Mac Mouths Off - Conceal carry laws should not include privacy provisions

The Eau Claire Spectator ^ | October 6, 2005 | Susan MacLaughlin

[Tarantulas]

Here in Arizona, if I'm stopped by the police and they run a license check on me, they will see that I hold a CCW permit. It's good for them in case I'm driving drunk or talking suicidal or on the wrong end of a high-speed chase. The police deserve to have all the information they can get when dealing with a potential bad guy.

[bereanway]

Well, I'd like to "be given the opportunity to have an informed choice on weather" as well. That's kind of a novel concept, I just dunno exactly how that would work.

Sad thing is, that may have been the most lucid comment in the entire article.

[VadeRetro]

And, despite being in its case, in poor repair and most importantly unloaded, I somehow worried that I'd shoot myself. I was scared throughout the minute-long walk outside to the driveway.

...

The current piece of legislation makes me nervous. I don't like the idea of not knowing if Joe Schmo walking down the street is packing or not.

This neurotic wretch makes ME nervous. There are people out there who think their hangups are everybody else's problem. Spooky, and discouraging.

[Erasmus]

Did she have to go to college to get that neurotic, or was she born that way?

[Americanwolfsbrother]

As was stated a few posts below yours, it just gives the officer more info. And as the Ohio CCW holder said sometimes it causes the officer to show a little leeway. I'm also a CCW holder in AZ and most police will ask me if I'm carrying and then ask what I'm carrying. Some get real jealous when I'm wearing my Sig 229 or Kimber.:)AWB

[Noumenon]

I don't like the idea of not knowing if Joe Schmo walking down the street is packing or not.

Someone should advise this ninny that criminals like it even less.

[magslinger]

It's good for them in case I'm driving drunk or talking suicidal or on the wrong end of a high-speed chase

If they treat you any differently in any of those cases because you don't have a CCW they are stupid and letting their families down.

The police deserve to have all the information they can get when dealing with a potential bad guy.

They certainly do and get it when they run your plates, including your arrest record, if any. I'm just saying that not knowing you have a CCW doesn't affect their safety one bit, so they have no need to know.

[rock58seg]

Seems to me it would actually make a LEO less nervous, knowing that in most respects they are dealing with a law abiding citizen.

[Lexinom]

Butthead has a sister?

[Wilhelm Tell]

I hate to think what would have happened if her Mom had asked her to carry a box of rat poison, a baseball bat, a set of steak knives or a six pack of Jolt cola to the truck. I do believe Mom would have had to call the paramedics.

Heck, the truck is a lot more "powerful" than a handgun. Someone bent on doing evil could do a lot more harm with a truck than with a gun. People who are neurotic about something always seem to want to make their neurosis public policy.

[On the Road to Serfdom]

>>The police deserve to have all the information they can get when dealing with a potential bad guy.

Do you mean after the hypothetical high speed chase they find out you have a CCW and then relax, realizing you are one of the good guys after all? Then if they find your gun they will not see it as a threat because they know you are not a criminal?

Certainly you are not suggesting that a CCW holder is a higher threat to an officer than a non CCW holder.

[July 4th]

[scott7278]

I don't like the idea of not knowing if Joe Schmo walking down the street is packing or not.

Does the author have X-Ray vision? Does the Concealed Carry Law eliminate it?

Earth to Susan. Come in Susan. The bad guys are already packing, whether you know it or not.

[conservativeharleyguy]

Listening to liberals talk about guns (and war, and security, and defense, and, and, and, etc.....) is like listening to a room full of virgins talk about sex.

They don't understand, because they can't understand.

It's outside their frames of reference, but they are too arrogant and self-possessed to admit there's a subject they don't know everything about, and are absolutely positive that we have a right to their opinions.

[magslinger]

I read Crim's post with interest. What I got is that Ohio doesn't have the same law regarding informing the police that you have a CCW that AZ and MI do. It seems like the polite thing to do, and I'd likely do the same, except they already know. What I'm against is some curious cop seeing that you have a permit just because he ran your plates. There are a few officers here in MI who just don't like us plebes having the right to be armed, and show it.

[GladesGuru]

" MacLaughlin is a senior print journalism major"

That did it for me. I have neither time nor interest to waste on what presstitutes say, write, or think about guns.

[William Terrell]

"I don't like the idea of not knowing if Joe Schmo walking down the street is packing or not."

That's not important, dear. What's important is that Jose Schmolio over there likewise doesn't know if Joe Schmo is packing heat or not. That may save you from being raped by Jose if you're around Joe.

Clearer now?

[sarasmom]

Obviously the author of this piece is a Marion Zimmer Bradly /Darkover fan.
Fantasy/science fiction series:
Darkover is a planet originally colonized by a crashed spaceship from Earth, mostly filled with red haired Irish people with latent ESP powers.
After a few generations of inbreeding with the indigenous ...
Never mind, suffice it to say that magic ruled, and all lethal weapons, except knives and swords, were outlawed, except for those special secret weapons belonging to the strictly self-controlled ruling class of elites, who had special magical mental powers and mental weapons!

I've often thought it would be amusing to watch a group of Ann Ryand "Atlas Shrugged" fans meet up with MZB fans at a convention center hotel that had double booked...LOL!

[GladesGuru]

They breath by hind brain reflex - sort of like a reptile.

[kstewskis]

Miss MacLaughlin is a disgrace to her heritage species.