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Empty Holster Open Carry In GFZ


BigJim

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If I am carrying and have a need to go into a GFZ I secure my carry piece in the back of my vehicle. My holster has the type of belt loops that can only be removed by pulling the belt through the loops. The holster is OWB. Would it be illegal if after removing my firearm I left the holster exposed when I went into the GFZ? I don't want to zip shut my parka when going into a building.

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When is not-a-gun a gun? The only place I can think of is in a school, where a sandwich can look like a gun and is, thus, a gun, stitching on a hat that looks like a gun is considered a gun, a picture of a stick figure with two fingers pointed is considered a gun, finger pistols are considered guns, and each of these can get you severely punished.

 

In Washington, DC, if a cop finds an expended shell casing in your car, not even live ammo, you can be fined and do jail time.

 

Right now an empty holster is not a gun. But, it would not take too much of a stretch to change that.

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Get a new holster that is easy to remove..

 

Even though there is nothing "illegal" with having a holster strapped to your side.. You will attract attention..

 

Some may look forward to the "fight, encounter, etc.". .. I would prefer to remain anonymous and go about my bidness just blending in..

 

^^this. except I would enjoy being outted. Great opportunity for education.

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I prefer OWB carry in the winter and have always left my holster on if I must enter a GFZ.It's just a clothing accessory if it's empty,as far as I'm concerned.I'm sure it has been exposed on a few occasions,no one seems to care,or perhaps notice.Although I don't do it intentionally ,once it's empty I don't care if it's seen.

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I consider it a game... there are times Im required to go in to an 'easy victim' zone.... I intentionally put on an empty shoulder holster for those occasions

 

I laugh at the looks and attention........ oh my.... scary man with a holster....

 

it sort of reminds me of teenage years when I was a police explorer..... we wore the uniforms.... carried handcuffs........ once seasoned got to drive a car...... we used to jokingly say to each other "freeze I have handcuffs and a flashlight"

 

scary bad man has a holster is pretty much the same thing

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There is no precedence for this. You really really do not want to be a test case. There are two scenarios "I THINK" (maybe more)

 

1. If you locked your firearm in the car and moving around with an empty holster then can someone make the case that you are threatening them? I am sure that some anti-gun nut will try and make the case and some overzealous prosecutor will be willing to charge you to make a name for political reasons. The fact that you locked your firearm could be construed as "you knew" and continued to wear your holster could be used against you. Then you become a test case and have to spend money time effort to beat the silly rap.

 

2. If someone does that by mistake (not sure how that could happen but assume it does) and that person becomes a test case and can claim some form of "mistake", wins or looses and then we have precedence.

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There is no precedence for this. You really really do not want to be a test case.

 

 

There's all kinds of case law on what actually constitutes a threat. Merely walking in public and minding one's own business is not one of them. There is no intent or " menace of declaration". One actually has to speak or make some sort of expression towards another.

 

 

https://thelawdictionary.org/threat/

 

What is THREAT?

In criminal law. A menace; a declaration of one’s purpose or intention to work injury to the person, property, or rights of another. A threat has been defined to be any menace of such a nature and extent as to unsettle the mind of the person on whom it operates, and to take away from his acts that free, voluntary action which alone constitutes consent. Abbott. See State v. Cushing. 17 Wash. 544. 50 Pac. 512; State v. Brownlee, 84 Iowa, 473, 51 N. W. 25; Cote v. Murphy, 159 Pa. 420, 28 Atl. 190, 23 L. R. A. 135, 39 Am. St. Rep. 6S6.

 

 

There are several examples of case law here. http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/T/Threat.aspx

 

 

Here's one.

 

In Hadley v State, a 1990 case published by the Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, Justice McMillan wrote:

 

"The term threat... in criminal law is a menace or declaration of one's purpose or intention toward injury to the person, property, or rights of another, by commission of an unlawful act. A threat can include almost any kind of an expression of intent by one person to do an act against another person, ordinarily indicating an intention to do harm. Moreover, a threat generally includes any menace that would serve to unsettle the mind of the person on whom it operates and to take away from his acts the free and voluntary action which constitutes consent."

 

There is no precedence for this. You really really do not want to be a test case.

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The IL criminal code has no definition of a threat, but here is the basic law on intimidation. If you click on the link there will be more on hate crimes, gang activity, public officials, etc.

 

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=072000050HArt%2E+12%2C+Subdiv%2E+15&ActID=1876&ChapterID=53&SeqStart=25300000&SeqEnd=26900000

 

(720 ILCS 5/12-6) (from Ch. 38, par. 12-6)
Sec. 12-6. Intimidation.
(a) A person commits intimidation when, with intent to cause another to perform or to omit the performance of any act, he or she communicates to another, directly or indirectly by any means, a threat to perform without lawful authority any of the following acts:
(1) Inflict physical harm on the person threatened or
any other person or on property; or
(2) Subject any person to physical confinement or
restraint; or
(3) Commit a felony or Class A misdemeanor; or
(4) Accuse any person of an offense; or
(5) Expose any person to hatred, contempt or
ridicule; or
(6) Take action as a public official against anyone
or anything, or withhold official action, or cause such action or withholding; or
(7) Bring about or continue a strike, boycott or
other collective action.

 

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I think immediately filing a civil rights lawsuit, for suppression of freedom of speech, would be the way to go here. The wearing of an empty holster would be political speech protesting the idiocy of having to disarm despite being a member of the social group least likely to commit any crimes, one that is background checked over 360 times per year.

 

Get a good civil rights attorney who supports both First and Second Amendment rights, and have them file the most aggressive lawsuit possible.

 

Make a Federal case out of it, literally.

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It's completely legal to wear a holster in a GFZ. I it is also legal to carry loaded magazines.

 

I have often worn my IWB holster through the scanner at the TSA checkpoints at O'hare. No one even said a word. Holsters are legal to bring in airplanes. Guns are not. If they're legal there, they're legal everywhere.

 

As far as the "open" carry of a holster...nothing illegal about it. Most likely no one will notice. If they do, the police may come. I'm not sure what the police will do. If you act politely, they probably won't do anything. Perhaps they'll ask you nicely to take it off. It's up to you whether you want to comply or not. If you don't they may do nothing. They may do something.

 

The one thing I discovered since carrying a gun is no one is looking at you. There have been times when I accidentally had my weapon exposed or when I might have been printing. Nobody noticed. Nobody said a word.

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When I lived in Illinois and had to go into the Kendall county courthouse, I would ungun in the parking lot and wear the leather holster into the courthouse. As there is no metal on the holster, it never triggered the scanners. Here in Michigan, I ungun when I go into the post office but not the court house/county building. As far as I know, the only restrictions are the court rooms when court is in session. At least that was what I was told when a deputy who walked me through the CPL process lead me through the building armed.

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It's completely legal to wear a holster in a GFZ. I it is also legal to carry loaded magazines.

 

I have often worn my IWB holster through the scanner at the TSA checkpoints at O'hare. No one even said a word. Holsters are legal to bring in airplanes. Guns are not. If they're legal there, they're legal everywhere.

 

As far as the "open" carry of a holster...nothing illegal about it. Most likely no one will notice. If they do, the police may come. I'm not sure what the police will do. If you act politely, they probably won't do anything. Perhaps they'll ask you nicely to take it off. It's up to you whether you want to comply or not. If you don't they may do nothing. They may do something.

 

The one thing I discovered since carrying a gun is no one is looking at you. There have been times when I accidentally had my weapon exposed or when I might have been printing. Nobody noticed. Nobody said a word.

 

^this^

 

Nobody is looking at you, everyone is too busy on their phone now a days. You could be straight up open carrying your 1911 and almost nobody would probably even notice! Granted that would be illegal since OC isn't legal here, so I don't recommend you try this at home (if you live in IL)! Also, most people are subconsciously trained NOT to look at another persons waist line, with so many MURICANS being over-weight most of the population is not going to look at another persons waist line regardless of if they're over weight or not, they're basically 'trained' not to!

 

I honestly wouldn't even know if I have ever "printed" at all these last five years, since nobody has said/done anything! There's been ONE time I had a FULL exposure, and that was sort of out of my control. I was riding my motorcycle and apparently the wind kindly decided to not only flash but completely reveal my holstered sidearm (I carry covered OWB). The only reason I knew this was actually because: at a stop/red light I had a local law enforcement officer also stopped at the light right next to me. When I glanced over, he started pointing at me. Confused I signaled for him to roll down his window. He rolled down his window and proceeded to tell me that the wind had "relocated" my "cover garment" and that "my piece was showing". I looked down and sure as **** it was 100% exposed. I took my "jacket" (think it was actually a 'hoodie' I was wearing at the time), and placed it back OVER my 'piece'. He nodded and put his window back up. AFAIK that is the ONE and ONLY time I have printed/exposed in the last FIVE years!

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Nobody is looking at you, everyone is too busy on their phone now a days. You could be straight up open carrying your 1911 and almost nobody would probably even notice! Granted that would be illegal since OC isn't legal here, so I don't recommend you try this at home (if you live in IL)! Also, most people are subconsciously trained NOT to look at another persons waist line, with so many MURICANS being over-weight most of the population is not going to look at another persons waist line regardless of if they're over weight or not, they're basically 'trained' not to!

^this^

 

I occasionally wear kilts (although my kilts seem to have "shrunk" recently), and one of the things you learn is that nobody notices you doing something unusual unless you act uncomfortable while you do it. There were several times I'd be in the grocery store and I'd ask an employee about something. We'd talk for several minutes and then they do a double-take as I walked away. I've had the same experience carrying: there were times I KNOW I've either exposed or printed in a fairly crowded environment. Since I didn't lose my mind and try to cover everything back up, nobody even blinked.

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I would say it's a non-issue. When I was going through security at the Capitol last year during IGOLD, I set off the metal detector and had to lift my shirt to be checked with the hand wand. The officer plainly saw my empty holster and mag holder and just smiled and let me pass. I would think that if there was any remote illegalness about it, I'd have been detained or arrested.

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Letter of the law, absolutely nothing saying you can't.

 

The only way I could see anything coming from it is if someone decided to make a huge deal out of it and an officer wanted to charge you with disorderly conduct under the first definition listed:

 

"(1) Does any act in such unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb another and to provoke a breach of the peace."

 

That would require a significant stretch of the wording (essentially saying you were doing it to intentionally alarm people and create a breach of the peace) and would likely never hold up, but I unfortunately I could see it being attempted with the right (or wrong, as it were) officer. All that said, I'm not a lawyer nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so take the thoughts with a grain of salt.

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I think immediately filing a civil rights lawsuit, for suppression of freedom of speech, would be the way to go here. The wearing of an empty holster would be political speech protesting the idiocy of having to disarm despite being a member of the social group least likely to commit any crimes, one that is background checked over 360 times per year.

 

Get a good civil rights attorney who supports both First and Second Amendment rights, and have them file the most aggressive lawsuit possible.

 

Make a Federal case out of it, literally.

You have phrased the legal argument very well! IAAJD

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In all honesty, even if someone saw you with a holstered gun, I think the chances are slim the cops would be called. As someone said, if you act as though you're entitled to have it and you're not threatening anyone or acting crazy, most people just don't want to get involved and/or don't care. They may even presume you're an off-duty law enforcement agent. I don't know.

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There was a case a few years ago here in Rockford, before we had legal concealed carry, that an individual went into the police station at Rock Valley College wearing an open holster WITHOUT ANY GUN. The receptionist told the officer on duty that this person wearing a holster made her uncomfortable, so the officer arrested the person and he was charged with disturbing the peace. I think eventually the charges were dropped but in the meantime the person had to go through being arrested and spending a ton of money to fight this in court.

 

I would think that the likelihood of wearing a holster and being hassled in any way depends more on the pro or anti gun culture in the community where you are. In a pro gun community no one would probably give it a thought. In a GFZ in Cook County you might encounter hysterical people and that will bring the police into the picture. I remember reading about a school being evacuated and a neighborhood being put into locked down status after someone found an empty cartridge case for a 22lr shell in London, U.K. a few years ago. Just imagine the reaction to seeing an evil holster!

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