Opinion/Counterpoint: WLOX "Packing Heat" article
Rick Ward via Facebook
First of all, contrary to popular belief and what the WLOX reporter started with, there IS NO OPEN CARRY law in Mississippi. Nor was there a law passed in 2013 as she said that allowed OPEN CARRY. AND, contrary to what Gulfport Police Chief Leonard Papania said about the way we constructed the law and didn't frame it out well as he pointed to what I assume was a copy of a some statute probably one of the ones codified from HB2 in 2013. Also she said that law enforecement suggests that people need to learn the law. Then one of their so-called experts talks about law-abiding citizens. What a joke. I am going to address all of those issues for you below. 1. We DO NOT have an OPEN CARRY law. What we have is a state constitution that was written in 1890 when everybody carried guns openly on their side. It said, "the legislature may regulate or forbid the carrying of CONCEALED weapons." It NEVER gave the legislature the authority to regulate or forbid openly carried weapons. I brought that to the legislature's attention in 2012 as well as the LT Governor's legal assistant's attention and the legislature agreed. There was no need for the passing of a new OPEN Carry law. We did have them remove the 2nd line in paragraph 18 of 45-9-101 which basically said, "do not construe that you may openly carry" but that was becuase 45-9-101 is the permit statute and all permit carry must be done while concelaed. 2. HISTORY: You have to understand the time frame of this issue, we had just disolved dueling in the 1840's. In 1857 the Mississippi Supreme Court said, "Any many who would kill another with a concealed weapon is a coward." In the 1872 Attorney General Report to the legislature, he said, "the biggest problem of the day is concealed weapons. In 1878 the Mississippi passed it's first law banning conealed carry whit is still around in a modified form as 97-37-1(1). So just backwards from what the problem was then, we considere the problem now as open carry because everybody is conditioned to believe that anybody but a cop in uniform or with a badge is a threat to them. THAT IS NONSENSE. 3. POLICE: (NOT SO LAW-ABIDING, CAREFUL OR TRAINED) There are 10,144 police officers in MS. Forty-six of them have been arrested, indicted, jailed, convicted, or sentenced in the last 12 months. They range from city cop, to deputy sheriff, to Police Chief, Sheriff and State Troopers. (That is consistent with most years).Two of them in the first month of this year alone caused one death and one near death mishandling firearms negligently. A Gaming Agent killed another in the parking lot of a Casino in Tunica during a training exercise and the gun had not been unloaded. A Madison Police Officer shot his roommate in the face while showing him his new weapon in the Flowood Apartment they shared. He is the son of WLBT anchor Stephanie Bell Flynt. The Board on Law Enforcement Officers Standards and Training mandates that they qualify on their weapons once a year. The course of fire that is approved requires 8 stages of timed fired. Add all of them up and they actually fire 110 seconds per year. Many of them carry a gun because it comes with the job. The job pays so little, most of them work 2 jobs. So they don't have the ammo money or time to shoot much on their own. 4. ENHANCED PERMIT HOLDERS: (LAW ABIDING CITIZENS) There are 79, 387 at last count with MHP. In the last FIVE years, none have lost their permits due to the commission of a crime. In the last THREE years there have been three reported negligent discharges. One at Pine Lake Church in Flowood, one at Bass Pro Shop in Pearl (both were minor property damage only). There was one at USM in a students car that injured his own leg. Permit holders for the most part are avid gun owners. Unlike the police they pay for their background check, permit, gun, holster, ammo, accessories and training. They show more interest and shoot more often than the police. 5. SHOTGUN AT WALMART: (18/19 year olds). Caused by a new gun law that went into effect in 2013 - BULL S_ _ _ !!! The gun law the Chief at Gulfport is referring to in that respect has not changed in many, many years. Under our law, a shotgun and a rifle are not even considered weapons unless used for that purpose. The only way a shotgun or rifle could be considered a deadly weapon under our statute is if their barrels are sawed off below 18 and 16 inches respectively. At that point they are not considered a tool for hunting, rather now they only have a "criminal purpose." But those two idiots could have gone into WalMart like that 10 years ago, so don't blame that on a new law. Do a little research and you will find that most male 18/19 year olds have not formed that part of their brain completely that affects judgment. Maybe thats why you have to be 21 to buy a handgun. There will always be idiots out there just like all the idiot cops I listed above. (By the way I am a retired police officer under LEOSA and a retired Naval Officer and graduate of the FBI National Academy, State Academy and US Army MP School). 6. TRAINING: I have trained over 2,500 Enhanced Permit Holders in the last (almost) 4 years in over 250 classes. I have trained Doctors, Lawyers, Farmers, Dentists, Secretaries and every profession including Assistant Attorney's General and Judges, as well as police officers. By far, the most shocked when finishing my class as it pertains to gun laws are the police. They leave wondering why they never knew after 10 years as a cop what the laws REALLY were on guns in Mississippi. So who needs to learn more about the laws? The POLICE do.
Showing BS like videos of a wild west shoot out is just plain stupid. Show me the problems all the Chiefs and Sheriffs whinned about, their predictions of blood on the street and the reestablishment of the wild west! What a joke. I told this to their Executive Director of the Police Chief's Association Ken Winter years ago that they needed to quit handing out those stupid signs making every business a killing zone. If they had wanted to be proactive, what they should have done after March 4, 2013 when the Governor signed HB2 and the legislature accepted the fact that they had no control over open carry, is they should have left their big party at the Gulf Coast Casino and got a new training program and policy online for dispatchers. So when somebody calls the PD and says, "There is a man with a gun out here," they could have responded appropriately. Instead of sending a police officer out with blue lights on and sirens blasting, the dispatcher could have said, "Well what is he doing?, Is he shooting? Is he waving it around? Is he threatening somebody with the gun?" Response from the citizen, "Ah, no he just has one in a holster on his side." Then they should have had a script just like they do in telling a caller how to perform CPR. "I'm sorry but no crime is being committed, the law has changed. Take the next call.
The cops think they are the only people that ought to carry a gun and they fear anybody else who has one, just ask Pearl PD who takes a licensed gun holder's gun, empties it, disassembles it and throws it in the back seat threating the driver if he retrieves it until after he (the cop) is long out of sight. The cops should take a course from Game Wardens who face everybody, everyday in remote locations with guns while hidden in camo gear, walking among snakes and gators, bugs and everything else. They need to get out of the coffee and donut shops and educate the people (not with NO GUN signs in their hands) but with discussions of how long it will take them to get there if somebody has a gun on them and that they better be armed to protect themselves because when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. I would love to hear from the Police Chief in Gulfport if he would answer his phone.