Partisan Free Politics

One of my good friends, Pete Eyre, from the DC area has an interesting story to tell, that I’m sure some of our readers in the area will be interested in.  Despite the District’s draconian gun control laws, the State of Virginia has done a slightly better job of maintaining the liberty that helped to produce such patriots as Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and George Wythe.

  As Pete recently discovered, Virginia allows for the open carry of firearms, which of course inspired my freedom-loving friend to go for a test walk.  It didn’t take long for Pete to discover the truth of his words from his first post on the subject: “a right not exercised will soon be ceded to the State.”  In short, while walking on Fairfax across from the Ballston Metro Station, Pete was stopped and interrogated by Arlington police who had received a “man with a gun” call.  Now if I didn’t know Pete, I could understand a little anxiety on the part of whoever called in the complaint, but I can’t for the life of me understand why the complaint would be acted on in such a manner as it was.  It seems like Virginia is failing in its duty to inform the police force, including dispatch operators, of the law and the proper response to such a complaint.

  In my opinion, the call should’ve gone like this:

Anxious Arlingtonian: “Yes, I was just walking down Fairfax and I saw a buff dude with a Master of Puppets T-shirt carrying a gun!”

Sober dispatch operator: “What sort of gun?”

AA: “A handgun”

SDO: “Was it holstered?”

AA: “Yes”

SDO: “Well sir that is completely legal in the State of Virginia, but we’ll send an officer out to make sure nothing is going on.  Thank you for your concern.”

AA: “Really, I never knew… Thanks, we’ll feel better now because he does look scary.”

  Then the nearest cop does a brief drive past Pete, maybe he drives by a couple times, or maybe he briefly asks him to stop and have a chat (with much less confrontation, and say 8 less cops, than what really occured.)  Instead the officers tried to overreach their limits and requested more than Pete was required, or willing, to surrender: a digital photo, his SSN, his city of birth, and to relinquish this right for the rest of his journey home.

Of course, I expect the dispatch operator knew nothing of Virginia’s laws, nor does every member of the police force (as suggested by the “what if you had been stopped by a rookie officer” comment by the officer in charge of the stop,) which seems to me to be the most important thing the State should be teaching them, so that patriotic citizens, like Pete, don’t have to.  I hope this acts as a clear reminder to all of us that in the words of my good friend: “a right not exercised will soon be ceded to the State.”

 For more on exercising your rights, check out another DC friend of mine, Steve Silverman’s organization Flex Your Rights, and their video courtesy of YouTube.  It is actually quite entertaining for a PSA-style video, due in part to the small budget behind it, and it certainly provides a starting point to a discussion on the abuse of executive power, and the encroachment of practice over law.