A Twitter discussion earlier tonight between our friends @eyeonannapolis, @baltospectator, and @justin_fenton pointed to @bob_smithey's Tumblr blog. Posted on 06/08/2011 9:13:59 PM PDT by jeffq73
A Twitter discussion earlier tonight between our friends @eyeonannapolis, @baltospectator, and @justin_fenton pointed to @bob_smithey's Tumblr blog.
The blog post in question contains an image, found below at the bottom of this post, of an Intelligence Bulletin from the Baltimore PD's Criminal Intelligence Division. The bulletin, dated May 31, 2011, shows a picture of a window decal (seen at the top of this post) sold by Legally Concealed, a company that also sells a line of clothing and accessories with this same logo on it.
The bulletin points out in big red letters that:
All officers should be familiar with this symbol especially when dealing with the public or conducting traffic stops. While the individual who is displaying the symbol may not be armed , the presence of the symbol provides an early warning indicator that you MAY be about to encounter an armed individual.As noted on the bulletin, and pointed out by Fenton on Twitter, the source of the information in this bulletin is the WRTAC. That acroynym stands for the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center, which provides a daily open source intelligence briefing. The Washington Post discussed the WRTAC in their heralded investigative series Top Secret America.
Legally Concealed appears to be a part of the National Rifle Association's Business Alliance and has no appearance of being a fringe website at all. It is interesting that the WRATC and Baltimore PD find this information newsworthy enough to inform law enforcement officers about it. As the son of a career police officer, I would hope smart officers would go into every traffic stop thinking about the possibility of there being a gun in the car.
In fact, people who have gone to the trouble of going through all the legal process and have standards to meet and maintain to hold on to that concealed weapons permit are, in almost every case, the least of the worries of a police officer in Baltimore City. Additionally, as someone who took a concealed weapons training course in another state, there was instruction given on interactions with law enforcement. I specifically remember being told to verbally tell the officer and hand over your concealed permit along with your license, registration and insurance information when stopped.
The city police department in Baltimore at times seems obsessed on how many guns they've taken off the streets rather than criminals who possess those guns illegally. Those are the people the law enforcement officers needs to worry about far more than law-abiding concealed weapons holders. This may not be intended as profiling of concealed weapons permit holders, but it certainly smacks of that very thing. I have to assume the WRTAC has been passing this information on to law enforcement officers in the whole Mid-Atlantic region and I'm sure law enforcement in Maryland might not be as accustomed to this type of thing since Maryland does not have "shall issue" weapons permits like other states. The Maryland law is the old system (I saw it with a family member getting a permit in another state that now has shall issue) where political favoritism and law enforcement cronyism are the only reliable way to get a permit to protect yourself.
I would expect all the brainpower assembled in the original Twitter conversation, especially Justin Fenton, might get to the bottom of this as well as anybody might in the coming days. Maybe it is just a well-intentioned, but misguided, effort to keep law enforcement informed but, to reiterate something I already said, the firearms owned by a concealed weapons permit holder are probably the last firearms a Baltimore City Police Officer has a major cause for concern over. Specifically, the smaller number of permits out there due to the state not being shall issue cuts down on the numbers of permit holders in addition to the unlikely possibility of a permit holder being a threat. What's next - an intelligence bulletin telling officers to watch out for people with NRA stickers on their cars?
The image of the intelligence bulletin provided by @bob_smithey is below.
I assume since this is where you like to dwell in discussions in which you make no sense or have anything else constructive to offer...Except insults and assumptions of one’s heritage or culture...
You are in a long line of abhorant, keyboard wannabees on this website who need to stoop to such a low level to get off somehow...
Consider this the last time I respond or contribute to anything you participate in...And the proof anyone needs (of what kind of person you truely are) is another immature, off-topic response, just to get some sort of satisfying last word in on this thread...
I kept trying to agree with you but you didn’t want that and you went childish before I did. My mistake was chasing you there.
No you didn’t...I never asked you to agree with me, only clarify your statement, which you didn’t...When you could not do that, you went south, and somehow the vortex sucked me in again...
You think you have an understanding of the Second Amendment, personal security, personal privacy, Law Enforcement and Politics, you may be close on some things but whatever you have said in this doesn’t seem to fit very well...
I will not waste anymore of my time on this with you, your response to this will absolutely prove my point...
My final reply to you proves nothing other than the points I was trying to make which did not come across to you for some reason. First, no law abiding citizen should be required to identify their carry status. Second, if they are the police have better things to do than warn each other to be on the look out for those that do.
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