Open carry open defiance at Wyoming GOP Convention

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Once again, political correctness has run amok if you cannot make lawyer jokes.

Except it wasn't a lawyer joke. It was an attempt to insult me. And I think most readers will understand it as such.

And in context that is merely an expression of intellectual bankruptcy. Vern has nothing substantive to add to the discussion. He just didn't like my message. He can't challenge my message with facts or legal authority. So he's left with insulting the messenger. And that from a man who had an honorable and distinguished career in our military and retired as a senior officer. I find that sad.

The bottom line it seems here is that some folks believe it to have been wrong for the police not to issue citations to everyone openly carrying a firearm. One poster assumes that action to be unconstitutional, but it is not. So for all the ire expressed about selective enforcement, the reality is that under current law it's perfectly okay, except under the rarest of circumstances. So folks wind up wasting a lot of spleen because of a lack of knowledge.
 
If you had actually bothered to pay attention, I addressed the issue in post 16. And just to help clarify matters:
Well, Frank, maybe you weren't bothering to pay attention. None of your post #16, nor the links there, said anything with regards to any officer, only a Prosecutor. That was what I was commenting on. The Immigration policy you linked in post #23 does mention individual Officers.

<Edited to remove comments unrelated to the topic.>
 
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And you have some legal authority to back up that conjecture?

Yes, I'm aware that the Fourteenth Amendment provides that a State may not:
But "equal protection" is not the same as "equal application."

So let's see some citations to federal court decisions supporting your claim. Or are you just making stuff up?

Years ago, I was working on a brief in an employment case, and I found that in Florida, it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause to treat people differently under the same laws (in some cases, at least).

It was very strange, because I found that it was an argument virtually no one used, and I would have expected the court to reject it in the case I was working on, simply on that basis. Taking discretion out of the law would cause terrible problems for cops, prosecutors, and judges, who show favoritism and bias every day, as a matter of policy.

We all remember David Gregory, the liberal who committed a gun felony on national TV, in a rabidly anti-2A jurisdiction, and wasn't charged.

For what it's worth, the lawyer joke made me chuckle.
 
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Once again, political correctness has run amok if you cannot make lawyer jokes.

It's called humor, folks. I've been teamed with prosecutors for the past ten years so I know attorneys very, very well. My son is in law school and he can tell the best lawyer jokes of anyone I have ever heard. Vern, I found your comment to be downright funny. People are just looking for a reason to be offended and if they don't have a sense of humor it isn't your problem. Maybe it's just because I'm a cop and I have a thick skin. Maybe it is because I'm an Indian and have heard Injun jokes all of my life but I'm not easily offended. This is an internet forum and some of you are taking it and yourselves much too seriously.
 
Years ago, I was working on a brief in an employment case, and I found that in Florida, it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause to treat people differently under the same laws (in some cases, at least).....
How does the legal authority applicable to that employment case relate to this situation, i. e., police choosing not to cite all persons apparently committing the same infraction? How would the principles relating to the situation you were dealing with relate to the principles which drive considerations of prosecutorial and/or enforcement discretion? How does what you found to apply in Florida apply in Wyoming?

The thing is that there is all sorts of "stuff" out there. There are the rights (including the rights of due process and equal protection) protected by the Bill of Rights. There is the body of law making many of the protection of the Bill of Rights applicable to the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. There are the rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

But all of these protections work differently, and have different applications and effects, under different circumstances and when dealing with different purposes. So, for example, we have cases in which the Supreme Court is telling us that due process or equal protection is offended by selective prosecution only in extraordinary situations.

....Taking discretion out of the law would cause terrible problems for cops, prosecutors, and judges, who show favoritism and bias every day, as a matter of policy....
And now you're assuming facts not in evidence, i. e., that all exercise of discretion is about favoritism or bias. You've chosen an example well calculated to offend our sensibilities as proponents of the RKBA, but I'm sure other examples could offend other sensibilities.

But offended sensibilities should not necessarily be sufficient to justify legal sanctions or compulsions. I'm offended by persons claiming distinctions or honors which they didn't earn or to which they aren't entitled, but it was still appropriate for the Supreme Court to find that the Stolen Valor Act offended the First Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.

The reality is that enforcement and prosecutorial discretion is ubiquitous. Examples run the gamut from the cop who exercises judgment choosing to give one speeder a warning, but another a ticket (or perhaps decides not to chase after a bunch of folks on the freeway who appear to be passing at a speed in excess of the limit) to formalized policies like this memo by Attorney General Sessions directing that U. S. Attorneys (emphasis added):
...In deciding which marijuana activities to prosecute under these laws with the Department's finite resources, prosecutors should follow the well-established principles that govern all federal prosecutions. ...These principles require federal prosecutors deciding which cases to prosecute to weigh all relevant considerations, including federal law enforcement priorities set by the Attorney General, the seriousness of the crime, the deterrent effect of criminal prosecution, and the cumulative impact of particular crimes on the community.

So on the basis of what the law actually is in the real world there doesn't seem to be any real reason to expect to get out of a ticket because not every speeder gets one, or to beat a federal marijuana charge because the policy of the U. S. Attorney's office is to not necessarily pursue every possible violation. Nor can we expect anyone in law enforcement, from the beat cop to the AG, to have civil or criminal legal liability for deciding not to pursue a particular arrest or offense absent egregious chicanery (e. g., malicious discriminatory intent, cronyism, or bribery).

But that doesn't mean that the situation brought up in the OP is necessarily innocuous. There might be good legal objection to the selective enforcement here, but was this politically a wise tactic of the police? Is there any way to further the RKBA from a public relations or political perspective?
 
Has it occurred to anyone that in this case the Chief of Police was, perhaps, personally supportive of a legal strike down of the University policy, cited the one person who had the will and means to make a legal challenge to accomplish this? Without inconveniencing any of the others.
 
Has it occurred to anyone that in this case the Chief of Police was, perhaps, personally supportive of a legal strike down of the University policy, cited the one person who had the will and means to make a legal challenge to accomplish this? Without inconveniencing any of the others.
An excellent point. And in addition consider that the Chief of Police probably could not politically simply ignore the situation.
 
Frank, I am really sorry I stirred you up. You are very hostile, and you are making some wild assumptions. If you thought I was trying to provoke you, I assure you, I was not.

I don't practice law for free, so I will not address your questions.
 
Frank, I am really sorry I stirred you up. You are very hostile, and you are making some wild assumptions. If you thought I was trying to provoke you, I assure you, I was not.

I don't practice law for free, so I will not address your questions.
I suspect that you've never seen me actually hostile. And I'd be sort of curious to know what wild assumptions you think I'm making.

And as far as addressing my questions, I really wasn't expecting any answers. They were more in the nature of rhetorical questions to illustrate that passing reference to due process and equal protection doesn't really address the issue raised, albeit obliquely, by the OP of whether not issuing citations to all open carriers at the demonstration was legally improper in some way. Again, the Supreme Court has been clear that selective prosecution offends due process and/or equal protection in only the most extraordinary circumstances.

So we've kind of come full circle. A bunch of folks seem to not like the way the police handled the demonstration. But that doesn't translate to the police having done anything legally improper.
 
For humor to be funny, the time and place are two very important parts of the equation.

Telling a PMS joke around the campfire with your camping friends might be responded to with laughing from both men and women.

Tell the same joke in the office after two women have a disagreement during the monthly metrics review meeting and that might have the result of a visit with the HR manager for being distasteful, insulting, and creating a sexist work environment against women.

Making a religious joke at a place of worship is often seen as inappropriate as well.


Considering the intentional timing and placement of the post, the alledged attempt at humor is certainly worthy of potential criticism of being disrespectful and insulting.


This isn't new or revolutionary. It's something we all should know by know.


#giveahootdontpollute
 
This thread has gone wildly off the rails. If you have problems with a post or a moderator's response to such, I suggest you use the report function and staff will take a considered look at it.

Since the initial question as been lost in a side issue, this one is closed.
 
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