Colorado law:
Menacing (18-3-206)
A person commits the crime of menacing if, by any threat or physical action, he or she knowingly places or attempts to place another person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury. Menacing is a class 3 misdemeanor, but, it is a class 5 felony if committed:
(a) By the use of a deadly weapon or any article used or fashioned in a manner to cause a person to reasonably believe that the article is a deadly weapon; or
(b) By the person representing verbally or otherwise that he or she is armed with a deadly weapon.
Awareness is a good thing, but a lot of that depends on where you live.
In a high density urban environ, you might not know who's car is parked in front of your house. In a suburban environ, you might or might not know.
I used to live, literally, down a half-mile of bad road and the road ran out in my front yard. If you came down there, you either knew me personally, or you were "by-God" lost.
If its legal in your area I would walk outside and let them know I am armed, I have the description of the vehicle and people inside
Some of these opinions should be embarrassing, frankly.
This is a DIFFERENT car, EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, over the course of YEARS.
Anyone can seriously tell me that they've never stopped their car on a unknown street for a few minutes? You've never had someone turn on their lights in their house when you've stopped on a street? What do you do? Most of us drive away because we don't want to bother someone and or have them come out and ask us what's up when NOTHING is up, we just had to stop for a minute for any of 10,000 reasons.
Go outside and take pictures? What will they do? They'll leave! How suspicious! No... they'll leave because there's some guy taking pictures of them for no damn reason! They'll be weirded out!
Go out side and wander around with a gun?
Go TELL THEM you have a gun? You've got to be kidding! If I pulled my car over and you came out and told me you had a gun, I'd be calling the cops ON YOU! I would absolutely consider that a threat.
I know a lot of guys do the broom sweep of the porch. They see a stranger and start sweeping just letting the stranger know they are there.
I'd like to read some actual details about that sitting on the front porch case.
And lost, apparently. And though I'm not familiar with the circumstances of this case, and cannot state with certainty that this is what happened, grudge prosecutions are far from rare.You'd have to ask the DA, who prosecuted him.
deepcreek, from the articles you linked, it sounds like the only ones doing any felony menacing were the SWAT team.
If the stranger is lurking at the edge of the property on the sidewalk or parked in the street then no need to display anything. If the stranger is charging the front door on the other hand its time to have it out.
SgtLumpy makes my point even clearer. I live in AZ as well. Outsiders may find it strange to see the amount of guns openly carried and the willingness of strangers to approach and question others. That is life in the Grand Canyon State. You might live in a state where the populace tends to hide under a bed and call the po po. You might live in a state somewhere in between. There is such variety in America as to what may be appropriate.