Tasered for openly carrying rifle in Texas

[Roering]

Full disclosure...

Even if OC carry were legal here, If I saw a guy walking in front of me going into the mall with an AR15 strapped around his back, I may decide to go shopping another day.

[Artema]

Full disclosure...

Even if OC carry were legal here, If I saw a guy walking in front of me going into the mall with an AR15 strapped around his back, I may decide to go shopping another day.

Interesting. I think I'd head to Calvin Klein. I usually find some nice items there. Depends on if it were a crappy build, but if it looked nice I might ask the guy about it.

[LoneYote]

It might be legal for me to wear women's clothes, but if I did that, I would be judged harshly by the people around me, and someone might even call the police on me.

I doubt very much that anyone would call the police for that activity. However, let's assume they did and the police approached you. An officer says "Hey we got a strange report. I need you to disrobe in the middle of the street so I can confirm your sex." Do you comply? Why or why not. How would you react to them tazing you after the fact?

Alternatively, maybe the young man had a camera to discourage the officers from murdering him in cold blood. It is rather difficult for an officer to claim "He lunged at me" when the camera shows him standing still before being peppered with bullets. Many officers like having their every interaction with citizens to be recorded since the evidence can exonerate the good as easily as it can damn the bad. That's ignoring the fact that many young people have cameras and phones and other toys for social media purposes...

Edit:
Also please explain...

Even if he was carrying the rifle in lieu of having a CCW what does he think he's going to do with it? Unshoulder it and fire a single shot at the bad guy, then run the bolt?

A 19 year old male carrying a rifle is capable of killing people, even if he wasn't actually going to do that. He was still capable of it. I think that's why the police and the neighbors reacted strongly.

[IVC]

Even if OC carry were legal here, If I saw a guy walking in front of me going into the mall with an AR15 strapped around his back, I may decide to go shopping another day.

Nothing wrong with that. As long as it's *you* who decides to go shopping another day instead of trying to force *the guy* to go shopping another day by calling police or otherwise unleashing the state on him.

You can do the same thing if you see a guy with pink underwear and lipstick in front of you. The choice is completely yours as long as you live and let live.

[epilepticninja]

The problem with open carry is...well, that its openly carried. While it may be legal in some areas, when the libtard socialist ****tards that see you do it, they will call 911 and embellish like crazy to get the desired response from law enforcement. They don't call and say "Hey I saw a I guy walking around with a rifle on his back and I know its perfectly legal, but it makes me scared."

No, they call and say "Hey, there is a guy walking down the street pointing a rifle at people and threatening to shoot them." And don't think they don't do that. Then the LE shows up, and reacts in a way that gets thrown on youtube. 10 to 1, that is what happened here.

[Eldraque]

Tasered for openly carrying rifle in Texas

Sometimes it is possible to actually see a Darwin Award coming in the future to a time and place near you.



It seems amazing to me when fools cannot understand plain English about "put down the gun."



Your gun is empty and unloaded yet you are strutting around town with it like a bantam rooster.



You are confronted by several armed and well trained men.



They tell you to put down the gun.



Robert's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt ... you really should put down the gun without wasting time, or risking a Darwin Award.

So you reach for your gun and they shoot or taze you anyway. Or they confiscate your property and you never see it again. No thanks. It was on his back and what i would consider "not easily accessible", the cops said that they were in fact not arresting the guy, therefore there was no reason for him to surrender the weapon. he was not committing a crime. Cops should have left him alone

However the kid should have left as soon as the cop allowed him to, and kept his mouth shut about the gun being loaded.

The Guilty until proven innocent mentality of our government is out of hand

[MA5177]

Everyone who's been commenting that the police were violating this kids right to open carry, or that exercising your 2nd amendment rights shouldn't get you tasered....

Why don't you open carry a rifle in a place where it is legal to do so, and see what happens? Would you feel comfortable doing that?

The bottom line is that people in today's society DO NOT feel comfortable with people walking around with guns, even if it is legal.
Walking around with your gun is not making a political statement, guns are not political tools.
Idk what the goal of open carry is, to make it acceptable to walk around with an exposed weapon again? Why is that a big deal? What's wrong with concealed carry? Even if open carry of rifles was perfectly culturally and legally permissible, people would still be concealing handguns, because it makes more sense. As a civilian, we don't need to walk around with a rifle all the time. It would become more of a burden if anything. Walking around with any type of exposed gun makes you a target for robbery from somebody concealing illegally. It serves no self defense purpose better than a concealed handgun, and it makes people afraid.

As far as the way the police handled this kid, we have no idea what kind of experiences they've had, what type of people they've been in contact with, and what kind of altercations they've had with people carrying guns before.
It's not unreasonable to assume, that these cops receive a call about a man walking around with a rifle, and they think something bad is going to happen. When he refuses to comply with them, to even tell them his name, or give them his ID, they have no way to check his criminal history and find out if he's somebody they need to be worried about or not.

Maybe the taser was unnecessary. But I really can't blame the police for escalating force when they're called out at night to deal with a "man with a gun" call, and the kid doesn't cooperate.
To everyone who's going to respond and say "Just because it's dark/just because the kid wasn't cooperating doesn't excuse the police for tasering him"

Well...you go out and deal with violent and deranged individuals on a daily basis and see how you would react to this same call. I'm not a cop, never been LEO but these guys deal with scary people on a regular basis and I can't blame them for reacting the way they did in the video.

Well said! Open carry is not socially acceptable in the times we live in, remember this happened in Texas and it's not even cool to do it there.

I can't believe all the cop hating tin foil hatters that are on this site.
Cops have a tough job to do and they never know what kind of nut they are dealing with.

Answer me this, how are the cops suppose to know if you are a criminal or not if you won't give your name or ID?

If he would of tried this in LA.....

[Mulay El Raisuli]

It is not like a civil rights issue. It is a civil rights issue.

Absolutely!

<SNIP>

With open carry everyone is on crystal clear notice of one's individual right to just be left alone in all spheres and at all times. This notice extends to miscreants in and out of uniform.

Absolutely!

<SNIP>

Open carry has always been the norm. Open carry creates a gentle society where everyone is on notice that to take liberties with someone else's woman or someone's else's property is a risky vocation.

Absolutely!


The Raisuli

[morfeeis]

I'm just not making any progress here.

I guess you guys are really passionate about open carrying. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't want any type of criminal background checks for gun purchases either....and if you thought civilians owning Grenades and other high explosives was a good idea.
Maybe we should all just carry our rifles outside. I mean it's a civil right isn't it? Who cares if it's illegal in California.

You cant be real.

[morfeeis]

The problem with open carry is...well, that its openly carried. While it may be legal in some areas, when the libtard socialist ****tards that see you do it, they will call 911 and embellish like crazy to get the desired response from law enforcement. They don't call and say "Hey I saw a I guy walking around with a rifle on his back and I know its perfectly legal, but it makes me scared."

No, they call and say "Hey, there is a guy walking down the street pointing a rifle at people and threatening to shoot them." And don't think they don't do that. Then the LE shows up, and reacts in a way that gets thrown on youtube. 10 to 1, that is what happened here.

They should be charged with a crime, they made a false report. exercising ones rights has nothing to do with the way they make other people feel.

[morfeeis]

Answer me this, how are the cops suppose to know if you are a criminal or not if you won't give your name or ID?

You're right, we should have check point that allow the government to make sure everyone is doing everything right. They should have access to our entire history and daily activity to make sure we stay legal.

[BobB35]

Police get calls that someone is pointing a rifle at people. Police find person and simply ask him to lay down his rifle so they can talk to him. But no, the kid had to argue and be a jerk. The police have no idea what he is doing or who he is or what he may be intending to do. They have to go off the calls that were placed.

It is easy to judge after the fact. But maybe if the kid did the simple request of just laying down his firearm so they could talk to him things would have turned out differently. But no, he had to act like he did.

Go ahead and flame away, I don't care. If he would have just done as asked, things would have turned out differently.

Why do you even come here. I am sure Officer.com has an opening for a sheeple like you. If you are too slow to understand what happened then they fact you own firearms scares me. In fact it is people like you that are the problem.

What you state happened....DIDN"T. Instead it was something else.

Great...

[BobB35]

You're right, we should have check point that allow the government to make sure everyone is doing everything right. They should have access to our entire history and daily activity to make sure we stay legal.

I'm thinking more of a Tatoo with a barcode that can just be scanned...

Sometime I just cry for how far this country has fallen and how little its citizens understand what their rights used to be.

Not directed at you morfeeis...to the person you were responding to...MA5177, probably an LEO, they do see the world a little differently and are completely oblivious to what is happening with their level of respect in the general population.

[BobB35]

Well said! Open carry is not socially acceptable in the times we live in, remember this happened in Texas and it's not even cool to do it there.

I can't believe all the cop hating tin foil hatters that are on this site.
Cops have a tough job to do and they never know what kind of nut they are dealing with.

Answer me this, how are the cops suppose to know if you are a criminal or not if you won't give your name or ID?

If he would of tried this in LA.....

Spoken like a true Sheep. Bet you think you are a Conservative....living in the OC and all.

[BobB35]

Well, the OC-er's first mistake was not obeying instructions from the police.

If they tell you to do something and you don't, that's resisting arrest.

And any time one of the neighbors reports and complains about something, that is going to be problematic as well.

This story is another case of why it is a bad idea to open carry in places where there are lots of other people and ready police response. Out in wilderness, totally different story. But a really bad idea in town.

Not in Free States...