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Dave S with all due respect to you and other LE you are still missing the point.  Under Ohio law open carrying of a firearm is not crime.  So the police did not have any reason to suspect that the individual had committed, was committing or about to commit a crime.  They key part of the supreme court ruling on Terry V Ohio is the and.  They require reasonable suspicion not just that he was armed but that he was committing or about to commit a crime. Their was no articulable reason for them to believe that he was unlawfully carrying.  Even had they officer been acting in good faith believing he was within his legal authority the supreme court has ruled good fait is not enough.     " â€œ... in justifying the particular intrusion the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant the intrusion.”  from Terry v Ohio   The only articulable fact that the police had was that he was openly carrying a firearm, which under Ohio law is not a crime.   They had no other reasons for detaining him.    The presence of the gun when open carried is not in and of itself enough reason to detain someone under Ohio law.  They can ask him for his ID all they want all and he can refuse to answer (again affirmed by Ohio law) but the moment he was detained against his will they overstepped their legal authority.     A citizen does not have to prove to the police that they were not doing anything illegal.   In regards to the law suit I think its dumb to sue a city especially for egregious amounts when no significant damage was done.  However these officers were wrong and likely would have gotten away with violating his rights had he not chosen this course of action.  At the very least the law suit will cause the city to have to consider additional and or remedial training for their officers in how to respond to incidents like this.

No, with all respect, I think you are missing the point. Open carrying a firearm is NOT a crime in Ohio. The MWAG call in this case, under Ohio law, would be exactly the same as if someone had called in a "man walking down the street in a turtleneck sweater"*. It's not a crime. There is no PC that a crime has been or is going to be commited just because a call was placed.       *the fashion police may disagree.

I disagree 100%!!! Probable cause came when a complaint was recorded on the 911 system of a man with a gun! The store clerk (or whoever called 911) had no idea if that man was legal in his actions. The responding officers had no idea either, until they questioned him. Mr. Call chose to play hardball with the cops. The ball is in his court now. I hope the Judge goes easy on him. Most likely he paid his attorney in advance! Dave S In that disagreement you would be 100% wrong under the laws of Ohio. In TN where the carrying of a gun is a crime you would be correct. That is not the case in Ohio where OC is a perfectly legal activity and as such, the presence of a gun does not in and of itself rise to the level of PC for the officers to initiate a stop and detain the citizen.

His actions (regardless of whether you agree with them or not) were not reasonable evidence of wrongdoing. In a state where unlicensed OC is legal, the courts have rules that the open carrying of a gun does not meet the level needed for a Terry Stop and as such, he was under no obligation to identify himself and the detainment by the officers was arguably illegal and a violation of his civil rights.

The cops had no right to strike back. No matter how hard headed the guy got. Plus the the terry stop crap says armed and dangerous, not armed or dangerous. That equals two qualifying conditions. Simply being armed does not mean the cops have the right to assume I'm a felon and need to verify otherwise.

Adam Smith's "invisible hand" isn't perfect, nor is the concept of "free-market" economics.  These are known as "ideal types" and are just as Utopian as Marx's communist ideal.   I think people are missing the issue of the monopolist and the inability of the individual consumer to make a fully-informed decision, which is the case in most economic decisions.  There are a handful of people who are trying to monopolize the ammo supply at the local level.  It's no secret that they are making the rounds to every store they can find and using any sort of creative means available to skirt the limits placed by retailers.  This does, in fact, create an illusion of the supply being more scarce than it actually is.  Add into that the fact that many consumers did not anticipate this shortage, and/or did not have the resources to stockpile ammunition.  Add in the actual efforts to pass gun control legislation coupled with the hysteria posed by certain segments of the right-wing media suggesting that the Obama administration is intentionally trying to manipulate the ammunition supply, this encourages people to purchase more ammunition than they had previously.  Finally, there is an actual problem with limited ammunition supplies from the manufacturers.  This is not a new problem, but has gone on for several years.  I guess what I am saying is that the problem is bad enough on its own without the local profiteers making the problem worse by taking advantage of the situation.  I will complain about it, but I won't suggest that there is anything else that can, or should, be done in response to it.   One thing that the high prices will do is finally get people to limit their ammo buying and encourage people to be more conservative with use of limited ammo supplies.  It sucks, but it is what it is.  If you are willing to pay $50 for a box of .22 to plink soda cans and golf balls, or rip through 30 rounds in a few seconds with your AR conversion, then have at it.  I'm not, so what I do buy and do have on hand I will use more wisely. 

I know right? That pesky Constitution gets in the way every time. How about everyone is innocent until proven otherwise? Do we need to violate one's right to be safe and secure in our persons in order to see if he might be, maybe, possibly committing a crime that can only be determined if you violate his rights? Let's say that person had committed any number of crimes then yes, check to see if he is a felon. BUT!!! In the state of Ohio it is NOT a crime to open carry and has been ruled by their own court system that simply open carrying a firearm alone does not warrant a crime or an offense to be detained over!! So this whole argument of "how do I know he is not a criminal" is moot unless you violate his rights to find out. According to most (not all) cops, that is OK because it's hard being LEO and we peasants just don't understand.

I went and bought an air pistol. Scalpers can go f--- themselves.

What does "unethical" have to do with anything?  Your ethics are just that, YOUR ethics.    I say people should have bought the generators BEFORE the damn hurricane hit and if they were too stupid or lazy do to that then the shame is on THEM.  If I were one of those lazy/stupid people then I'd probably be f*****g ecstatic that I could find a generator to buy at $1,000.   No on is interfering with anything...if the retailers who are trying to hold the line on prices decided to raise there prices to the levels people are apparently willing to pay that would put the "scalpers'" out of business but I'd bet you would then just be pissed of at Wallyworld for making that "unethical" profit.   DEMAND is outstripping supply - until than changes nothing else will; that's not the fault of so-called "scalpers".

They can respond sure.They did not need to detain or question him. They could have merely observed his actions and been ready to react.

Just because life would have been easier if he had complied with police orders that he was under no obligation to comply with is immaterial. You are basically arguing for the "papers please" style of policing where the citizen is under obligation to prove his/her innocence as opposed to the police having to show a reasonable and probable cause to suspect a crime has been committed. These types of incidents are the beginning of the slippery slopes that justify a militarized tactical squad cordoning of an entire neighborhood and pulling folks out of their homes at gunpoint sans a warrant. Does putting the onus on LE to justify their actions when questioning or detaining citizens make their job more difficult? Absolutely. That is as it should be in a nation whose founding documents places liberty as a primary right such as ours do. You can live in a police state or a free state, you choose.

  I think that was the point... In OH its legal to open carry without a permit, hence open carrying by itself is not a crime, hence the police had no cause to detain him or demand his identification.  Granted, life would've been a lot easier for everyone if he'd just shown his ID/permit and gone his merry way.  However, it's obvious the officers involved don't understand the law and attempted to coerce him into doing what they wanted, even if it what they wanted isn't legal to the letter of the law.  It could've been handled better by both sides, but there's no reason to just roll over and comply.    The training budget is always one of the first things to get cut when money is tight.  Want to spend $5000 to send a couple people to a training class?  Not gonna happen.  The fact that there could be a $3.6 million consequence to that lack of training isn't something management likes to acknowledge. 

Thanks. As soon as I disassembled the stock and lower tang mine did too. I continued to take the bolt, lever, and carrier apart for cleaning. Reassembled and same thing. I took it apart again and scrutinized the parts. The stupid lever was bent ever so slightly at the trigger guard causing it to contact the lower tang before final lockup. I printed a to-scale pic of the lever and carefully tweaked mine back to the original angle. Good to go! :up: It's even smooother now from the cleaning. It sucked having to do that, but I hope I am rewarded with a good shooter. I stayed up WAY too late though working on this :snore:

My question is how does a person know that a cop "suspects that you commited a crime"? I wish Mr. Call all the luck in the world with his lawsuit. He could have prevented this whole thing by identifying himself. He provoked the cops actions, then he wants to sue?   Dave S

A few years ago the circus came into town, I had to go work on a cooler on the kitchen train car. Some guys were throwing rocks at a sign post, one at a time trying to hit it. I walked up and said "Let me show how a Red Neck does it". Picked up a hand full of rocks and pitched them all at one time, hit it about 4 times. We all had a good laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3npF3e2oZQ

Ammo is a consumable just like food. Kinda hard to have too much...

All if it could have been avoided if the cops acted within the law in Ohio which they did not.   What part of of what this man did being absolutely legal in Ohio isn't getting through?   Dose the protection in our Constitution against unreasonable search and seizure not mean anything to you? And yes, stopping a citizen who is doing absolutely nothing illegal IS unreasonable.   What this really amounts to is one "citizen" being afraid of seeing a MWAG and a couple of cops being suspicious of a man simply because he is openly carrying a firearm even though the man was no more breaking the law than if, instead of a firearm, he had a tire iron or a baseball bat under his arm.   Yes, I would normally not be openly carrying...yes, I typically would have answered the stupid cop's questions even though I understand that I have no obligation to do so which is why I said in my initial post, the guy was an idiot. However, I also said that the cops were idiots too because it's idiotic to detain a man when they have absolutely ZERO justification to do so.

  "Again" is key word. Ho hum.   Why don't they simply end the funding, since as I understand it, they can actually do that? Perhaps because the GOP has no plan to replace it, and know it would backfire on them?   - OS

My money is on #2.

I don't have any ammo Mr Obama and Mr. Holder.....I think guns and ammo should only be in the hands of the military and police. :ugh: :ugh: :ugh: :ugh: :ugh: :ugh:

1 of each  :woohoo:

So, this is the perfect example of why cops can't be trusted. Wow. This mentality is very worrisome.

1. Who cares what he was carrying!! If it is not against the law (which it is not in Ohio) then he should not have been detained. The cop asked for his name and once the guy refused (which he has a right to do) the cop should have walked away and went about his business. If he was a felon then he got damn lucky and he will get caught at some other point in time. Plus, if he was a felon the charge could get thrown out with a good lawyer because the cop did an illegal stop. 2. Breaking the law is breaking the law so the driving analogy is very prudent. If it is OK so stop and detain a person against his will when he has COMMITTIED NO CRIME just for and solely to see if he might be a felon or a suspended license then it is very much the same principle.

I'm suspecting that there is at least one poster in this thread that would find jackboots very comfortable and would also find using the phrase "papers please" quite natural.

It's also against the law in Ohio for a person wih a suspended license to drive. That doesn't mean the officers can stop a driver who has broken no traffic laws to see their license to see if it was suspended.

How about, "how do I know he's NOT a criminal?" Wow. Just wow.

Just out of curiousity, wouldn't seeing a man OCing tell police officers that the man was more than likely not a criminal?  I could be really off base, but it seems to me that a criminal or someone who was a threat would be carrying concealed.  Why would they advertise and draw attention to themselves by OCing?  The short answer is they wouldn't.

Who is he? What's his background? Can he legaly have that gun on him? Questions I would want answers to if I was the responding officer. And it has nothing to do with a "Police State". It has everything to do with what is expected of me and what the tax payers pay me to do. Put yourselves in those cops shoes. What would you have done? Dave S Who is he? What is his background? Can he legally have that gun? Without PC that he either has or is committing a crime, that information is all of the citizen's and none of the officer's business.

    This has been proven more than once over the years to be a reloading mishap.  Obviously the person responsible needed a scapegoat.  I don't believe the chinese ever produced 44 magnum ammunition.  MOst likely a double charge.  It happens to those who don't pay attention.  

Come on guys. If they had just walked up on him and the following ensued, sure he has a case. They were called there by a report of a MWG and are compelled to clear the situation before they leave. Mr. Call's ire should be directed at the caller not the police.   Let's say they responded to the call by stating there is no law against OC and never investigated and it turns out Mr. Call had nefarious plan? I have a feeling at lot of the same voices here would be decrying the ineptitude of the PD and calling for resignations and disciplinary action.   PD was in a no win with this guy and did what they should have and what was necessary given the circumstances. Mr. Call could have mitigated the circumstances and been on his way. 

    You're making a mistake in your logic there. He was not commiting a crime in Ohio by OC'ing. They have legal OC without a permit in Ohio, as peejman said. Mr. Call believes that the police had no right to detain him and is suing because of it.   No doubt the cops will respond to an MWAG call. They should. But upon arrivng on the scene and seeing Mr. Call doing nothing more than being a normal customer, should have done nothing more than kept an eye on him until he left the store and went on his way.

"Reckless inconvenience"? That a real charge?   In all seriousness Mr. Call must be related to Leonard Embody.   Yeah, I invoked it. :)

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

  Well, in my world, a person that goes and buys ammo at regular prices online or camps at a Walmart with 6 or 7 of his family and friends so he can get by a purchasing limit so they can snatch up every box of ammo they have and sell it at 3 times the price is a common thief in my book, not an asset to society.  Obviously some of you don't agree and that's fine, but that's the way I see it. It's wrong on more levels than one. Just because some people are foolish enough to pay don't make it right. They are also making money in cash and not paying taxes on it. That's the same as the people that just decides to not pay their income taxes while everyone else does.   Anyway, I'm done......I'm pretty much set on everything I shoot and I didn't pay ridiculous prices for it either, but it did take patience and some luck.  I will be glad though when things get back to normal IF it ever does. Of course I'm sure "normal" is gonna change too.  Just like it did 4 years ago.

I don't believe this new law would change much, but I'm against ANY drinking and diving.

I may try my Glock in "slut red"

Not a dilemma for this agnostic. "Your rights end where my nose begins."   - OS

http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-supporter-has-perfectly-improbable-explanati,32462/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=standard-post:headline:default

They'll be 5 bucks by midsummer if ammo doesn't free up.   ARs may sell for scrap!   - OS

Eh, looks to me like there are no good guys to root for here. This guy appears to have been trolling for contact with his behavior when approached. The cops were incredibly unprofessional and wrong (dare I say abusive) with threats to charge him with various crimes although he had not committed a single crime. Being a dick to the cops is not a crime, but it doesn't win any points with me. He surely does not deserve 3 mil. Maybe an apology and a case of beer. The cops involved deserve remedial training and latrine duty for a month.

This man was an idiot.   These police officers were also idiots.   I don't think the civilian deserves to win a dime but I also suspect he'll either win his case or he'll get a handsome settlement.

Absolutely correct ^^^^ People, including most every TGO member, claims they want "freedom" until something that someone else does that is perfectly legal pisses them off then some of those same "freedom loving people" rush to the nearest computer and start throwing a pity-party.

Saw this on FB and had to share! :)

  A more apropos question would be, "Do you think it is unethical for someone in post-hurricane Florida to go to all the local, Florida retailers, buy up a bunch of $500 generators so that there are no $500 generators left for desperate locals to buy and then turn around sell these $500 generators for $1000," in which case, my answer would be, "Yes, that would be unethical."   The scalpers are interfering with the supply chain by creating an unnatural bottleneck (stripping local stores of ammo, thereby cutting down on the number of outlets for buying ammo which, in turn, eliminates competitive pricing from the equation - scalpers have all the available ammo so they do not have to engage in competitive pricing) and perpetuating the appearance of a shortage.  The perpetuated appearance of a shortage, in turn, perpetuates the buying panic which interferes with the normal demand side of the equation.  In so doing, while the scalpers may not be 100% responsible for the situation, they are certainly contributing to an interference with the ammo supply/demand situation getting back to more normal levels.

Ya did good!!  Glad ya fixed it.  I suspect that ole rifle will be an excellent shooter.  I'd be tempted to shoot some lead bullets out of it.  Slug the barrel and cast 'em to fit the bore of the rifle.   Have fun, leroy

I was surprised to learn that a typical male of 180 pounds hits .08 at 4 drinks in an hour. I would have thought it was less drinks than that. If I were to have 4 drinks in one hour, I know I can't drive.

  I disagree.  In fact, without the scalper cleaning out the shelves every time a new shipment of stock comes in, the scare would die down and there would be plenty of ammo for all of those, other customers.  Think about it, other than times when there have been ammo scares and scalpers cleaning out the shelves, have you ever walked into a Walmart and had trouble finding at least some kind of .22LR ammo on the shelf?  In fact, other than such times, have you ever seen the bulk packs of .22LR completely wiped out?   Sure, the initial scare might have a few folks buying up ammo and burying it in PVC pipes in their back yards but I think the market would have started to return to normal by now if that was all that was going on.  However, the scalpers perpetuate the ILLUSION of an ammo shortage and, therefore, prolong the scare.  Such scalpers, then, are NOT providing a 'service'.  Instead, they are a part of the problem, in the first place.

  The guy who did the shooting is the victim, the guy who got shot was the criminal.

This is often true, you can't wait until 100k with no trans maintenance and then decide to change the fluid, it needs to be changed in regular intervals from the get go or not at all from my experience.