Fishing With Guns In Miami Beach To Raise Awareness Of Florida Open Carry Laws
BY Herschel Smith
6 years ago
A group of open carry gun enthusiasts had a well-armed visit to Miami Beach on Saturday.
The group calling itself “Florida Carry” caused a disturbance when they showed up on the South Pointe Park Pier in June.
At that time, six members of the group startled fishermen and visitors, some of whom notified police.
Officers temporarily detained and disarmed the group, but determined that they were within their rights to carry weapons.
This time, the group announced it’s intention to show up at the pier on a Facebook page, and police were ready and accommodating.
The group walked to the pier and proceeded to fish, gathering several double-takes from other fishermen and tourists.
Open Carry Advocate Steven Merrette said, “This is our statement to come out here and try and educate not only the law enforcement officers but the general public as well. We are not the problem. We’re out here peacefully fishing, we’ve got our wives, our kids with us, we’re out here having a good time, nobody’s causing any problems.”
I support their efforts. As I’ve said before, the shame must end. I agree wholeheartedly with the notion of open carry to prove a point. Other than that, we learn absolutely nothing interesting or actionable from this stupid report, except that the police are criminals.
It’s legal to open carry while fishing, and this wasn’t a Terry stop. There was no suspicion of a crime, and the police didn’t need to detain the men and verify that they were within their rights. Here’s a scoop, cops. There is no law against it, so they were within their rights, just as much as walking down the street is within my rights, and you have no right to detain me for walking down the street.
As for disarming the men, I’ve pointed out before that this is the stupidest, most ridiculous, most unsafe act you can take. Do … not .. touch .. another … man’s .. weapon. If you do that, you are an imbecile, and your procedures are faulty.
So here’s a suggestion for the write of this silly article (” … and police were ready and accommodating”). Find out and report for us what right the police had to detain and disarm the men, and give us the court precedents that support such action, if you can find any. More to the point. Give us court precedents that demonstrate that the police can detain you for no reason whatsoever?
Here’s another idea. Give us the data on whether blood really runs in the streets like the wild, wild west in open carry states. Or not. Hey, “journalist.” Do you even know how many states are open carry states?
Prior: Miami Beach Police Draw Down On, Detain, Disarm, And Throw Around Lawful Open Carriers
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On October 22, 2018 at 2:36 am, Dan said:
It seems you are operating under a flawed belief. The belief that LEO are actually REQURED TO OBEY THE LAW. NEWSFLASH!!! They are not.
Over countless years, unnumbered court rulings and a stack of bodies to make PolPot smile LEO has carved out what is essentially TOTAL IMMUNITY
from the law. On those few occasions where they are caught ON CAMERA violating our rights it is the TAXPAYER who ultimately suffers when the final bill comes due. The ONLY time a badgemonkey gets in trouble is NOT when they break a law….it’s when they get caught creating bad PR
via an act that cannot be made to just ‘go away’.
On October 22, 2018 at 7:34 am, ragman said:
I have had a FL Concealed Weapon License since 1987, the first year they were offered to the Citizens. We heard the same “blood in the streets” BS back then. Of course, it was nothing but a PR campaign to prevent said Citizens from exercising their God-given right to self defense. It would take all of one minute to inform our costumed enforcers that “a Citizen can open carry while fishing, hunting or camping”. Period end. It should not be up to the Citizens to instruct and enlighten the enforcers on state law. With the exception of unrestricted open carry(a very big exception) FL gun laws are not much of a problem. Look for that to change if the communist Gillum gets elected in two weeks.
On October 22, 2018 at 11:26 am, Frank Clarke said:
@HFS: The “detain and disarm” text seems to refer to last June’s incident. That doesn’t seem to have happened this time.
@ragman: Should Gillum win, he only gets to sign bills passed by the legislature. That last is the big hurdle. “Passage, signing, then non-compliance” is the way I see this playing out in the wake of a Democratic takeover that is now looking increasingly unlikely.
On October 22, 2018 at 1:21 pm, George said:
The courts sustain the “right” of the police to disarm anyone. The police will claim that while they are “investigating” they need to insure their “safety”. The courts will always go along with this line of BS against ordinary citizens. After all the most important thing in the universe is that the police go home safe at the end of their shift. That axiom trumps all other rights and laws.