That still floors me that taking your weapon while on the stop is SOP
You're not the only one...
If you stop someone for a traffic violation, and see that they may have a firearm because their license or permit is linked to their registration or D/L, seems like you have a few options:
1)
Ignore it. This person is to be trusted no more nor less than any other driver you'd contact -- except that they at some point were of good enough character to obtain a license to carry a firearm and were of good enough intent to do so rather than carry a weapon illegally. Proceed as usual.
2)
Ask the driver to disarm him or herself and deliver the firearm to you. Uh, say what? So you don't want this person to be in possession of a weapon you consider dangerous while you're interacting with them, but you're going to direct them to draw, retrieve it, handle it, manipulate it and hand it over to you? How does that make sense? If you actually have anything to fear from this person, and you instruct them to draw their weapon, you're now in a position of having to draw to a drawn gun if they decide to harm you. Even if you DON'T have anything purposeful to fear, you have to trust that this nervous, distracted, unhappy person is going to safely draw and hand-over his/her weapon without endangering themselves or you. Are you going to have them unload it? Are you going to risk them pointing it at you or themselves while trying to hand it over? And if they do hand it over carefully, what have you proved? Only that they didn't mean you any harm anyway.
And what if they cite the 4th Amendment and want to argue with you that they should not have to surrender the piece, consent to searches, etc.? Are you going to force them? Are you going to stand down?
3)
Disarm them yourself. Ok, so this routine speeding ticket now requires you to get the driver out of the car and physically disarm them. You'll be dealing with an unfamiliar holster and gun. Can you approach and draw that weapon safely without putting yourself at undue risk? Are you going to try to control this person and their weapon alone or do you need to wait for backup? Are you going to trust them to exit the vehicle and submit to being disarmed without attacking you? If so, what was the point of the exercise again? If not, are you going to draw and hold them at gunpoint while they exit and submit? Are you going to close in and retrieve their gun while keeping your own weapon trained on them? Again, do you have backup? Do you need backup? It's "just" a traffic stop, remember!
In both 2 and 3, do you consider this person "armed
and dangerous?" If so, why? If not, why disarm them? Does the fact that they're armed imply "dangerous" as well? Again, why? And is this different from the SOP you'd use with any other driver for whom you have zero carry permit information. What if they're armed? Seems you're trusting the people who tell you
less about themselves and subjecting to great risk those people who've volunteered this information to you through the permit system.
So much of this doesn't make any sense. This "SOP" seems to put officers and the public at
much greater risk and gives no benefits at all.
