San Diego Open Carry Outing on Feb 28, 2009

[TheBundo]

How many cops were there? How many would usually be there?

[Can'thavenuthingood]

Nice work guys, real nice work.

Calguns done good today from the north to the south.

Its a good day

Vick

[vrand]

Originally Posted by Flintlock Tom

I thought the event was very positive. Not as many people as I expected, though.
I had to leave after about an hour, I had some things I wanted to do with my son that were time sensitive.
I mainly came to talk with the police about what I could expect during an encounter around town. I spoke with the officers for several minutes about how it could go and came to some conclusions about how to make it a stress free experience for everyone. Capt. Zimmerman said that if we make it clear that we are part of the "open carry movement" it would clarify the situation early on.
The main thing is to listen to the instructions of the approaching officer carefully and follow instructions.
I asked if one of the officers would show me how he would go about checking to make sure my gun was unloaded and they accommodated me. He simply asked me to keep my hands where they were and he walked around behind me. He asked if there was a catch release on the holster and I told him it was a Serpa Blackhawk, he seemed familiar with it and had no trouble removing it. He explained everything he did as he did it. He released the mag, locked the slide back, and checked the chamber. He demonstrated excellent muzzle discipline the whole time, keeping it pointed at the ground.
He put the mag back in, released the slide, put the safety on and put it back in my holster.
The officers who were there were polite, respectful and very professional. I'm proud of the way the SDPD are rising to the occasion and not being heavy handed over this.
It was also good to match up some faces with the names from CalGuns and OpenCarry.org.
Like I said: a very positive event. Thank you to the guys who organized and kept it on track.

[vrand]

Originally Posted by grammaton76

In California, here's how threat response for an open carrier works:
1. Run away while loading weapon.
2. Turn around and return fire if need be.

That's a lot safer than how it works for someone who isn't open carrying:
1. Run away
2. HOPE you're faster than the other guy.

[SubstanceP]

Originally Posted by cactustactical

Ok, I live in AZ and find this very interesting... Can you not actually walk around "open carrying" while the firearm is loaded?

I am not familiar with Cali laws.

Thanks!

LOL. I'm from AZ, too. It's flippin' strange here in Cal. Like why the hell would one open carry UNloaded?

I do definitely salute what you folks did today. Don't get me wrong. It's just this Cali thing is strange. I guess you can take the boy outta AZ but ya can't take AZ outta the boy.

[CitaDeL]

Originally Posted by SubstanceP

LOL. I'm from AZ, too. It's flippin' strange here in Cal. Like why the hell would one open carry UNloaded?

Because carrying unloaded is what is 'legal' at present. If the issue is that of readiness- it takes a little less than 5 seconds to load for lethal force. Try that with your weapon secured in a safe at home.

[grammaton76]

~800 pics taken...
...200 were SDOC-relevant and not over-exposed (I don't have a circular polarizing filter yet for the thread size on my new 18-200 lens!)
...80 or so made the cut (duplication, interlopers, exposure, motion blur) and are presently uploading to my server. Once they're there, I'll run my happy friendly sizer.pl script, and all of the images will become visible at http://cheapspeech.com/Pics/Events/O...each_20090228/

I make heavy use of Continuous Advance, for anyone who doesn't know. My camera is the only thing I own that's full auto.

I haven't sorted my pics of the lowriders yet - there were over 250 pics of those, 201 of the ocean / windsurfers / geography, a pelican flyby, a biplane (the wife's pilot license compells me to shoot prop planes for her), and a handful of pics of this really cute blackbird that was begging for treats. Those will be uploaded eventually, to a different directory since they're not OC-relevant.

Video... gah, don't get me started there, I haven't even looked yet.

[lorax3]

Just got home from work, and I have to say the day went quite well. Although I did not open carry, as I never have, I wanted to see how the event went the first time around. The next event however, I will most definitely opt to open carry.

For the most part the morning went very well, there were a few things I noted.
For the most part the beach-goers didn't seem to be bothered by seeing us open-carrying. That may be your hip isn't at eye level when walking down the boardwalk or several other reasons, see below.

I did notice however when driving home I was waiting at a stoplight, and a group of us (I don't remember who's group was) was crossing the street with their strong sides facing traffic and the couple in the vehicle next to me seemed to be a bit taken back.

I am not saying other pedestrians didn't notice, many of them did but I believe the police presence served as a re-assurance to those who are usually uneasy about seeing guns.

The cops were not there for us; as since our group contacted them about the event the police knew we planned to abide by all laws, the police were there for the citizens. As if almost to silently show that "it's okay, its under control".

I understand one of our ultimate goals is to have people and LEO's pay no attention to us, but this is a good start.

Meeting many of you Cal-Gunners was an awesome experience, you all are great people.

I live in the San Diego area (La Mesa), so will most definitely be attending the next meet up.

Anyway, thanks to "pullandshoot" and "grr" and the others who originally set up the meet, it was great!

See you all again soon.

-lorax

[7x57]

Originally Posted by cactustactical

See, though.... Doesn't the constitutation also say something about "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" ?

While someone already said that's from the Declaration of Independence, the issue is complicated. This is a story most of us had to learn properly to understand why Heller doesn't yet mean the 2A means what it was intended to mean. Everyone else can just skip to the next message--nothing here you don't know.

The Constitution originally only limited the federal government--every state has a constitution and it's own checks and balances, so state courts and the state Constitutions were to be the proper venue for redress against state oppression. The federal 2A didn't prohibit the states from disarming people, but the state Constitutions mostly do (California's does not, if you believe our judiciary, and in other states the judiciary has essentially made the state RKBA provisions toothless). If your state isn't legally protecting your right to self defense, go to state court or amend the state Constitution.

This makes perfect sense in a Federal system, but it worked a bit too well at protecting state prerogatives after the civil war. The former slave states basically did not protect their newly minted citizens and weren't likely to. So the fourteenth amendment was supposed to solve that--among other things, it was supposed to apply the Bill of Rights to state laws as well as federal ones. But...well, a bunch of pro-segregation justices managed to interpret the relevant part of the 14A so that it means nothing useful, and everyone else accepted it. Back to square one, but eventually the courts came up with a more-or-less fictive way of applying *some parts* of the BoR to the states, one little bit at a time.

Quite a lot of the BoR has been applied to the states now, but the 2A hasn't been (and if I can remember stuff I rarely pay attention to, neither has the right to a grand jury and a couple of other things including the forgotten amendment that no one cares about, the 3rd).

The funny thing is that the general public overwhelmingly believes that the BoR applies against state law, just as the 14th was supposed to do. I'm not sure you could find *anyone* who does not unless they've specifically learned otherwise.

But until either the 2A is incorporated the modern way, or the courts abandon the fiction and accept the blanket incorporation intended by the 14th, no you *don't* have any useful 2A protection against state laws. I realize that doesn't make any sense, but it is true.

7x57

[Paladin]

Originally Posted by grammaton76

Not to get all quota-minded, but for the sake of the movement I think it's essential to try and get things the OC population a little less Anglo-skewed.

How many non-whites UOC'ed: African-Americans? Asians? Latinos?

How many women UOC'ed?

Glad everything went well. Can't wait for Nordyke!

Then Union Square (or should it be Fisherman's Wharf?) here we CalGunners come!