deserve it.
I remember back in the ‘80’s, when while open carry was legal in my State, it was pretty uncommon among polite people. Well, I walk into a local store run by a friend of mind, and I see an evil looking individual talking to the clerk I know.
Scrawny, dirty blue jeans and a t-shirt, long black hair and beard, with a .45 in a holster in the back of his pants. So I quietly went to the back, to be out of sight, yet keep an eye on things. I wasn’t armed myself, but started to look for what could be used as a weapon.
Finally, the character walked out peacefully, so I went up to the clerk and mentioned his gun. “Oh, that’s just *officer* such-and-such”, he replied. “He comes in here all the time.”
This was a good lesson to me. While my safety gene still makes me not trust anyone around me with a gun, having known a lot of dumbasses, I long hence changed my focus from the gun to the person.
A lot of Americans need to relearn gun culture. And I think it’s better that they learn it the friendly way.
LEOs have to deal with a lot of liars, scoundrels, and normal, polite people every day. So it’s pretty typical that the first thing they do at a scene is to scope out the people, and figure out who is what.
The fastest way to do this is to look for attitude. They have no miracle ability to tell what’s going on just by looking, so it should be no surprise that if you act like an aggressive dork, they will treat you like one, without further adieu. What the law says at that point is kind of secondary, and only comes into play when they know where they stand.
So being friendly, forthcoming with information, etc., helps the LEOs to get on to the legal part sooner, rather than later.
As far as store employees go, they are just minimum wage types hired to do minimum wage stuff. That’s all there is to their job, unless they are taught otherwise.
So are government employees, except the unions have jacked up the wages.
The LAW OF THE LAND is never secondary. It is primary. And if the employee doesn't understand.... they need to hit the road. Store employees don't swear an oath to uphold the laws of the (locality, state, federal government), so agents of the gooberment with guns should be held to a much higher standard. And maybe prosecuted for violating their oath, when they do.
/johnny
He may have suspected that it was illegal. After all, WI is one of the most restrictive states in the Union, and when told it wasn't against the law, he backed off. What's the problem?
Agreed, and that’s as it should be for John Q. Citizen. But LE is supposed to know the law and behave accordingly. This was an abuse of authority. They need to learn a lesson - the time of abusing conservatives and any people who intend to utilize their rights protected by the BoR is over. We’re not going to take it anymore.
Maybe they do know and just want to harass people who carry. More and more the cops are nothing but revenue collectors and the local enforcers of leftwing policies.
I think what the poster meant by “employees” were the responding officer(s). We shouldn’t have to explain the law to them just to keep from having our rights violated.
We have no duty to help the police nor to even talk to them. According to the USSC, the cops have no duty to help individual citizens, either.
“...when told it wasn’t against the law, he backed off.
What’s the problem?”
He backed off, but the police didn’t. They apparently had to come out and take a look just in case.
Did he have to be so self-indulgent as to call the police?
Couldn’t he have inquired with those around him, with other citizens who might have been acquainted with the law?
It just doesn’t make sense.
I agree with you. The police response was way over the top. That’s not the guy’s fault. You should be able to call the cops and have they respond appropriately.
“That’s not the guy’s fault. You shold be able to call the cops and have them respond appropiately.”
The whole thing sounds like a setup of some sort; someone looking to incite some sort of an incident.
IMHO
Really? Doesn’t come across that way to me. Time will probably tell.
Here is the latest on the open carry incident in Madison.
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/2596695/posts
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