In all fairness, he had a right to ask for their permit and I.D. I assume that in Missouri you need a permit to carry. If you do not need a permit for open carry and he was sent to check things out, I guess he had a right to ask them who they were.
CONSIDERING the “attitude problem” of MOST Cops, I think he was not too harsh with them. In some jurisdictions the NAZIs would arrest you for merely photographing them in a situation like this and call it “interfering with a police investigation”.
He did seem a bit uncertain about how to actually proceed here and incidents like this are likely to recur with permits being available and idiots like that pedestrian who stopped to butt in walking around.
If you are a cop and you are sent on a call like this, you don’t necessarily know who you are dealing with until you question them, and with a potentially armed problem, you need to be alert.
So, in retrospect, I guess it wasn’t handled too badly.
Wal-Mart was in part at fault here for not posting the sign that firearms were not permitted and for not asking them to leave BEFORE they called the police.
I give the cop a pass here. I don’t think it was handled too badly.
I thought that he was openly hostile.
I live in Jacksonville NC, I see people carrying pistols all the time in Walmart- just another day in the neighborhood. I think it is a good thing because people, become used to seeing other people carrying pistols and the scare value disappears.
Agreed. The police can ask for ID and to do so under almost any circumstances. This guy was being firm but polite. I noted that at no point did he ask the girls to surrender their arms while he was talking to them. A “person with a gun” call, even from some excitable liberal with damp Depends, would also justify the backup showing with rifles. So nothing odd there either.
And the responding officer, who kinda looks like Dean Norris, by the way, never interfered with their 1st Amendment right to record the encounter. He did, however, tell the liberal loudmouth to move along.
I can understand him having an issue with the passport. I don’t imagine that they see those often in Marshfield, MO, so he probably doesn’t feel confident about determining whether or not a passport is fake. A driver’s license is a document he’s familiar with and he can probably spot a counterfeit with his eyes closed.
>>In all fairness, he had a right to ask for their permit and I.D.
What about those who weren’t carrying? I’d have been asking “Have I done something wrong, officer? Do you have probable cause to detain me? Am I free to leave?”
My understanding was another customer complained our local
Wal-Mart doesn’t have the signs and I have seen people carrying concealed.....Texas....I have a propensity for noticing concealed carriers!!!
He wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen, but he seemed unnecessarily confrontational when he was asking for ID and the male from the car was asking what the cop’s involvement was and he kept ignoring him and demanding ID. The encounter would no doubt have gone a lot smoother had the cop explained in a calm, reasonable voice, why he was there, what he was looking for, and what it would take for him to tell them they could go. He seemed to be more in the “respect mah authoritah” mode than the situation warranted to that point.
It was handled badly and the cop was a total a$$.
I’ve never seen a sign prohibiting firearms at a Wal Mart. So I shop there.
In Missouri, the open carry regs are up to each city and county, and so there are rules in addition to the rules for the whole state, which presents potential for a lot of confusion.
The state law permits open carry with out permit in your vehicle, so that you can travel to your hunting area or practice range. No permit is required to purchase a gun, except for the Federal Background Check. You can carry it openly inside your house I would assume in addition to your car.
Under the concealed carry law, your driver’s license must state that you have a concealed carry permit, and if lost, you must go to the sheriffs office within around 7 days to get copies of the permit and temporary id from the DMV.
Missouri honors all other states permits/licenses, I assume though, that you have to abide by the state and local laws as you travel through the state.
There are restrictions where you are not allowed to carry such as airports, busses, posted areas, etc.
Missouri Law allows for denial of access and/or removal from premises, due to handgun possession. If the request is met with refusal, and the police called, they can be fined, even if they co-operate and leave without further resistance.
The CCW permit can also be suspended for failure to accept denial of access or failure to leave the premises. The best thing to do when denied access is to hand the owner/manager a card stating “no guns = no money; you’ve lost my business”, and leave.
That’s about the best explanation I can give at present. When CCW was passed, I was looking into the law, trying to establish the pros and cons of getting CCW permit. This is my understanding of what I have read. However, I am not a Lawyer, and I haven’t actually talked to our local sheriff about this, so I may have misunderstood some portion or other.