Hi, guys,
When carrying a concealed weapon, it is sometimes well to remember that concealed really means concealed. Why worry, when the carry is legal? I have referred from time to time to an incident that taught me a lesson. With your kind permission to be overlong, here is the whole story.
It happened to a friend of mine, whom I will call Jack, because that is his name. Jack, since retired, was a detective lieutenant on the police force of a small Pennsylvania city. One day, he received the type of phone call all detectives have learned to dread. His wife wanted him to stop on the way home and pick up some bread, milk, and cereal.
Jack didn't live in the city, but in the adjacent township. He stopped at a supermarket just outside the city to do his shopping. Now Jack carried a Colt Detective Special in a Berns Martin holster, even then an obsolete rig. As he bent over to pick up a box of Raisin Bran, a small boy sitting on the edge of the lower shelf reading the backs of the cereal boxes looked up under Jack's coat and saw the gun.
"HELP!" he screamed, running to his mother. "Mommy, mommy, man's got a gun bad man bad man!!" And so on. Mommy, grasping her child to her body to protect the little darling, ran screaming to the front of the store, yelling that a man with a gun was shooting people. Of course no shots had been fired, but reason is a stranger to fear. Hearing the woman screaming, both customers and clerks abandoned the checkouts and fled the store. The mall merchants had hired a part-time deputy sheriff to direct traffic, and the store manager ran to him, saying that an armed criminal was running amok in the store.
The deputy drew his .32 breaktop revolver and, exhibiting perhaps more courage than common sense, ran into the store. Jack, seeing the armed deputy, immediately threw up his arms and yelled, "I surrender!" After allowing the deputy to disarm him, Jack tried to tell the nervous man that he was a police officer. The deputy responded to the effect that no one was going to fool him with that old line. So, the deputy marched Jack, at gunpoint, out of the store.
In the meantime, someone had called the police. What was said on the telephone is not known, but the radio call went out as an armed robbery, with possible hostage situation. That, as you might guess, got some attention. A township car and a city car pulled into the parking lot almost simultaneously, nearly running into each other. Four cops got out, guns drawn, just as the deputy and his prisoner emerged from the market, the deputy loudly proclaiming that he had captured the dangerous gunman.
The city guys, naturally recognizing their own lieutenant, broke up and came very close to rolling around on the ground. The township cops, not knowing Jack, were in two-hand hold, combat crouch, wondering why the city cops were laughing their asses off.
Things got straightened out, finally. One of the city uniforms told the deputy that the bad guy was really a good guy, and the deputy, dreams of a medal and a big reward no longer dancing in his head, went back to his post to try to unsnarl the now absolutely awful traffic mess.
Thanks to some adroit handling by the police PR guy, the episode never made the news, but I don't need to say that Jack was never allowed to forget it.
And I don't need to say that if Jack had been a licensed citizen instead of a police officer, he would probably have had a lot more than embarrassment to face.
Jim
When carrying a concealed weapon, it is sometimes well to remember that concealed really means concealed. Why worry, when the carry is legal? I have referred from time to time to an incident that taught me a lesson. With your kind permission to be overlong, here is the whole story.
It happened to a friend of mine, whom I will call Jack, because that is his name. Jack, since retired, was a detective lieutenant on the police force of a small Pennsylvania city. One day, he received the type of phone call all detectives have learned to dread. His wife wanted him to stop on the way home and pick up some bread, milk, and cereal.
Jack didn't live in the city, but in the adjacent township. He stopped at a supermarket just outside the city to do his shopping. Now Jack carried a Colt Detective Special in a Berns Martin holster, even then an obsolete rig. As he bent over to pick up a box of Raisin Bran, a small boy sitting on the edge of the lower shelf reading the backs of the cereal boxes looked up under Jack's coat and saw the gun.
"HELP!" he screamed, running to his mother. "Mommy, mommy, man's got a gun bad man bad man!!" And so on. Mommy, grasping her child to her body to protect the little darling, ran screaming to the front of the store, yelling that a man with a gun was shooting people. Of course no shots had been fired, but reason is a stranger to fear. Hearing the woman screaming, both customers and clerks abandoned the checkouts and fled the store. The mall merchants had hired a part-time deputy sheriff to direct traffic, and the store manager ran to him, saying that an armed criminal was running amok in the store.
The deputy drew his .32 breaktop revolver and, exhibiting perhaps more courage than common sense, ran into the store. Jack, seeing the armed deputy, immediately threw up his arms and yelled, "I surrender!" After allowing the deputy to disarm him, Jack tried to tell the nervous man that he was a police officer. The deputy responded to the effect that no one was going to fool him with that old line. So, the deputy marched Jack, at gunpoint, out of the store.
In the meantime, someone had called the police. What was said on the telephone is not known, but the radio call went out as an armed robbery, with possible hostage situation. That, as you might guess, got some attention. A township car and a city car pulled into the parking lot almost simultaneously, nearly running into each other. Four cops got out, guns drawn, just as the deputy and his prisoner emerged from the market, the deputy loudly proclaiming that he had captured the dangerous gunman.
The city guys, naturally recognizing their own lieutenant, broke up and came very close to rolling around on the ground. The township cops, not knowing Jack, were in two-hand hold, combat crouch, wondering why the city cops were laughing their asses off.
Things got straightened out, finally. One of the city uniforms told the deputy that the bad guy was really a good guy, and the deputy, dreams of a medal and a big reward no longer dancing in his head, went back to his post to try to unsnarl the now absolutely awful traffic mess.
Thanks to some adroit handling by the police PR guy, the episode never made the news, but I don't need to say that Jack was never allowed to forget it.
And I don't need to say that if Jack had been a licensed citizen instead of a police officer, he would probably have had a lot more than embarrassment to face.
Jim
