Detroit Free Press:

About 20 people, openly armed with rifles and handguns, marched along Mound Road in Detroit Sunday to show support for a man who says he was unlawfully arrested because city police officers are against open-carry laws.

Detroiter Elijah Woody, 24, said he was open carrying a pistol while walking on Hague near Beaubien on Sept. 13 when he stopped to talk with friends around 7 p.m. Police pulled up a short time later.

Woody said he was arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon, a felony, and detained five days. He said his gun, a .40-caliber Glock 40, was in plain sight in a holster on his right hip when he was taken into custody.

Here is what the police are saying.

Elijah Woody, who claims he was legally open-carrying his handgun when Detroit police arrested him, is charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a license, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

While Elijah Woody claims police exited their vehicle and arrested him within 15 seconds, Detroit Police Sgt. Michael Woody (no relation to Elijah Woody), said police reported smelling the strong odor of marijuana, which gave them probable cause to search Elijah Woody and the group he was standing on the sidewalk of Hague between Brush and Beaubian. Sgt. Woody said a marijuana blunt was found at the scene and logged into evidence and that, although Elijah Woody had his “over-sized jacket” tucked in behind his handgun, it folded over the gun and illegally concealed it.

For a number of reasons I suspect that the police report is false.  Here is Kurt Hofmann in other open carry news.

Mr. Loftus goes on to note that this event takes place in an area in which every single legislator has opposed every single pro-gun rights bill since the year 2000. In short, to attend with an openly carried firearm, and without a concealed carry permit, is to face the risk of arrest and prosecution, with no certainty that the courts will recognize Amendment 5 as invalidating all laws against permit-less open carry. Not for the faint of heart.

The implication is that open carriers will be arrested.  They’d better not be.  As we’ve noted, there is state preemption now and open carry is legal everywhere in Missouri.

Since I don’t have time for a Notes tonight, read also David Codrea’s latest with Examiner.

Just as the billionaire-funded Astroturfers pose as the grassroots, the overabundance of safe selections, guaranteed to give them a track record of victories they can them claim as proof of their political wallop, is all part of the carefully-staged illusion-making.

I’ve remarked before that the collectivists work top down, while we work bottom up.  They have to make it look like their their method works best.