LEGAL DISCLAIMER
The law is always in a state of flux and even lawyers and judges get it wrong from time to time. All advice posted on this forum should be considered nothing more than hearsay. Even if a poster identifies themselves as an attorney, law enforcement official or expert in a given field, there is no way to verify that fact or that they are correct. Therefore, any and all advice you glean from this forum should be independently verified! NOTHING CONTAINED HEREIN SHOULD BE CONSIDERED LEGAL ADVICE!
ACCEPTANCE OF RULES
If you do not agree with any of these Rules then please do not use this site, because BY USING THIS SITE YOU WILL BE DEEMED TO HAVE IRREVOCABLY AGREED TO THESE RULES. Please note that these Rules may be revised and reissued without notice at any time. You should review the current Rules regularly, since your continued use of the site will be deemed as irrevocable acceptance of any revisions.
RIGHT TO CONTACT
We reserve the ABSOLUTE right to contact our members via PM or email regarding moderation issues. Contact for non-moderation activities is governed by forum rules.
FORUM RULES
(1) YOU OWN YOUR WORDS ONCE THEY ARE POSTED: While we will attempt to help those who have a legitimate need to remove postings they have made in haste or error, our time and ability to do so is not unlimited and there is no guarantee that such a request will be granted. Therefore, post only those comments that you have considered and are willing to take full responsibility for!
(2) RIGHT TO EDIT AND DELETE POSTS: We reserve the right to edit or remove posts for any reason, at any time, at our sole discretion.
(3) PRIVACY: We respect the privacy of our members and will NEVER sell or make available our member's email or other contact information to third-parties.
(4) RIGHT TO CONTACT: We reserve the right to contact our members via email about gun rights related initiatives. While we do offer a provision to opt-out of these mailings, we make no guarantees that such an opt-out will always be available.
(5) CITE TO AUTHORITY: If you state a rule of law, it is incumbent upon you to try to cite, as best you can, to authority. Citing to authority, using links when available,is what makes OCDO so successful. An authority is a published source of law that can back your claim up - statute, ordinance, court case, newspaper article covering a legal issue, etc.
(6) NO PERSONAL ATTACKS: While you may disagree strongly with another poster based upon their opinion, we will NOT tolerate any personal attacks or general bashing of groups of people based upon race, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender-identity or choice of occupation (e.g., being a law enforcement officer, in the military, etc). NOTE THAT THIS RULE APPLIES TO PMs AS WELL AS FORUM POSTS!!!
(7) NO SPAMMING: Links to spam/membership sites not related directly to firearms are NOT allowed under any circumstances! It is also considered spamming to post the same thread (even valid ones) to multiple forums or posting the same reply to multiple threads.
(8) KEEP IT ON-TOPIC: All gun rights discussions not directly related to open carry should take place in the "General Discussions" forum and topics that are not related to gun rights at all should take place in "The Lounge". Please police your own posts before posting them and help keep OCDO strong and focused.
(9) HATE IS NOT WELCOME HERE: Any posts attacking others based upon race, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender-identity, or anything other than opposition to gun rights is NOT WELCOME HERE! We reserve the right to impose immediate bans for such behavior.
(10) WE DO NOT ALLOW "FOR SALE/TRADE" OR RAFFLE ADS: We use Google Ads to help cover the expenses of the forum and their rules specifically disallow the sale of firearms, ammo and accessories (including the raffle of such).
(11) RESPECT COPYRIGHT HOLDERS: We often share news stories with one another. Please remember that these stories are copyrighted material and only post a fair-use excerpt along with a link where the rest of the story may be read.
(12) NO BASHING OF OTHER GUN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS: Regardless of how convinced you are that another gun rights organization is not doing their job, this is not the place to air those concerns unless they are specifically related to an anti-open carry position taken by that organization. All other rants against other gun rights groups will be deleted or the thread locked.
(13) MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS ARE NOT ALLOWED: Signing up multiple accounts (or alts) is a tactic employed by spammers and trolls and not legitimate members. Doing so will result in the banning of all accounts involved.
(14) LONG GUN CARRY IS OFF-TOPIC: This web site is focused on the right to openly carry properly holstered handguns in daily American life. We do NOT promote the carry of long guns. Long guns are great! OCDO co-founders John & Mike and most of the members of this forum own at least one long gun - but due to urban area issues of muzzle control and lack of trigger guard coverage, we cannot support long gun open carry.
(15) WE ADVOCATE FOR THE 'LAW-ABIDING' ONLY: Posts advocating illegal acts of any kind are NOT welcome here. Even if you feel that a law is unconstitutional we do not break it, we repeal it or defeat it in the courts.
(16) NO FALSE ATTRIBUTIONS: Editing quoted posts by another member to make it appear as if they said something other than what they intended will NOT be tolerated!
(17) OWNERSHIP OF POSTS: By posting on the OpenCarry.org forum, you do not surrender your ownership rights to the material you post. However, by posting any material which you possess ownership rights to on the forum, you grant an irrevocable, transferable license to the forum owners to display, edit, delete and reproduce the material as they see fit.
(18) PRIVATE MESSAGES: The content of private messages are NOT completely private in that they may be reported to the administrator should the private messaging function be used to harass or spam another user. However, the content of private messages should not be posted publicly on the forum in an attempt to embarrass or discredit another member.
(19) COLORED TEXT AND OVERSIZED FONTS: The forum software allows you to change the colors and sizes of fonts. Sometimes this can make it easy to emphasize a point or to express sarcasm. However, if abused it can also make it very difficult to read posts. We reserve the right to deem a given post or signature line with colored or resized text to be considered abusive but the general rule is that such changes are fine for acceptable purposes such as purple for sarcasm or to highlight a given point.
(20) AGE RESTRICTION: In order to comply with the requirements of the COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act), we only offer membership in our forum to those who are at least 13 years of age. By using the forum, you certify that you are at least 13 years of age and those who are found to be younger than 13 will have their accounts disabled.
(21) ACCEPTABLE AVATARS: We are willing to allow almost any avatar. However, there are several exceptions. Prohibited avatars include those which show unsafe firearms handling, are pornographic, or which violate other forum rules such as bashing other gun rights groups, expressing hate, or LEO bashing.
(22) DUPLICATE AVATARS: Many users have avatars that represent their membership in certain organizations (NRA, GOA, VCDL, etc). These, of course, may be duplicated since they are not a personalized avatar. However, personalized avatars are deemed to belong to the first member to use them and copying of them by subsequent members is almost always done to attack a member or to cause confusion. Therefore, duplication of personalized avatars is prohibited.
PRIVACY POLICY
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We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you enter, submit, or access your personal information.
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Do we disclose any information to outside parties?
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.
Third party links
Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.
Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance
We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act), we do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.
Your Consent
By using our site, you consent to our online privacy policy.
Changes to our Privacy Policy
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.
This policy was last modified on November 21, 2018
Contacting Us
If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy you may contact us using the information below.
john@opencarry.org