There’s a Movement to Call the Cops on You for Carrying Your Weapon
Posted by jhingarat21 on 7th Sep 2015
A pro-gun control group is stepping up its tactics in its ongoing war on open carry, encouraging people to call the police on anybody they see exercising their legal right to bear arms.
Fox News reported Tuesday on the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence’s new social media initiative, which is aimed at ostracizing and marginalizing those who open carry.
In other words, if you can’t punish people with the law, at least try to punish them with the ordeal of proving their innocence to investigating police.
“As more states relax rules about open-carrying of guns, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has taken to social media to urge the public to assume gun-toters are trouble, and to call the cops on anyone they feel may be a threat,” Fox reports.
In a Facebook post, the Coalition exhorted its followers thusly:
If you see someone carrying a firearm in public — openly or concealed — and have ANY doubts about their intent, call 911 immediately and ask police to come to the scene. Never put your safety, or the safety of your loved ones, at the mercy of weak gun laws that arm individuals in public with little or no criminal and/or mental health screening.
As Ohio-based Buckeyefirearms.com observes, calling the police on a person who is doing nothing observably criminal is tantamount to asking for unnecessary confrontation, and it’s illegal.
“The practice is called ‘SWATting,’ and it even has its own Wikipedia entry … While we are thankful that open carry is legal in Ohio and want it to remain so, this tactic by gun ban extremists provides yet another argument in favor of concealed carry. The crazies can’t call police about a gun they don’t know you’re carrying.”
Gun Owners of America spokesman Erich Pratt told Fox that callers who take the Coalition’s advice and attempt to engage in such a practice “would likely be the ones arrested for filing a false report … And we are certainly hoping that would be the case.”
