During a citizen comment period of the Oak Harbor, Washington city council meeting a veteran and concealed carry permit holder urges the city council to defend the citizen’s 2nd Amendment rights and also to educate children on guns and gun safety. After he finished speaking, one of the city council members asked Lucas if he was “armed right now”. Although it was optional for Lucas to answer the city council’s question, he responded, “Yes, I have a concealed carry permit and I am conceal carrying at this moment…I served my country for over 5 years, sustained wounds in protection of those rights and if there was an issue I would protect any person, whether I knew them or not, with my own life. So I hope you feel comfortable with that.”
However, it was apparent that the city council member who had asked the question was anything but comfortable that Lucas was lawfully exercising his right to carry a weapon for protection. The city council member made a motion to ask “anyone who was armed to check their weapon with the police chief or leave the premise”, after commenting, “There is someone in the chambers who is armed; it’s NOT necessary.”
A quick vote of the 8 member city council resulted in a 2-6 vote, thus allowing all who were armed to stay at the meeting without checking their weapon. After the vote was final, the town council member who originally raised a fuss about having legally armed citizens present grabbed his papers and walked out of the meeting. Wow!
Meanwhile, the city attorney touched briefly on the legality of the attempted motion. It turns out that the attempted motion violated Washington’s preemption law, so it would have been unenforceable had it passed.
The best part is the last 3 minutes where the mayor tongue lashes the other city officials for violating their pledges as elected officials to uphold the Constitution. He goes on to apologizes to Lucas for having to go through this ordeal and the attempt to trample his rights. The Mayor goes on to tell Lucas, “I feel safer that you are here. If we were to play out hypotheticals in reference to an elected official being concerned about somebody harming someone, it’s not going to be coming from the likes of you.”
Watch the video to see the whole ordeal yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kKpLhNiC8zg
Carrie
Carrie is a country girl living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. When not working for her family's internet marketing firm, RYP Marketing, you can find Carrie reading, hiking, biking, shooting at the range or catching up on the latest news. You can contact Carrie via email at carrie@rypmarketing.com.
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This is absolutely ridiculous. It goes hand in hand with “the fear of the unknown.”
The fact that someone in the room had a gun made the one council member uneasy. Why? Was he equally uneasy prior to coming into the knowledge of the presence of a weapon?
It seems to me that a large amount of the fear or weapons comes from the lack of knowledge (I would use the word ignorance but that typically carries a negative connotation) of said weapons.
I was not raise around weapons. In fact, I didn’t even hold one until my sophomore year of high school, when I joined the ROTC program. I’ll admit, the little hairs on the back of my neck stood on end the first couple of times.
After 3 years of ROTC, including joining the shooting team and participating in several competitions, and 7 years in the military including a tour of duty in Afghanistan, I feel fully comfortable handling a weapon of any sort. And though I don’t personally own any anymore, I know that if ever I should need to use one or get one, I would have no problem feeling comfortable.
It’s amazing to me how someone could stand right next to a police officer with a gun out in the open and feel perfectly safe, yet stand next to an “average Joe” who is carrying and be concerned for their safety. If anything, the recent incidents involving ex-LAPD officer Christopher Dorner show that to be poor thinking.
Interesting analogy you bring up with guns carried by a police officer vs. a citizen. Part of that is that the general public is programmed to believe that the police are good, always protect you and that beyond those uses guns are evil.
The irrational way that police reacted to Dorner by shooting up numerous vehicles that bared a “similar resemblance” to his further illustrates the point.
Yes, indeed.
The people of several states need to know that these ccp may save your life and put there welfare in danger ! The CCL may change the shooters response will be armed at the CCP and give you a chance to get out free and that’s why we get a CCP, so it’s a good thing, a CCP would never harem any person. They only use there CCP to help, there are no mass shooting where there is a chance of the CCP !