So this is what ends up happening when law abiding gun owners fill out all the proper paperwork, go through background checks, and finally obtain a concealed carry license:
So there the Filippidises were on New Year’s Eve eve, southbound on Interstate 95 — John; wife Kally (his Gulf High sweetheart); the 17-year-old twins Nasia and Yianni; and 13-year-old Gina in their 2012 Ford Expedition — just barely out of the Fort McHenry Tunnel into Maryland, blissfully unarmed and minding their own business when they noticed they were being bird-dogged by an unmarked patrol car. It flanked them a while, then pulled ahead of them, then fell in behind them.
“Ten minutes he’s behind us,” John says. “We weren’t speeding. In fact, lots of other cars were whizzing past.”
“You know you have a police car behind you, you don’t speed, right?” Kally adds.
Says John, “We keep wondering, is he going to do something?”
Finally the patrol car’s emergency lights come on, and it’s almost a relief. Whatever was going on, they’d be able to get it over with now. The officer — from the Transportation Authority Police, as it turns out, Maryland’s version of the New York-New Jersey Port Authority — strolls up, does the license and registration bit, and returns to his car.
According to Kally and John (but not MTAP, which, pending investigation, could not comment), what happened next went like this:
Ten minutes later he’s back, and he wants John out of the Expedition. Retreating to the space between the SUV and the unmarked car, the officer orders John to hook his thumbs behind his back and spread his feet. “You own a gun,” the officer says. “Where is it?”
“At home in my safe,” John answers.
“Don’t move,” says the officer.
Now he’s at the passenger’s window. “Your husband owns a gun,” he says. “Where is it?”
The rest is the usual modern police encounter nightmare. Apparently the wife didn’t know her husband had left the gun at their home, so this provided an excuse for the cops to have a field day tearing the car apart:
…three marked cars joined the lineup along the I-95 shoulder — and empty the Expedition of riders, luggage, Christmas gifts, laundry bags; to pat down Kally and Yianni; to explore the engine compartment and probe inside door panels; and to separate and isolate the Filippidises in the back seats of the patrol cars.
Ninety minutes later, or maybe it was two hours — “It felt like forever,” Kally says — no weapon found and their possessions repacked, the episode ended … with the officer writing out a warning.
“All that time, he’s humiliating me in front of my family, making me feel like a criminal,” John says. “I’ve never been to prison, never declared bankruptcy, I pay my taxes, support my 20 employees’ families; I’ve never been in any kind of trouble.”
Face red, eyes shining, John pounds his knees. “And he wants to put me in jail. He wants to put me in jail. For no reason. He wants to take my wife and children away and put me in jail. In America, how does such a thing happen? … And after all that, he didn’t even write me a ticket.”
Now, despite having fielded apologies from the officer’s captain as well as from a Maryland Transportation Authority Police internal affairs captain, John is wondering if he shouldn’t just cancel his CCW license.
I hate to say this, because I support concealed carry, but right now I’m thinking that maybe it isn’t the greatest idea to get a CCW license in the first place. I mean, if they are going to treat law abiding gun owners as criminals anyway (and the only reason they pulled this guy over is that he had a CCW), what is the incentive to be law abiding?
Comments
18 responses to ““Your husband owns a gun,” he says. “Where is it?””
Or he could move to a non-fascist state.
Well, his CCW license was issued in Florida where he resides, and he was driving through Maryland.
Where could he move where this wouldn’t have happened?
Sorry, I missed that. Some states are still better than others.
I never got a CCW for exactly that reason.
I’m very freaking paranoid and they already have my name from my background checks.
Which makes your other post sort of ironic, I’ve had an Android phone for years. I turn off the GPS locator (except for 911), I’m never sure if that does anything or not.
I turn it on when I need GPS direction but I usually turn it off.
I always scoffed at texters, now I text all the time.
I still call if I’m going to have a conversation, but I’ll text for random stuff.
I tell my liberal friends and conservative enmys To many republicans need shooting for me to support gun controll. As for newtown that is a good reason to declare open season on the nra!
This family’s ordeal exposes what we all suspect, that a national database is in the making accessible to all law enforcement. As the linked article below details, it is as totalitarian and invasive as the Stasi, but even worse it’s Kafkaesque.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-15/guest-post-america-plunging-kafkas-nightmare
Ooh cap you so scary!
Wasn’t that an unlawful search? I don’t think police are lawfully allowed to stop someone and search their car solely on the fact that the car’s registered owner has a CCW permit.
Bob,
He was driving too carefully. That is suspicious behavior. And suspicion is all you need for a stop.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-16/americans-still-see-government-their-biggest-problem
Americans polled by Gallup still see the number 1 problem facing the US is “dissatisfation with government; poor leadership and abuse of power.” Compared with a year ago, mentions of government are up slightly; but mentions of healthcare, on the other hand, have quadrupled — from 4% in January 2013 to 16% today!
@al I was trying to be funny this blog is usually as as funny as a vacation in treblinka! Speaking of which the right always wants a fueher and the left wants a commissar! That is why I am a liberal/libertarian with a social conscience it is the best way to be! Help those who need help and leave those who don’t alone!
[…] I just learned a new concept. Predictive policing. It came up in a discussion of Eric’s “Your husband owns a gun,” he says. “Where is it?” […]
You promise to leave us alone cap? You can’t do it. The difference between a fuehrer and a commissar is the uniform.
Good night captain liberty.
al I leave everybody alone I don’t want to be a block fueher. For some reason conservatives don’t want to leave me alone or people I care about like the dreamers.
al if you want to marry a pig that is yours and the pigs business not mine. If the pig wants an abortion or to smoke dope thats not my business ;but conservatives disagree with me!
Sure, cap* leaves everybody alone. That’s why he’s always saying we’ll all go up against the wall when the revolution comes. He’ll leave us alone as soon as we come to room temperature.
quote “With reasonable people I will be reasonable with unreasonable people I will be unreasonable!” I heard it many moons ago on tv show run for your life. It was great then it its great now!
“Reasonable People” means that they agree with me (Der Cap’n). “Unreasonable People” means I (Der Cap’n) get to shoot them in the head.
(For new visitors who don’t understand what the Cap’n is Hap’n here. )