The First Circuit has upheld the power of Massachusetts police to draw on and arrest a concealed carry license holder and seize his weapon even after he has displayed his license, because there is no mechanism to confirm the license is valid.
Understand: the police can threaten and arrest a law abiding citizen for exercising a Constitutionally protected right, a right he has, in addition, gone through considerable trouble to license, including the training so often demanded by citizen control fanatics like the Brady Campaign and Violence Policy Center.
He’s jumped through all the hoops, and still faces violent arrest and confiscation by an office who lectures him that he is “the only person allowed to carry a weapon on his beat”.
The case stems from a lawyer who sued a police officer after he was detained for lawfully carrying a concealed weapon while in possession of a license to carry concealed. According to the case opinion, the lawyer, Greg Schubert, had a pistol concealed under his suit coat, and Mr. Schubert was walking in what the court described as a “high crime area.” At some point a police officer, J.B. Stern, who lived up to his last name, caught a glimpse of the attorney’s pistol, and he leapt out of his patrol car “in a dynamic and explosive manner” with his gun drawn, pointing it at the attorney’s face.
Officer Stern “executed a pat-frisk,” and Mr. Schubert produced his license to carry a concealed weapon. He was disarmed and ordered to stand in front of the patrol car in the hot sun. At some point, the officer locked him in the back seat of the police car and delivered a lecture. Officer Stern “partially Mirandized Schubert, mentioned the possibility of a criminal charge, and told Schubert that he (Stern) was the only person allowed to carry a weapon on his beat.”
For most people, this would be enough to conclude that they were being harassed for the exercise of a constitutional right, but the officer went further, seizing the attorney’s pistol and leaving with it. Officer Stern reasoned that because he could not confirm the “facially valid” license to carry, he would not permit the attorney to carry. Officer Stern drove away with the license and the firearm, leaving the attorney unarmed, dressed in a suit, and alone in what the officer himself argued was a high crime area.
In effect, this ruling means that a concealed carry license — or any license, really — does not confer the protection of the law on the licensed activity, does not protect even the presumption of innocence, but merely protects you against charges actually being filed, and against conviction. Any suppressive action short of that is permissible.
“Shall not be infringed”. How the bloody hell is this not “infringement”?
Tags: Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Schubert, Stern