Citizen
Founder's Club Member
SNIP I agree, but at the same time if I have done nothing wrong I have nothing to hide. I've carried long enough now that I am confident and don't let Leos intimate me with intrusive questions. But I only answer with what I'm comfortable with. We all know they can charge you with anything they want and let you fight it in court. So I cooperate and try not to give them any reasons to go to that point. All in all I try to be a positive encounter with officers to help change their opinion of oc'ers. Some will say I'm giving up my rights, I don't see it that way, but that's just my opinion.
That's where you and I differ. I'm not willing to give up my rights relative to the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness provision, which you surrender before the contact even occurs. That is to say, when a cop contacts me investigatively, he's already proven he actively thinks or goes along with the idea that OC--an enumerated right--is worthy of suspicion. There is absolutely, positively nothing reasonable about that.
Further, its not my responsibility to change their opinion of OCers, meaning the responsibility is misplaced. How did they get a bad opinion in the first place? Certainly, they weren't on-board with rights. They're the odd man out; its their responsibility to get with the program. Further, when you change their opinion of OCers and the 4A and 5A, you let them continue their anti-rights attitude toward others. "Oh, they're OCers; they're good guys generally, so we'll leave them alone." Yeah? What about everybody else?
If a cop is a good cop, he'll understand the refusals. Hell, a really good cop would say so, "Wow! An everyday citizen who knows his rights cold and uses them! Cool!" If a cop comes away from a polite refusal encounter with a bad idea about OCers, or anybody for that matter, he ain't a good cop. He's on a powertrip, or thinks he's somehow elite and people owe him their cooperation or something.
And, why wait around until contacted to show cops that OCers are good guys? Why not just start a good-citizen initiative to build bridges to them?
And, I don't believe for one second that any cops today don't know the vast majority, if not all, OCers are good guys just exercising their rights. We've made too much noise about it over the last six or seven years. They know we're just citizens exercising their rights. They know its darn unlikely a criminal will be OCing.
So, yes. You're waiving your rights. Its not a matter of some seeing it that way--as though its subjective or a matter of opinion. Its plain facts; you either exercised your rights or you waived them.