I saw the message as an underhanded insult. I very much do not wish to stir up fear and contempt. OC becoming more widely accepted is absolutely excellent in my opinion-an opinion which is shared by the great majority of this site's users.
You may not have meant the message that, way, and I take it at face value when you said you didn't.
You seem to be taking the impression that we are looking for confrontation. Most of us are not. However, it would be foolish not to be prepared for it with the incidents which we read about.
I have one additional observation about your post, however. You say you wish not to "participate in the angst" here, yet you decided to post a new thread related to your leaving, and left a parting shot therein.
On second thought, I don't believe I can take your statement that you didn't mean to offend at face value. If you truly didn't, you desperately need to reread your posts before you click "Submit."
However, your entire message was inflammatory toward the general nature of the forum. The qualifier of "seemingly" along with "good and intelligent" before "way too many nut jobs" is one example. You say that we have an "obvious" need to belong and challenge those who don't see police as enemies. Whether you intentionally added "seemingly" into the first statement and "obvious" into the second or not, they add a very condescending tone to your post. You also apparently consider participating here "playing", which suggests that we have lackadaisical reasons for being here, and by association, OCing in general.
You may or may not have meant your post to communicate these things; I do not, and cannot, know. The fact remains that they are there.
Here are your suggestions/accusations as they relate to me:
1. In no way do I thrive on fear and contempt. I open carry for multiple reasons. First, of course, is protection of myself and others I am with. Also included are education, standing up for my rights, and comfort of carrying a larger gun than CC. Nowhere in that list do you see fear or contempt. The reasons for others are likely similar to my own, or at least share some similarities. And as to what I'll do when OC is 100% accepted? Maybe I won't feel the need to carry a voice recorder with me everywhere I go.
2. OC is a small part of who I am. I know who I am, and where I belong.
3. I don't see cops as the enemy. However, it would be foolish not to recognize that officers have the potential to make my life difficult through lack of knowledge, malice, or both. It would not be wise to be unprepared for this type of situation. For the record, I have yet to have a negative interaction with an officer regarding OC.
4. "Oh well, there are other conspiracies afoot I'm sure." I see no way this was not directly an insult, and I've got no use for anyone who refers to me this way. Much less any kind of public servant. If you want to spew filth like this, you probably shouldn't represent yourself as a current or former LEO online, as you perpetuate the negative stereotype.
As I was writing this message, you can see that I went from mild frustration to some form of anger. I see no possibility that you wrote this message without the intent to antagonize. It looks almost as if you carefully formulated your message to be an insult, and then put enough "have a good days" in there to be able to point and say "Look, I wasn't trying to be mean. I wasn't talking about you, I promise!
I can't say I'll be sad to see you go. As I've said, I've got no use for anyone who wants to put such a backhanded message out to me, or a forum that has likely treated him with respect.
P.S. I kept this message as I wrote it initially, as I felt it would best represent my thought process as I wrote it. At first, I thought shotcop could legitimately have meant no insult; however, I obviously arrived at a different conclusion by the time I finished my post.