How is running a serial number any more invasive than what they did by taking it from you?
An unbelievably stupid question. When did I make that distinction? Each item was a violation of my rights.
How did they "harass" you?
You are two for two. They harassed us when they surrounded us, took our guns, didn't let us leave, lied to us about the justification for their actions, gave us the good ol' boy, "Son, maybe you ought not come around here." Cripes, the new negro is the gun owner and the deep south is just south of the Salt River in Tempe, Arizona.
Must have been some type of Polish conspiracy.
"Consiracy?" It's standard operating procedure. They don't need no stinkin' plan. Its the way they are.
Here's the atmosphere in that liberal college town. The Tempe City Council gave (for free) the use of their chambers to an avowed socialist professor from ASU so he could have a gun buy-back (strangely, they were a might flustered when I showed up with a $1,200 FN-FAL and wanted 60 of their $20 grocery vouchers). The Chief of Police even showed up for a gun buy-back photo-op. This is how Tempe is... the ex-mayor and current state senator violated state election law by stealing his opponent's campaign signs (they were found in the the mayor's dumpster). The judge decided that was just a-okay with him. Case dismissed.
You wouldn't have happened to have been carrying on property that had been designated as private would you? Like this guy perhaps?
That guy would be me. And nobody knew of the private property until that night. It was a sidewalk. We sat down on a bench/planter on the sidewalk which turned a corner into the cul-de-sac. The sidewalk, built by public funds, and public property until the DTC gave a private concern control over a public sidewalk, looked like any other sidewalk in Your-town, USA. And the theater was on the FAR side of that cul-de-sac, which also used to be public property...until the corrupt Tempe government officials gave themselves control of it with a private organization formed by members of that same city government. Cool how they do that, eh?
Not only did Tempe give control over that super-secret portion of the sidewalk, they allowed DTC to lease all of the major city-owned, city-built parking garages. Guess what? No guns allowed in cars parked in city, er, DTC property.
A lot was learned during that night of activism.
After walking back over, he said to Rick and C., "Yes, they are asking you to leave."
Actually right after he said that I said, "We offered to leave five minutes ago."After the cop calmed down and stopped spittling (which witnesses said they saw back-lit in the night by the street lights as they pelted my fact), we had a calm talk, where I told him I wouldn't sue him. We shook hands, and the first of 200 people surrounded us tryin' to figgure out what the heck they just saw. It was priceless.
Oops. Cops hemmed and hawed.
I wouldn't say they hemmed or hawed. When I told them the shopkeep was a gunnie they admitted that she didn't call and that the DTC-droids (essentially their private-capacity co-workers), were the ones who called it in. What wasn't admitted, nor varified, was that the DTC and the Tempe PD were in contact the entire time. So, separation between the two is magic dust, IMO.
The first post failed to mention anything about the "private property"
If you consider the Mayor of Tempe giving public property to his own corporation in a sweetheart deal, private property I suppose you'd be correct, if , in fact, we had ANY reasonable notice that a sidewalk which had been just a sidewalk for twenty years suddenly became just another shopping aisle at Costco. As well, since I have written about this here at TFL and Glock Talk, the info is just a search away. I wasn't aware that we had two LEO-apologists here at TFL which would raise such ludicrous non-points.
The second post says the "spitting" was a result of excited talking. Hardly what it was before I called him on it.
You called me on nothing. You jumped to a really stupid conclusion, as others have pointed out to you. But let me describe the LEO's actions. He and I were about the same height. He, with shaved head, had his feet about two feet from me when he started and was leaning in. He was yelling at the TOP of his lungs. He was so distraught that he had a vein bulging from his forehead and another from his neck. Did I mention the red face? Then he took a step into me.
I put myself in a Happy Place because I knew *exactly* what this JBT fool in front of me was trying to do. Prevoke me. I'm not sure, but I think I got myself soooo happy that I might have had something of a Gomer Pyle aire about me. Heck, that'd annoy just about anyone, let alone a full-of-himself Tempe LEO.
He saw fit to post that particular detail of the now 7 year-old incident 4 years ago. Was his memory of the details and their importance better then, or better now?
The post was about open carry an police. Can you think of a better scenario? Heck, I guess we could talk about the three SWATies that appeared when we attempted to check our guns at the Glendale library. That was only, what, two years ago? Is that recent enough for ya? I guess chronology really doesn't matter, since I could take you over to
www.thehighroad.org and you could read about the guy last month who was felony-stopped for open-carrying in a NewHampshire Barnes & Noble? Too old?
No, but when a named person calls in and says "That guy is driving a stolen car" then it's a perfectly legal stop.
Did someone call in a stolen gun report on that *ancient* April night?
Go to a town where few, if any people carry openly, especially when they can easily get a permit to carry concealed. Walk around with your gun strapped on in open view and ask a non gun-carrying citizen whose point of view is more reasonable.
Hmmm. Go to a town where few or any people are black, especially when they can stay in their own neighborhood...
No thanks. This is Arizona, where open carry is legal. Tempe is not isolated geographically...it is part of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area.
it's not surprising that some of them might not be familiar with open carry laws
This is Arizona. They'd have to living in a cave on A-Mountain. The fact is that the leftwing government of Tempe *wants* them to do what the did. A little heat will make things right.
I get the impression that many of you would rather push the issue and bait the cop just because you can,
It's true that leftwing cops are easy to bait. But in this case, all I was doing was sitting on a bench next to some flowers. The cops came to me. Spittle was my reward.
You had a chance to score a major coup for gun carriers everywhere. The case is at least 7 years old. How did the lawsuit turn out?
Lawsuit? You don't quite get how we operate. News of this incident spread all over the gunnie community in Arizona. We used this to call and e-mail our state legislators. We showed up at Legislative District meetings where we cornered state senators and state representatives. This incident became one of the rallying calls for....
State Firearms Preemption. aka ARS 13-1308.
Frank, we're making you look like a fool. I suggest you quit while you're not so far behind. But should you decide to respond, I welcome the chance for more target practice on your weak arguments.
Rick
