On the first day of the new Georgia Safe Carry Protection Act, a misunderstanding between two armed men in a convenience store Tuesday led to a drawn firearm and a man’s arrest.
What’s even funnier is what the misunderstanding was about.
A man carrying a holstered firearm entered the store to make a purchase. Another customer, also with a holstered firearm, approached him and demanded to see his identification and firearms license, according to the Valdosta Police Department report.
The customer making demands for ID pulled his firearm from its holster but never pointed it at the other customer, who said he was not obligated to show any permits or identification.
He demanded the man’s ID again. Undeterred by the drawn gun, the man paid for his items, left the store and called for police.
But at least everyone in the store felt much safer. Surely.
The real punchline for me is that the accosted guy (who at least showed admirable restraint) was in the right; under this law, no one — not even a police officer — can demand to see a gun-carrier’s permit without “due cause”.
Target announced the other day that because they want to be a family-friendly store, they’d rather their customers didn’t bring guns. Thank you.
What I find funny is that I’ve seen the pro-gun folks calling this a win, because after all, the man who was challenged to show his papers was being threatened and could have rightfully drawn his weapon and shot the other man. So really, this is an example of the great wisdom and restraint of a gun owner. Never mind that if the assholes weren’t walking around pretending to be cowboys, nobody would have been in danger of getting shot to begin with.
What could make this picture better?
MORE GUNS! (Why Corporations Should Have the Right to Bear Arms, and as I mentioned over in the Pharyngula Lounge:
So, normally police can stop you and check your ID, but not if you have a gun?
That… just seems wrong.
Next up – US corporations supply their employees with a handgun each, but no contraception, in accordance with their sincerely held religious beliefs.
Indeed, Pen.
Just like Jesus.
@lochaber (#5),
IANAL, but no, I don’t think normally the police can stop you and check your ID without some reasonable suspicion. That they quite often base their suspicions on spurious, or even wholly manufactured, grounds, and that their word is given quite undue deference within the legal system is beside the point. Unless they have reason to believe you have done, are doing, or are planning to do, something illegal they are not allowed to detain you and request your ID.
Presumably in future, the store management will be required to arm its employees, since armed robbers and law-abiding customers will be indistinguishable. Sooner or later there will be a massacre in some dept store over a misunderstanding.
@4 CatieCat,
Actually in the past both the British East India and Dutch East India companies were allowed to raise private armies and navies and they created all kinds of mischief, there’s a precedent.
No. Only some states legally require ID on demand. Many require probable cause before police can demand to see your papers. In those states, if carrying a firearm is legal, there’s no probable cause. The person MIGHT be up to no good, but a random driver MIGHT be in a stolen car, and a random person with kids might be kidnapping them. The possibility alone doesn’t furnish probable cause to believe a crime IS or HAS BEEN committed.
@9, armed robbers are generally distinguishable by the fact that they conceal their weapons until they pull them out and point them at people. A law abiding armed person doesn’t need to be furtive about being armed, on the one hand, but is also has none to be handling or unholstering it, on the other.
@3, this is at best a tie. One gun owner behaved exactly as he should (given that he was there with a gun at all), but the other one clearly acted on the mistaken belief that having a gun made him a LEO. So it’s responsible owners 1, scary morons 1.
Note that even having pulled out his gun doesn’t automatically make it legal to blast him. Repeating that kind of ignorance doesn’t help our case at all.
@11 A Masked Avenger,
Why in a society where citizens openly carried guns would armed robbers need to conceal their weapons?
Law abiding people are law abiding until they commit a crime, so unless there’s a method of distinguishing people armed with intent to commit a felony from the rest of the citizenry, I wouldn’t be so sanguine about the situation.