Carrying a rifle or pellet gun should not be an immediate, shoot on sight, death warrant.
No it shouldn’t, but if you don’t put the weapon down when ordered to do so, and appear to be moving the weapon into a firing position, that’s a different situation.
Yeah, I saw that in the report later.
The original article wasn’t clear on the “posture”.
When you are not sure if a person has a weapon which he is incidentally allowed to legally carry in California, and when you don't identify yourself as a police officer, and when you give your order from inside the police car where it can't be heard, then you shouldn't be pulling your weapon on somebody with their back turned.