yes, but he made the statement:I’m coming out, don’t shoot. I have a concealed carry permit. i was merely pointing out the difference in NY law...
Posted on 08/04/2012 6:49:23 PM PDT by marktwain
DENVER -- What was supposed to be a regular night at the movies ended up being anything but for James Mapes on Sunday.
The Northglenn man was arrested in the middle of a movie at the Cinebarre Theater in Thornton after someone called police to report that a man had gone into the theater with a gun.
Mapes told 7NEWS that he’s worn his sidearm into the same theater several times.
“Never had a problem,” he said.
That changed on Sunday.
“The movie stopped and the lights came on,” Mapes said. “Someone said, ‘I just got a call from my friend who said there’s someone in the theater with a gun.’”
Mapes said he stood up told fellow patrons that he had a concealed carry permit.
He said he started to walk out and noticed all the police.
Mapes said, “I put my hands out and said, ‘I’m coming out, don’t shoot. I have a concealed carry permit. My gun is holstered.’”
He said police took his gun, handcuffed him and placed him under arrest.
“I’m kind of indignant about it,” he said. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
Mapes said he wears his sidearm for safety reasons.
“A theater is no different than a grocery store or a gas station,” he said. “If a criminal is going to attack, you need to be able to defend yourself.”
Mapes attorney, Robert Wareham, said there should never have been an arrest.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedenverchannel.com ...
yes, but he made the statement:I’m coming out, don’t shoot. I have a concealed carry permit. i was merely pointing out the difference in NY law...
It should cost them money anyway for false arrest. The City should know better.
1) Did the theater have a posted warning about No Guns Permitted on these premises?
2) It sounds like James Mapes had a valid conceal/carry permit, plus another posting indicated that CO is also an open carry state as well.
3) If there was no posted warning and James Mapes had a valid conceal/carry permit, than what law was being broken that would cause the police to arrest Mapes or for the city attorney to consider pressing charges?
4) Unless Mapes violated a printed warning against No Guns Allowed on Premises, then I hope he sues the city & the police & the theater & the scumbag who called in the original complaint, for everything they're worth, plus more!
Sheep? No, more like a snake — under the radar.
I’m not much of a movie-goin’ guy; but if I were, and I were carrying (which I always am), it would be concealed. If for no other reason, I would conceal out of respect for the comfort of my fellow movie-goers. Just because I CAN carry open, it doesn’t mean I want to spook the other folks.
I suppose you’d say, to hell with the other folks, they have no right to be spooked. I just don’t work that way. I like to be considerate.
BTW, your non-sequiturs on driving and talking are mind-boggling.
Holmes was prepared for a gunfight; he was protected better than most SWAT teams. Not sure the typical consumer-grade ammo would have even slowed him down.
The problem is that the wrong people are being forced to
fork over the $$$ to settle lawsuits that are caused by
zealous brain dead badgemonkeys. When “the city” pays
what that actually means is that “the taxpayer” pays. The
mayor, the city council, the chief of police and his badgemonkeys all get their regular check every two weeks, their bad behavior costs them nothing. That’s because whenever city employee does something bad the city is forced to eat the costs of that misconduct. Unless and
until willful misconduct, willful abuse and violations of
civil rights are paid for directly by the person responsible these abuses of authority will continue.
While Colorado is an open carry state, cities and counties may have laws against open carry (just took my ccw class). It is not advisable to open carry in Colorado as you might be legal on one side of a street and breaking the law on the other
You’re exactly right.
Even if he did have civilian ballistic armor, the backface trauma from a solid torso hit on it -- even from a 9mm -- is an extremely painful and bruising shock (and may include broken ribs)...
Even with armor, a few rounds into his torso and/or whacking on his helmet would have distracted, slowed, and disabled him enough for folks to tackle and disarm him.
But he lacked armor; those same torso hits would have dropped him.
Even if he did have civilian ballistic armor, the backface trauma from a solid torso hit on it -- even from a 9mm -- is an extremely painful and bruising shock (and may include broken ribs)...
Even with armor, a few rounds into his torso and/or whacking on his helmet would have distracted, slowed, and disabled him enough for folks to tackle and disarm him.
But he lacked armor; those same torso hits would have dropped him.
quite frankly, I’m getting damn sick of the cities, states and departments getting sued over crap like this. In the end, only the taxpayers suffer from higher taxes or limited services; there are no real serious incentives for things like this to be avoided... the employees are normally publicly reprimanded just for the sake of show and nothing else happens. Its about time to make people personally accountable and make them own their mistakes. I can guarantee you incidents like this would become a thing of the past. In this case, the arresting officers, their superiors, the DA and/or prosecutor should be held personally liable.
Apparently, the city of Thornton has no local ordinance that prohibits open carry to enforce the movie theater’s wishes. It’s usually the Dem cities that have ordinances against open carry. Denver being probably the worst, won a spit 3-3 Colorado Supreme Court decision that leaves a lower court, a local Denver judge’s ruling to prohibit open carry in the city limits. Pueblo being another Dem town, prohibits open carry in government or private buildings that post “no firearms.” But Colorado Springs is open carry friendly.
First we heard carrot top was wearing ballistic vest body armor, then we learn that it was a tactical assault gear vest, and now I learn that it was multi-pocketed photog vest. LoL.
Make lawsuit winnings come out of elected officials and got employee pension and retirement funds. That will end crap like this big time.
Am good friends with an avid shooter, ballistics expert who loads his own ammo and uses a chronographer (I think that's what it's called!) to measure load force, and has kept detailed logs of this stuff for years, and a retired LAPD watch commander. He's dismayed at the roll-over attititude of folks who think that body armor made the shooter unstoppable. This friend says that a .45 slug full load 230 grain bullet, at 950 feet per second, hitting that armor, would hit the body armor with about the equivalent force of a steep pipe whacking the wearer but good and hard. It would probably knock him down completely; it would assuredly make him stagger. If one, two, three CCers in there armed with .45s, locating the guy by his weapon's muzzle flashes, had hit the shooter, he'd have gone down. The .45s wouldn't have killed him or penetrated the armor, but they sure would have knocked him silly.
This guy, an experienced cop in a rough part of town, said this guy wasn't dressed that way in preparation for a gunfight -- he was dressed that way to keep himself from being killed by police when they finally showed up. In my friend's experience, which spanned a couple of decades, guys like Holmes never expect civilians to shoot back.
I've shot enough .45 rounds at 1/2 inch steel targets, in company with this guy, to believe him about what would have happened to Holmes ability to remain standing, armor "better than most SWAT teams" notwithstanding, if he'd been barraged by a half dozen rounds from a couple of .45s.
Concealed carriers, especially those armed with .45s, would very likely have saved many lives and injuries. Body protection or not.
Wouldn’t have mattered what kind of vest it was. Go out to a shooting range that has steel targets and fire off a few dozen rounds from a .45 or even a .38 and see what happens. Even if the guy had had a full kevlar vest, a few rounds from a .45 would probably have knocked him on his ass — like being rammed with a steel pipe multiple times. The bullets wouldn’t have penetrated the vest, but they sure as heck would have battered him but good.
I agree he’d get staggered. I only pointed out that the press got it wrong about him wearing body armor. Cue in the journalist’s “assault weapon” “ AK-47 identification picture.
The same press that considers having, say 400 rounds in an ammo box, as "stockpiling"?
And actually, my post wasn't aimed so much at you, it's just that I heard from this friend for the first time since the shooting only yesterday, and it was affirming to hear his well-qualified opinion. I shoot a bit and am around a lot of CC types, well trained, and was getting pretty sick of seeing all these "experts" on FR coming on and assuring everyone that because of Holmes' body armor (and it turns out it was about as "real" as the typical journalist's "automatic weapon"), CCers in that theater, had there been any, would have been powerless to stop him. I'm very familiar with what a regular ol' .45 slug does to a heavy steel target, and I can imagine the impact it would have on an average sized guy wearing a kevlar vest: it would probably knock him flat on his ass! Methinks a lot of folks opining on the futility of shooting at a guy wearing body armor, haven't done much actual shooting.
So it was nice to have my and my CC friends' conclusions that the shooter would have been knocked silly by .45 rounds hitting that body armor, confirmed by a true expert.
We don't suspend our constitutional rights for "context". Both the public and the police need to be trained to understand that. Which is precisely what the "open carry" civil liberties demonstrations are intended to do.
How many rights should we give up in order to practice other rights?
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