[dragunovsks]

Well in my opinion if your at a public range or public land and you don't have enough common courtesy to pick up your empty brass and targets you should be questioned and/or ticketed. Clean up your mess. It's no different than throwing trash out your car/truck window rolling down the road.

Now if I happened to be passing through the area and I was questioned when I wasn't even shooting then my reply would be, "That's none of your business sir, I'm just passing through!"

[Vikingdad]

Originally Posted by dragunovsks

"That's none of your business sir, I'm just passing through!"

That's 4 words more than I would offer.

[shadecorp]

Now I know this story will get some of you into your P.M.S. mode.
Few years back was waiting for the phone company.
Was late night and was waiting in my garage working on my bike.
As it was night,
had my Charter Arms in my back pocket.
Saw a police car stop in my driveway.
Two Deputies came down my driveway,
and I walked up to say hello.
After shared greetings,
they asked if I had seen anyone run through my yard.
I explained that I had been in and out of the house and I might have missed him.
They asked if I would mind them looking around my back yard,
there were several old trucks and a lot of places to hide.
I told them they were welcome to have a look.
Then I stopped them and raised my shirt show them the gun.
The reply as I remember it was something like "Your supposed to"
and they searched, didn't find the guy.
They thanked me, and left.
Demand a Warrant???
AHH, the Silliness.

[robocop10mm]

Originally Posted by Vikingdad

With all due respect Robo, if there weren't an adversarial between LE and the general citizenry there would not be any reason to control the area. It should be that both parties have equal control. I know this is not how it is, but having been on the receiving end of having LE show up when I am out in the desert target shooting I can tell you that my friends and I had a great deal of fear for our safety because of the heavy-handed way that the officers "controlled" the situation, this when we had the wisdom to clear and safe the firearms, set them down and step away from the shooting bench with hands in plain sight, as did everybody else who was with me (three of us) when we first saw their vehicles approaching from a quarter mile off.

Oh, I understand completely. On one hand, many officers get VERY nervous when there are guns at hand or close by that they do not have control of. Most people out shooting in the desert are law abiding citizens, BUT all it takes is one whack job, gang banger or career criminal disguised as a regular joe to end that officer's watch. If you will remember a couple of guys named Platt and Maddox (the Miami shoot out guys) they practiced in the everglades weekly while on their bank robbery spree. If an officer had accidentally come across them, I doubt the end result would have been very positive.

On the other hand, you do not know what training the officer had recently or if he had a harrowing experience that "altered" his perspective. I have been to training that scared the bejeezus out of me. My cognition of potential threats was at a very heightened level for some time after that.

FBI studies show that "officer friendly" is the most likely to get killed. None of us want to be one of those stats.

Getting to a balance between "service" orientation and the need for officer safety is a very difficult struggle.

[orangello]

Call me paranoid, but i know firearms make some people nervous, so i try to keep my plinking on private property to minimize mutual annoyances. I'm not saying you don't have the right or shouldn't shoot on public property, but i am saying that you shouldn't be suprized by some oversight from the rangers.

At the oil well pits i like to shoot at most, nobody cares if you leave your empties. At my favorite spot, Denbury has the lease and specifically told my buddy (landowner's SIL) that he was more than welcome to use the HUGE, empty, clay-walled collection pit to shoot in.

[DrumJunkie]

Originally Posted by shadecorp

Now I know this story will get some of you into your P.M.S. mode.
Few years back was waiting for the phone company.
Was late night and was waiting in my garage working on my bike.
As it was night,
had my Charter Arms in my back pocket.
Saw a police car stop in my driveway.
Two Deputies came down my driveway,
and I walked up to say hello.
After shared greetings,
they asked if I had seen anyone run through my yard.
I explained that I had been in and out of the house and I might have missed him.
They asked if I would mind them looking around my back yard,
there were several old trucks and a lot of places to hide.
I told them they were welcome to have a look.
Then I stopped them and raised my shirt show them the gun.
The reply as I remember it was something like "Your supposed to"
and they searched, didn't find the guy.
They thanked me, and left.
Demand a Warrant???
AHH, the Silliness.

It's OK that you have no problem with them searching you. But not OK enough for everyone. I for one wont consent to a search on my property without a warrant. I expect those that enforce the law to follow the law. Demanding to do more than that is allowing them to overstep. Sure, I have nothing to hide. But that doesn't mean that I want everyone looking through it.

[orangello]

Originally Posted by DrumJunkie

It's OK that you have no problem with them searching you. But not OK enough for everyone. I for one wont consent to a search on my property without a warrant. I expect those that enforce the law to follow the law. Demanding to do more than that is allowing them to overstep. Sure, I have nothing to hide. But that doesn't mean that I want everyone looking through it.

DJ, give me a what if on this one: I was at home (former home in Memphis ghetto) alone, a leeeetle inebriated, when i heard a loud noise overhead and and a knocking at the front door. Thinking ET was delivering my pizza, i opened the inside door to see a couple of Memphis police officers. I asked what they wanted from inside; they asked if i could call in the Rottweiler from the backyard so they could look for somebody they had just lost down the street. About that time the hovering ghetto vulture activated its AWESOME searchlight from a few hundred feet up. I agreed and called in the dog without going outside and watched as they searched the now brightl-as-day backyard. They waved and moved on to the next yard, where duder was hiding. They didn't comment on any strange smells or my mumbly speech or bang on the metal door with their flashlights.

I was OK with that. You?

Now when Shelby County SD woke me up banging on the front metal door with their maglights at 1AM, looking for some former resident, they were met by the Mossberg and asked for their warrant. They had one for dude's arrest but not for a search of the house. I showed them my ID and my living room and asked if they had checked the tag on any of the vehicles before waking me. The next day i chewed their Lt. a new orifice, and explained their luck in not gaining some weight with their home invasion imitation.

[shadecorp]

Originally Posted by DrumJunkie

It's OK that you have no problem with them searching you. But not OK enough for everyone. I for one wont consent to a search on my property without a warrant. I expect those that enforce the law to follow the law. Demanding to do more than that is allowing them to overstep. Sure, I have nothing to hide. But that doesn't mean that I want everyone looking through it.

Well Gee.
They, the S.O. did not Search me,
I Showed them that I was carrying.
They, the S.O. ASKED if they could have a look.
I Don't see that I was being violated.
I have other stories of my interactions with Deputies,
But don't want anyone to have a stroke.

[robocop10mm]

I have seen numerous times where officers in pursuit of a law breaker, scramble over fences and right into a marihuana patch. Don't grow pot in your backk yard on the off chance some knucklehead decides to flee through YOUR yard.

Murphy has a funny way to show up.

[Vikingdad]

On the few occasions I have had officers show up in the middle of the night at my door not once have they mentioned anything about the fact that I was armed. Then again they were holstered and I was not, but my gun was always pointed at the floor (I saw they were cops through the glass) and the dogs are also doing their jobs trying to get through the door to kill whoever is out there (they do not like uniforms- a carry over from some encounters with animal control). Usually it has to do with the rental cabin on my property and the LEOs have no problem when I insist on accompanying them while armed. But that is very different from them driving up on me out in the desert.

That having been said I would hope that an officer would use better discretion than to bust somebody for the smell of burning rope when they knock on the door and the person, in their inebriated state, opens it.