Saturday, May 21, 2011

Out. Of. Control.

With a shocking altercation between Philadelphia police and a 25-year-old IT worker putting the spotlight back on open-carry gun laws, local authorities are warning gun owners that they will be "inconvenienced" if they carry unconcealed handguns in the city.

Lt. Raymond Evers, a spokesman for the city police, told FoxNews.com that gun owners who open carry, which is legal in the city, may be asked to lay on the ground until officers feel safe while they check permits. link

They are stating outright that they will intentionally "inconvenience" citizens who follow the law, and for whom there is no reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. How long will people tolerate that kind of behavior from their public employees?

12 comments:

  1. I'm curious --in light of this announced policy of illegally harassing law-abiding citizens for exercising their legal rights, what will happen to the first civilian who tells a cop to pound sand? To the foirst cop who shoots or assaults a law-abiding citizen during one of these encounters?

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  2. scott mccall6:38 PM

    ya...and i'd be the first one to tell the officer he can't touch me without a warrant or probable cause, or unless i'm under arrest. and as soon as they forced me on the ground, i'd be the first to smack down a lawsuit for public embarrassment and all that jazz...just because i'm an ass

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  3. scott mccall6:39 PM

    and i dont see why they're so picky....these citizens are just trying to protect themselves from the post-rapture world

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  4. Darren,

    Why are you so surprised? There are many groups and forces out there are are against the normalization of guns in society, that they will do all in their power to impede that trend. It is a threat to their power.

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  5. allen (in Michigan)2:39 AM

    A calculable result of the collapse of the anti-gun left and the law they supported.

    As authority starts to return to the citizen officialdom - cops among them - lose authority. They're not likely to like it.

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  6. Rhymes With Right - Nothing, see the case of Erik Scott in Arizona last year. A West Point grad with a permit gunned down in a Costco parking lot after different cops gave him simultaneous orders 'raise his hands,' 'freeze,' and 'get on the ground.' Not being able to do all three at once, the cops opened fire.

    Cops were acquitted of all wrong-doing because they felt threatened. Interestingly, the cops found that the Costco video security system failed to record the incident. No one knows why the system malfunctioned at that particular time.

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  7. Doesn't anyone know the difference between "lay" and "lie" anymore?

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  8. Seems to me it's used correctly here--"lay" as in the action of getting into a position of lying on the ground?

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  9. When you refer to yourself, you "lie." When you put something else down, you "lay."

    Example:

    I am going to lie down and take a nap.

    versus

    I am going to lay my pillow on the bed before I lie down.

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  10. OK, I had to look it up. The first definition in my New American Webster Handy College Dictionary is:
    v.t. to cause to lie; put in a position.

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  11. Hey, that's scarily close to what I said before.

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  12. The verb "lie" (principal parts are lie, lay, have lain) means to assume a reclining position, along with a few colloquial uses such as "to lie in wait". The verb is intransitive and is usually followed by a prepositional phrase "Lay" (principle parts lay, laid, have laid) means to put or place something on something else. "Lay" is a transitive verb and is followed by a direct object.
    In the "Out of Control" article, the spokesman should have said
    "...may be asked to lie on the ground..."

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