What to do if the police stop you; advice from a lawyer

NationalCCW

New member
We had the pleasure of meeting with Evan Nappen, one of the most known gun lawyers in America. He gave us advice that is of service for all gun owners who want their rights protected and for those who wish not to be pushed around by the police. His advice can be seen at the "pig" icon at:
National CCW Reciprocity Foundation http://www.NationalCCW.com

Plus 2 new web polls.

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National CCW Reciprocity: http://www.homestead.com/njccw/nationalccw.html
 
Two points:

When an officer asks if you are carrying, Mr. Nappen advises you to reply "Why are you asking me that?". IIRC, some states require you to inform the officer. The point is to know your local laws.

Point two is that IMHO is is in questionable taste to put a "pig icon" next to a story about police officers. But that's personal opinion.
 
I agree with David. A "pig" icon is wholly inapropriate. It does a disservice to LEO's everywhere who daily risk their lives on our behalf. David is also right in recommending one know one's local laws regarding the CCW matter and disclosure upon being stopped by an officer. Immediately setting up an adversarial relationship between oneself and an officer is inadvisable and counter productive IMHO.

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Safe shooting - PKAY
 
For that matter, we need to stop treating the police as the adversary in RKBA causes in general.

Most of the cops I know are very supportive of the RKBA. Why go looking for enemies by using things like a pig icon or starting a conversation like that?

Any kind of civil disobedience reaction to gun laws is going to require participation and goodwill from law enforcement. We only hurt ourselves by such exclusionary tactics.
 
Never worried about it. General procedure for the civillian side of a non-felony stop usually requires you to have both hands on the wheel with documents in hand. (most cops I know hate to stand in the road while you rummage).

If yours is a "must tell" state, then have your permit in hand with your license. (They'll figure it out.)

If not, have it handy, but don't broadcast.

"Don't ask, Don't Tell".


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_______________________

HONOR PRAE OMNIBUS
INIURIA MINIMA OMNIBUS
****
Honor Before All
Doing Least Harm Always
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[This message has been edited by MrMisanthrope (edited October 11, 2000).]
 
A pig icon? A poll asking "Which side would you support in the Civil War?"- with results showing 71% for the South.

I will not mince words. You are more dangerous to the RKBA than the anti's. We are in the business of changing hearts and minds.

What the **** are you thinking?

If you can alienate *me*, you most certainly lost a dozen fence-sitters.
 
I agree. The WORST things that fence sitters can see are the things that enforce the stereotype of gun owners being racist redneck thugs from states that allow marriage of 14 year old first cousins... Face it - Most city folks think that most folks in the country that own guns are a mixture of the bad guys in Deliverance and the yokel with the shotgun in Easy Rider...

I cringe every time I see an NRA sticker next to a confederate flag sticker - I don't give a damn that you feel that it was a war of northern aggression, and that the flag is your way of displaying resistance to the folks in Washington. What matters is that millions of people feel that the confederate flag is a symbol of slavery, and of all things racist and redneck.
 
Some very interesting and refreshing views.

I have yet to another officer who wanted to disarm or take anyones guns away from them.


If you treat MOST officers with courtasey on traffic stops, you will recieve the same in return.
 
The civil war poll question, was based on your votes, don't give me crap for it.

Also, I have known to to many police who have abused their power as I've delt with various lawyers on this issue. In one case I have seen police threaten to take away their children if they do not allow police to confiscate their guns. Nappen said warrant or no guns. When they could not get the warrant they threatened the child confiscation to the lawyer. Stupid move. A quick call to the county prosecuter ended this police abuse.
There have been numerious police stops in LA, MA, and NJ where police stop cars purely because of out of state plates, asking about guns. Thank god for random video tapeing by citizens to prosecute these cops.
In Penn. 2 cops pulled over a couple in a car after they left their house and then forced them not to search the car, but their house. Who would believe that story? The jury in the federal civil rights trial, thank god for the guy across the street with the video camera.

In New Jersey the state police will be watched for the next 3 years for making racially based traffic stops. This happened after the feds found that such abuses where happening.

The list of police abuses are endless, I could go on and on. For myself and the people I work and am friends with, we are honest and hard working. But we do not trust the police, we trust ourselves.

Lastly, I ran a poll 6 weeks ago. The question are Police America's abusers or protectors. The results 52% abusers, 48% protectors. That's your votes folks. Obvious there is not that much love for the police out there.

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National CCW Reciprocity: http://www.homestead.com/njccw/nationalccw.html
 
Two different times Ive gotten stopped and
shown my permit.
The first time was in my own county.The officers thought I had 'passed out' as I was resting my eyes early in the morning (before
my Mountain dew) and waiting for a co worker to meet me.
I simply handed them my license and CCW together.The officer asked if I had any weapons on me.I replied yes,the one took a minute to run my license number.Their were no more questions about weapons.
They also mentioned they had simply wanted to check on me.
I said thank you.These guys were very polite as our country officers always have been.
Its the city police that have usually treated me like a criminal when stopping me.
I was pulled over another time in ARK (TN has reciprocity with them) I again handed the officer my license and permit together
he simply replied mattter of factly 'oh you have a carry permit,are you armed'.
I said no I wasnt at the time but he had still been very polite about it.
I agree the NRA sticker next to the confederate flag may send a confusing message for many ignorant people.
See I was for a long time one of those ignorant ,my parents never touched politics so I grew up being taught by our wonderous media that the flag was pro-slavery and
racist.I ran into a big problem over the next few years NO ONE whom I tried to pin down even by deceit that wore or sold the flag was racist.
When you attack online a poll about the civil war you show you are an ignorant
red-neck.In the paper I can understand but online you have a huge chance to explain and defend your opinoin if those interested care to listen if they dont then they were apparently to self-centered to care if you had an opinoin unless you mimicked theirs.
I dont see bashing the few ways we have of expressing ourselves about things as a good idea just because the liberal media and government misschooling have made them unpopular.
Please allow us a few places to support what the socialist-liberals condemn or to openly comment on it.
I grew up in MS and TN people who are divided do so usually because of pure ignorane and wouldnt change if God told them to.
I should hope when people come to a forum like this they do so with an open ear.

Ive seen guys that cops arrested after attempting to steal a care 'were told'.
After cuffing them they beat the one guys face bloody(broke his nose) and sicked their dog on the other while in their car and cuffed.Neither of these young men were over 20 or 180 lbs.
Because I only saw the beginning and end result and not the actual occurrence of when the beating happened my testimony wouldnt hold up.
When I mentioned it to the apartment manager.
She replied.'yeah they told me the dog found the one kid since he tried to run'.
I watched the K-9 unit drive in the apartments after the gate opened AS two officers came from around the apartments with the two kids in toe cuffed and no bruises of any sort asking me if I knew how to open the gate.
These men answer to the city police chief and unless you have the money to sue, theirs nothing you can do to him you cant even vote him out as you could a sherriff.
Yeah a video camera would have been nice but window was on the other side of the building to where the SEVEN police cars gathered.

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"those who sacrifice
liberty for security deserve neither"
 
It is a condition of CCW in the county where I live to inform an officer of CCW when pulled over. I was pulled over recently for speeding by the Highway Patrol and told him I had a CCW permit. He didnt even ask to see the pistol, he just wrote the ticket and said good day. I think most LEOs are our allies in RKBA and it really seems hopeless to me that more people can't see that.
 
Posted by NationalCCW...

Lastly, I ran a poll 6 weeks ago. The question are Police America's abusers or protectors. The results 52% abusers, 48% protectors. That's your votes folks. Obvious there is not that much love for the police out there.

You are right, by your poll it appears that way. However, the people who take your polls are not an accurate cross section of the American public. They are people who think like you and frequent your site. So try your skewed stats on somebody else. :D
The civil war poll truly shows how sad a country we have become and how sad the people are that frequent your site.

Keep up the good work of pushing fence sitters to the anit-gun side. You do more damage than HCI does.
 
Wow, tolerance at its best. I presume that the stats we come up with on this board are useless also cause they come from like minded people. We allhave a right to express ourselves however we like. If he likes putting a pig icon next to a Police story then so be it. The responses to this are almost as good as "its for the children" Lets see you must run your private web page according to our beliefs for "the good of RKBA". That is funny.

As for the issue of how to react to police its simple. Know the laws in your area so you can obey them If CCW must be stated, then do so. Treat the officer with respect, as you would like to be treated (this goes for most other fellow humans). If he/she acts like an a$$ do not react, but rather file a complaint later if you see fit to do so. They sign their names to tickets or warnings so you can get the proper name to file suit without advertising the fact. Last but not least, trust them as far as you can throw them. They have a job to do and most will do it to the best of their abilities which is a mixed blessing.

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"Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes."
-R.A. Heinlein
 
First let's get a grip - a little pink cartoon pig? Certainly not an insult im my book, but I'm not a LEO. If we can't all poke a little fun at each other, we're lost anyway. We should all lighten up - LEO's and others.

From NationalCCW:

There have been numerious police stops in LA, MA, and NJ where police stop cars purely because of out of state plates, asking about guns.

Add MS to that. I got stopped once with TX tags just crossing into Vicksburg. The officer was extremely well mannered and friendly, clearly following orders, and the whole episode turned out to be more of a comedy of errors than anything else. But he was on a fishing trip.

"I stopped you for a burned out tag light. Do you have any guns in the car?" I said yes and let him search. He ran out of steam before he found all the guns, and I went on my way.

I'm rambling a bit, but I agree that there are abuses and that we have to resist whenever we can. I should have, even though I really didn't care at the time.
 
I don't think that anyone is suggesting that NationalCCW run his page according to our wishes. An adult can listen to criticism (constructive or otherwise) and make their own decisions.

I am just saying that making cops out to be our enemies is a bad practice that does nothing to help the fight for RKBA. Better than 90% of LEOs support the RKBA and all we do by alienating them is divide up our base of support even further.

Personally, I also think that if we are going to be effective we need to look for ways to BROADEN our base of political support, not narrow it down to a few like -minded individuals. We need to reach across that divide and educate people instead of cheerleading amongst ourselves.

United we stand...
 
Taz,
Precisely, stats from this board are worthless. They are biased and serve no constructive purpose, except to show that most of us think alike.

If you as 100 pedophiles if they like kiddy porn, and all agree, can you surmise that all people like kiddy porn? No, you can't, any more than you can assume that TFL or other gun board polls correctly reflect the views of the nations populace.

Polls and stats are easily manipulated and really don't mean much no matter who they come from. Of course you knew all that, but were just testing me. :D
 
Personally I don’t think a little pink cartoon pig icon is a big deal. If it offends you, don’t look at it. Cops have been historically identified as pigs for decades and most joke about it among themselves. In Texas if you are packin’ legally, you must inform an officer if he/she asks for identification.

I think NationalCCW’s post of Evan Nappen’s article didn’t go far enough in informing folks of their basic civil rights protections in view of the decades of police abuse. It is your individual responsibility to educate yourself and your loved ones about what to do, what to say, and how to act in encounters with government agencies. If you don’t, you deserve what happens to you.

I agree that there are “good officers” out there but there are also some very bad ones that need to be flushed out of the system and the bad ones seem to get most of the attention. Cops are under no obligation to protect anyone and sometimes it seems that they only serve themselves. With the increased militarization of the police in this country, I believe that the time honored profession of “law enforcement” has headed down the road of the pre-war Nazi brown shirts “Where are your papers?”.

Repeated stupid mistakes of breaking down the wrong door, killing innocent people, beating people up that don’t need it, raping females in custody, stealing peoples property, framing innocent people, and numerous other abuses are quite common today. Couple that with the apparent inability to nail the real criminals and the general perception is that they are hopelessly inept, or worse yet totally corrupt. Go to the APB website for almost daily occurrences of the abuses listed above.

If the good officers are offended by the stigma of rotten cops, my advice to them is to find a different line of work where your skills and talents will be appreciated. Law enforcement has been a thankless job for some time now. It is fast becoming a hated and despised job that you are likely to lose your life over. And when you are gone and buried, the only people that will remember you are your family and loved ones. The general public could care less.

Just my two cents worth.

Skyhawk


[This message has been edited by Skyhawk (edited October 12, 2000).]
 
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