Open carry in apartment Common Areas

[Mongoose72]

How common is it for apartment complexes in Virginia to ban open carry in common areas? Do these common areas include the parking lot? Do they have to let existing leases expire before implementing such a policy? I haven’t had any real issues yet (only one of the maintence guys staring at my gun once during the day when we were talking in the parking lot), but I don’t want to take any unnecessary risks. 99% of the time when I OC where I live it is just while going to my vehicle. However, as the weather warms up my complex has a lot of common areas for family’s to BBQ, walk, etc. My question is should I restrict my OC to going to and from my vehicle so that it doesn’t become an issue. The real time that I need to OC is when returning home late night and having to unload groceries etc. I would prefer to do it all of the time but I don’t want to run the risk of losing my night time OC by carrying during the day too much and having a new policy instituted if there is a complaint. If such anti-gun policies are rare (in Hampton Roads) then I will just OC whenever I want.

 

[peter nap]

How common is it for apartment complexes in Virginia to ban open carry in common areas? Do these common areas include the parking lot? Do they have to let existing leases expire before implementing such a policy? I haven’t had any real issues yet (only one of the maintence guys staring at my gun once during the day when we were talking in the parking lot), but I don’t want to take any unnecessary risks. 99% of the time when I OC where I live it is just while going to my vehicle. However, as the weather warms up my complex has a lot of common areas for family’s to BBQ, walk, etc. My question is should I restrict my OC to going to and from my vehicle so that it doesn’t become an issue. The real time that I need to OC is when returning home late night and having to unload groceries etc. I would prefer to do it all of the time but I don’t want to run the risk of losing my night time OC by carrying during the day too much and having a new policy instituted if there is a complaint. If such anti-gun policies are rare (in Hampton Roads) then I will just OC whenever I want.

Scroll back through the threads. We had a fairly in depth discussion about this not too long ago.

 

[Grapeshot]

Scroll back through the threads. We had a fairly in depth discussion about this not too long ago.

http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/s...guns-in-common-area-thing&highlight=apartment

 

[Mongoose72]

Clarification

http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/s...guns-in-common-area-thing&highlight=apartment

Actually it was the previous thread which caused me to ask these questions as it seemed to be very much an unresolved issue. Specifically I would assume that any such regulation would have to be part of your lease as access to the common grounds is part of your rights in the lease. I recall reading about a lady who kept calling the police on the property manager as each time she went there to complain about repairs they got into an argument. The property manager called the police and barred her from common areas and the responding officer went along with it: I wonder how she got back to her car as it was in the parking lot, a common area? Or how she gets in and out of her apartment without going through a common area? Of course the law and what is enforced are often 2 seperate things; and right or wrong LE tends to side with the business over the individual as they are usually the weaker party.

Anyhow, apart from seeing if they can change their gun policy in the middle of the lease I wanted to know if this was common outside of NOVA as all instances of no gun policies that I have read about have been from there. If it isn’t common in Hampton roads then I won’t concern myself with it.

 

[skidmark]

When you say most of your OCing is to-from your car, are we to understand that the of the time you are CCing around the apartment complex? Because that sort of contradicts the suggestion that you would OC when BBQing, walking, etc.

As one of the many purposes some of us OC is to normalize the sight of someone besides a cop goiing about with a gun on their hip, it's nice to think you might share that motivation. And based on your above, it certainly offers the opportunity for you to obtain/designate a firearm as your BBQ gun http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/2006/03/court-guns-and-bbq-guns.html http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=485398 Somebody even thinks this http://olegvolk.net/blog/2012/07/04/and-speaking-of-bbq-guns-nighthawk-heinie/ would be a good BBQ gun, although I'd limit the BBQ designation to the holster,

Anyhow - the apartment complex cannot completely bar you from having a firearm. So long as you are not doing anything improper, and can appropriately field comments/complaints about OCing (staying away from "It's my right/Second Amendment" and go more towards "it's lawful and I am not endangering anybody" types of answers is IMHO more likely to avoid a new policy being put into effect) you might draw more less attention, even from the hoplophobes. As many others have mentioned, going about your business as if OCing were the most natural thing to do will get you far less attention than anything else. If someone wants to believe you a cop, let them - so long as you don't falsely confirm their misapprehension.

Come to one of the OC meet&greet events near you. Or if there is not one, pick a place, date and time and invite others to join you. (Starbucks is a great beginners location and they are getting to be more numerous than 7-11s in some places. If nobody shows up the first time, just keep doing it till somebody gets curious enough to see who the OCD OCer is that wants to meet otherr OCers.)

stay safe.

 

[Mongoose72]

Reply to Skidmark

When you say most of your OCing is to-from your car, are we to understand that the of the time you are CCing around the apartment complex? Because that sort of contradicts the suggestion that you would OC when BBQing, walking, etc.

I said that 99% of the time I am OCing at my complex is simply going to and from my vehicle as I haven’t taken much advantage of the common areas yet due to cold weather, being busy, etc. I consider my self to be more of a pragmatic OCer than a political one; I do it when there is a reason, usually when I have to go somewhere later at night etc. I don’t think open carrying to a restaurant or BJ’s during the day makes much difference to one's safety unless it is in a really bad area. To me the time you need to OC is when going out shopping or pumping gas, etc at night. That was the underlying premise of my whole question: should I risk in anyway my right to nighttime open carry (when it is actually needed) by doing it during a hot day around a crowd (when it is much less important)? I guess that I should do a cost benefit analysis of that one myself. Overall my complex is mostly Navy people, but there is a little wanna be gang of sorts on the other street.