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Open Carry And Constitutional Rights

ICBM

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So, I found this article from early last year. Good read for those who Open-Carry;


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By Robert Merting, The Shooting Channel

If you want to open carry a firearm, you best be polite. It also helps to know the law, your rights, and what to expect. To that end, we discuss Constitutional limitations on police actions where open carrying is legal.
 
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color of law

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So, I found this article from early last year. Good read for those who Open-Carry;


------------------------------------------

By Robert Merting, The Shooting Channel

If you want to open carry a firearm, you best be polite. It also helps to know the law, your rights, and what to expect. To that end, we discuss Constitutional limitations on police actions where open carrying is legal.
Because this is posted in the Indiana forum it needs to be pointed out that Northrup v. City of Toledo Police Department, was in the 6th Circuit, not the 7th circuit.

But, the Northrup court stated:
While the dispatcher and motorcyclist may not have known the details of Ohio’s open-carry firearm law, the police officer had no basis for such uncertainty. If it is appropriate to presume that citizens know the parameters of the criminal laws, it is surely appropriate to expect the same of law enforcement officers—at least with regard to unambiguous statutes. Heien v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 530, 540 (2014).

An armed society is a polite society does not carry any weight with cops. If the citizen is polite in their push-back in defending their rights, the cops construes such polite push-back as being combative. Or another term the cops love is "passive aggressive."

Quote from the article.
(NOTE: Not every police officer will know, recognize, and respect your Constitutional Rights. We all know the saying about being dead right. Use your discretion and be polite. Things can be sorted out in court later, even if you must bring a Federal case to do it.)
And if the cop doesn't he needs to be fired. Because of qualified immunity will make your chances of winning in federal court slim to none.
 
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countryclubjoe

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Because this is posted in the Indiana forum it needs to be pointed out that Northrup v. City of Toledo Police Department, was in the 6th Circuit, not the 7th circuit.

But, the Northrup court stated:


An armed society is a polite society does not carry any weight with cops. If the citizen is polite in their push-back in defending their rights, the cops construes such polite push-back as being combative. Or another term the cops love is "passive aggressive."

Quote from the article.

And if the cop doesn't he needs to be fired. Because of qualified immunity will make your chances of winning in federal court slim to none.

Begs the question, while individual officers have QI in some matters, do whole police departments come under the umbrella of QI?.. The scope of U.S.C.
42@1983 seems to say NO.. Good topic of discussion.. Northrup is a great positive case for individual liberty and open carry..

Color, was there any settlement disclosures on Northrup?

Regards
CCJ
 

ICBM

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Messages
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Location
McCordsville, IN
Because this is posted in the Indiana forum it needs to be pointed out that Northrup v. City of Toledo Police Department, was in the 6th Circuit, not the 7th circuit.

True, but it is still a persuasive authority. If another circuit contradicts this judgement, the judges of that circuit know that a SCOTUS appeal could occur, and will be very careful in their wording.

was there any settlement disclosures on Northrup?

The settlement notice filed says nothing about a monetary amount. Mostly likely was quite a lot...
 

OC for ME

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QI was manufactured out of thin air just as RAS (Terry v. Ohio) was by the SCOTUS. In Black, the cops knew OC was legal and yet they stretched RAS to include individuals they did not see (high crime area) that raised their RAS. QI does in fact cover the entire cop shop and any neighboring cop shop.
 

color of law

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QI was manufactured out of thin air just as RAS (Terry v. Ohio) was by the SCOTUS. In Black, the cops knew OC was legal and yet they stretched RAS to include individuals they did not see (high crime area) that raised their RAS. QI does in fact cover the entire cop shop and any neighboring cop shop.
When you read the dissenting opinion in Terry v. Ohio 392 U.S. 1 (1968) you will see how the USSC ripped your protected constitutional rights out from under you. In other words, the individual is no longer sovereign.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting.
I agree that petitioner was "seized" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. I also agree that frisking petitioner and his companions for guns was a "search." But it is a mystery how that "search" and that "seizure" can be constitutional by Fourth Amendment standards, unless there was "probable cause" to believe that (1) a crime had been committed or (2) a crime was in the process of being committed or (3) a crime was about to be committed.

The opinion of the Court disclaims the existence of "probable cause." If loitering were in issue and that was the offense charged, there would be "probable cause" shown. But the crime here is carrying concealed weapons; and there is no basis for concluding that the officer had "probable cause" for believing that that crime was being committed. Had a warrant been sought, a magistrate would, therefore, have been unauthorized to issue one, for he can act only if there is a showing of "probable cause." We hold today that the police have greater authority to make a "seizure" and conduct a "search" than a judge has to authorize such action. We have said precisely the opposite over and over again.

In other words, police officers up to today have been permitted to effect arrests or searches without warrants only when the facts within their personal knowledge would satisfy the constitutional standard of probable cause. At the time of their "seizure" without a warrant they must possess facts concerning the person arrested that would have satisfied a magistrate that "probable cause" was indeed present. The term "probable cause" rings a bell of certainty that is not sounded by phrases such as "reasonable suspicion." Moreover, the meaning of "probable cause" is deeply imbedded in our constitutional history. As we stated in Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98, 100 -102:

"The requirement of probable cause has roots that are deep in our history. The general warrant, in which the name of the person to be arrested was left blank, and the writs of assistance, against which James Otis inveighed, both perpetuated the oppressive practice of allowing the police to arrest and search on suspicion. Police control took the place of judicial control, since no showing of `probable cause' before a magistrate was required.
. . . . .

"That philosophy [rebelling against these practices] later was reflected in the Fourth Amendment. And as the early American decisions both before and immediately after its adoption show, common rumor or report, suspicion, or even `strong reason to suspect' was not adequate to support a warrant [392 U.S. 1, 38] * for arrest. And that principle has survived to this day. . . .

". . . It is important, we think, that this requirement [of probable cause] be strictly enforced, for the standard set by the Constitution protects both the officer and the citizen. If the officer acts with probable cause, he is protected even though it turns out that the citizen is innocent. . . . And while a search without a warrant is, within limits, permissible if incident to a lawful arrest, if an arrest without a warrant is to support an incidental search, it must be made with probable cause. . . . This immunity of officers cannot fairly be enlarged without jeopardizing the privacy or security of the citizen."

The infringement on personal liberty of any "seizure" of a person can only be "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment if we require the police to possess "probable cause" before they seize him. Only that line draws a meaningful distinction between an officer's mere inkling and the presence of facts within the officer's personal knowledge which would convince a reasonable man that the person seized has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a particular crime. "In dealing with probable cause, . . . as the very name implies, we deal with probabilities. These are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act." Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175.

To give the police greater power than a magistrate is to take a long step down the totalitarian path. Perhaps such a step is desirable to cope with modern forms of lawlessness. But if it is taken, it should be the deliberate choice of the people through a constitutional amendment. Until the Fourth Amendment, which is closely allied with the Fifth, is rewritten, the person and the effects of the individual are beyond the reach of all government agencies until there are reasonable grounds to believe (probable cause) that a criminal venture has been launched or is about to be launched.

There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today.

Yet if the individual is no longer to be sovereign, if the police can pick him up whenever they do not like the cut of his jib, if they can "seize" and "search" him in their discretion, we enter a new regime. The decision to enter it should be made only after a full debate by the people of this country.
 
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