In this video West Virginia attorney John Bryan details the decision of the Fourth Circuit concerning his client. It’s a long video, but if you want to read the decision it can be found here.
This case should have been easy and quick. In U.S. Versus Black, the Fourth Circuit had this to say.
Being a felon in possession of a firearm is not the default status. More importantly, where a state permits individuals to openly carry firearms, the exercise of this right, without more, cannot justify an investigatory detention. Permitting such a justification would eviscerate Fourth Amendment protections for lawfully armed individuals in those states. United States v. King, 990 F.2d 1552, 1559 (10th Cir. 1993).
In this West Virginia case, Walker wasn’t a felon, and West Virginia permits open carry of firearms. But you see, Black was carrying a handgun, and Walker was carrying one of those evil ARs, so the Fourth Circuit had to do something.
Contrary to Walker’s interpretation, the Black decision does not dictate that, in a state like West Virginia where it is legal to openly carry a firearm, the act of openly carrying a firearm can never engender reasonable suspicion.
Keep your eye on the card – now you see it, now you don’t. Because we say so.
They go on to differentiate between handguns carried in a hip holster and the awful, wicked AR-15, which is certainly the weapon of choice by mass shooters – so says the media. That eighty people per weekend get shot in Chicago with handguns isn’t really germane.
Nor is it germane that gangs result from the evisceration of the inner city due to fatherless families and financial encouragement to have children out of wedlock, or that Coyote hunting in West Virginia and elsewhere is commonplace and a man walking in the middle of nowhere preparing to hunt Coyotes should be fairly routine stuff to the tyrants in the police force of Putnam County.
[Note: One reason guys hunt Coyotes is because they sit in wait for deer to deliver fawns, and then eat the young, disturbing the deer herd size. Coyotes are predators. In groups they will also threaten people.]
What matters is that the Fourth Circuit is out of Richmond and probably reads every major rag published daily by the legacy media. Having said all of that, the real root of the problem lies somewhere else.
It lies with the folks in Putnam County, and especially with Sheriff Bobby Eggleton. A group of people will always take on the personality of its leader. The offending officer in this case was vulgar, obscene, rude and tyrannical, and couldn’t go three words without cursing at Mr. Walker. I suspect that’s what the Sheriff is like too.
So the Sheriff is to blame, but probably also the County Commissioners, who should be run out of town on a rail for allowing this sort of thing to happen.
Sheriff Bobby Eggleton: beggleton@putnamwv.org
County Commissioner Brian Ellis: bellis@putnamwv.org
County Commissioner Ron Foster: rfoster@putnamwv.org
County Commissioner Andy Skidmore: askidmore@putnamwv.org
Prosecuting Attorney Mark Sorsaia: prosecutingattorney@putnamwv.org
