Why Open Carry?

For the uninitiated, "Open Carry" is the peaceable, unconcealed carry of a firearm by a citizen. For example, in a holster, on your belt in plain view. In Delaware, this is lawful, though highly uncommon; however, there is a strong movement throughout the country of people who do open carry -- you can read their stories at OpenCarry.org.

I write this preface, so you have an understanding of what it is. Myself and at least a dozen others have been open carrying in Delaware for some time now -- for the most part, without incident. On the above mentioned forums, someone asked the following:

"Other than to exercise a right, I'm not yet convinced that open carry serves any other useful purpose. My thinking is that concealed carry with a permit should fill any desire to carry without the side effect of alarming or scaring the public or drawing the attention of law enforcement. I am worried that open carry, with no permit, is actually counter-productive in the long run to the goal of perserving[sic] our right to bear arms in public. What am I missing?"

Here is my reply to him:

The long-term goal of preserving our right to bear arms in public has already been accomplished. Forty-four states in the union have some type of firearms preemption in place to prevent the regulation or possession or transport of a firearm. In addition, a good number of states have Constitutions which guarantees our right to keep and bear arms in even more plain language that the Second Amendment.

For example, the Delaware Constitution states in Article I, §20, "A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State, and for hunting and recreational use."

And, just so it's clear, the US Constitution is the supreme law of the land -- state Constitutions "override" the US Constitution because their provisions must equal or be more strict on the government, e.g. providing more freedoms to the people.

States have, historically, been granted the right to regulate the concealing of a firearm and most states have statutes in place for a citizen to obtain a permit that allows them to carry concealed. In the state of Delaware, this process costs around $400 and violates your privacy by requiring the following:

1. You must publish your full name and home address in the news paper with your intent to apply for a permit. Not the best thing to do for the victim of abuse who is attempting not to be found by their abuser.
2. You must have five people fill out questionnaires, asking questions about why you intend to file. Isn't the point of concealing a sidearm to not let people know you're carrying?
   
3. You must be fingerprinted and have a criminal investigation performed by the state police and the Delaware Department of Justice. This is in addition to the state and federal background check you're submitted to when you purchase your firearm.
   

Outside of carrying for self-defense, the primary reason for most anyone who carries, open carry is, mostly, a political statement or symbolic form of speech. I openly carry my sidearm to demonstrate that I am a free individual in my state and country and encourage others to ask about my point of view, whether they be for, against or ambivalent, much as the religious witness the masses or the protesters speak against a wrong.

If I wanted to simply 'exercise a right', I'd conceal; however, I'm out to educate people and desensitize the public to the stigma that 'Guns are bad'. The more the general public's only exposure to firearms is the mass media, the more our overall right to keep and bear arms is put in jeopardy.

We don't force the point. We don't think everyone should open carry. It's a personal choice. As much as we respect your right to only conceal or not carry, we ask that you respect our decision to carry openly. In addition, if you're curious about why or, better yet, how YOU can start carrying -- whether you're looking to conceal or open carry -- feel free to ask.

In the now-immortal words of former Delaware Attorney General Charles M. Oberly, III, "Under current Delaware law, virtually anyone, excepting felons, may strap on a holster and carry a gun in plain view." As long as folks understand that, in exercising your right to self-defense, there also comes a huge responsibility of knowing and respecting Delaware law, I believe our state can become a safer, more civilized place.

Delaware: Even in Death, A Nanny State

Ripped from today's headlines: "On Wednesday, Rep. Peter C. Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth Beach, introduced legislation to automatically make people donors unless they opt out." "As long as people have the ability to opt out of the organ donation program, it's OK to make the change, said Arthur Caplan, chairman of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania." "If the only people bothered by the registration turn out to be from a small religious sect or from some libertarian [mind-set], I'm not sure that justifies keeping the burden the way it is now," he said. "The burden is unfairly distributed right now."

Well, color me one of those "libertarian" mind-sets -- how is the burden unfairly distributed? The government currently asks me permission to dismember and use parts of my body once I'm dead... That certainly sounds like a fair distribution of burden there to me. Instead, he'd rather have the government assumed permission to rip someone apart without their consent, unless they specifically are informed and make the time to go and opt out.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm one of the 90% of Delawareans that believe organ donation is a good thing and I even have the heart on my license indicating my donor status; however, this follows too closely in the wake of the UK's similarly proposed program that gives me reason to pause in caution.

Since England is one of the worst offenders of legislating life in the known world, it should, hopefully, give ANYONE pause to see that Delaware is following suit.

As for alternative options, I can think of several... Create a policy, law or ordinance where:

1. Each time you renew your license, the DMV agent MUST ask you if you'd like to opt in.
2. Each time you go through inspection, the DMV agent MUST ask you if you'd like to join in.
3. Each time you register to vote or change your party affiliation, the DMV agent MUST ask you if you'd like to opt in.
4. Each time your registration expires and you need to renew it, the DMV agent MUST ask you if you'd like to opt in.

Do you see the commonality in all of these? The burden remains where it should remain: on the state to BE GRANTED PERMISSION to use my body, instead of assuming that right.

"Under a 2001 state law that upholds the decision of Delaware residents who make a documented gift of donation, the family of a designated donor cannot revoke the donor's consent after death."

I could see this law seriously being challenged if we did see a shift of assumed consent to the state, and rightly so. Perhaps a newly immigrated member of a 'small religious sect' that Caplan seems to unconcerned with is unaware and, upon death, the hospital tells the family they'll be harvesting their dearly departed's organs with no form of recourse. I can only imagine the devastation.

Delaware, even in death, has the legislative mindset of a nanny state.

What's to Hide?

"Senate Republicans hope to win passage of several open-government measures, including legislation to subject the General Assembly to the Freedom of Information Act and a package of bills designed to open government finances to more public scrutiny."

"Adams, who has blocked such moves in the past, said he could not predict how this year's battle will turn out. He already has salted away in his Executive Committee desk drawer a bill to subject the General Assembly to FOIA -- Senate Bill 4 -- sponsored last year by Sen. Karen Peterson, D-Stanton."

"Adams said the desk-drawer veto is appreciated by members on both sides of the aisle -- particularly when the House passes a bill that senators would rather not have to vote on."

So, if you've never heard of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), essentially, you can write a letter to a government body requesting all documents, records, recordings, video, audio, emails, voicemails -- you get the idea -- regarding a particular topic or incident. These are quite popular with the police for people getting the dashcam video of a police stop and, by law, they must provide you with the requested documents.

The Delaware General Assembly is attempting to claim that it is not a public body and, thus, not subject to the scrutiny of the people that voted them into public office... is anyone else seeing a contradiction there?

The fact that he ADMITS using it as a way to get out of doing work, is all the more reason this antiquated politician with antiquated ideas needs to be voted out of office. Open government invites accountability, as the constituency will actually be able to 'check up' on their elected officials... Mr. Adams certainly can't have that now, can he?

Do your job. Vote the bills. Be the voice of your constituency. If you vote with our voice, you'll be re-elected. If you attempt to skirt around having to do your job, we'll do our damnedest to find someone who'd like to take your place.

Changing Laws

I can say that I've made my mark on Delaware law when it comes to maintaining the right to keep and bear arms.

To preface the folks who aren't aware of the current state of gun control, many years ago, the federal government passed a law that basically prevented the passing of legislation that regulates the carrying of firearms. Most states have adopted this at the state, county and local municipality levels so, in essence, anything enacted after July 4th, 1985 is repealed, while everything before is grandfathered in.

While Delaware does have this preemption and cannot regulate the carrying of a firearm, the regulation of the discharge of the weapon is permissible and usually carries a fairly substantial fine unless the discharge of the weapon was, of course, in the process of defending yourself.

As I was doing some general research on our state laws and local ordinances, I came across New Castle County Ordinance Sec. 24.01.014 (in Chapter 24) -- outside of a city's local ordinances, parks are generally the other place in law to check for firearms ordinances. In any case, the title of the ordinance is "Possession of certain knives; discharge of weapons." It looked normal and, as I began to scan over, I wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary...

"No person shall carry a knife upon his or her person having a blade three (3) inches or longer in length or have possession of or discharge a BB gun, air rifle, pistol, firearm, paint ball gun, bow and arrow or any other type of lethal weapon in any park. (Ord. No. 98-050, § 1(24-14), 5-26-1998)"

I reread it again and couldn't believe my eyes -- it appeared to have been passed in 1998 and it had a provision for regulating the possession of firearms. I drafted up a quick email to the Delaware Attorney General's office asking them about it, thinking that they'd respond... Technically, if I was correct, anyone who was convicted on this charge could potentially appeal the decision because, according to preemption (as I read it), if the law is passed and controls the possession or carrying of a gun, it's immediately repealed. Their response:

Your e-mail communication to the Attorney General dated December 6, 2007 was forwarded to me for response on his behalf.

As you are requesting an interpretation of a county ordinance and how it may impact on the future conduct of an individual, those in our Department are prohibited from providing advice, an opinion or such interpretation. We may only do so in the course of an active case and then only on behalf of the State as the prosecuting agency.

If you feel that a given municipal or county ordinance suffers from a deficiency or ambiguity, that is a matter that must be addressed by the County Council as the legislative body that enacts and amends the county code.

Thank you for giving the Department an opportunity to address your request.

I expected as much from them, as I'd written them in the past with a similar response. So, I looked up my County Councilman and basically sent him the same thing I'd sent the AG's Office. His name is David Tackett and, despite being a democrat being handed a gun issue, the response I got from him was promising to say the least.

Dear Rob,

Thank you for reaching out to me and bringing this to my attention. Give me a little while to work on this issue and get back to you. You are correct if in deed it is in conflict I will fix this and if it is not I will explain why?

Thanks again and give me a few days to have my attorneys review this and I will get back soon,

Thanks again,
Dave

I also discovered during this period that he's "The Honorable David L. Tackett" which was also promising as we all expect judges to be impartial and interpret the law with an even hand. My hopes were dashed a little as a few days stretched on to a week and, by that time, I was on vacation for two more weeks and hadn't heard anything from my Councilman.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt -- it was close to the Christmas and New Years season and, as a government employee myself, I know how much I value my time off, so I dropped him a quick email asking if he had a chance to pass the information on to his attorneys. I received a very prompt response:

Dear Rob,

Thanks for reaching back out to me. To update you, Yes I had the subject matter has been reviewed by our attorney and was determined there was an error that needed to be corrected on our park and the legislation will be drawn up to read that guns can be brought into a county park legally, they will just not be allowed to be discharged in the park. Except for say self defense.

Thanks again for bringing this to my attention and I will have this introduced at the [January] 22nd council meeting and hopefully voted on the first meeting in Feb.

Thank you for all the research you had done also.

Thanks again,

Dave

This about floored me -- I couldn't express how pleased I was. Bear in mind that, though I had a passive interest in listening to politics and have only voted in the last two elections, until I purchased my first firearm and found an outlet for my old, high school love of history in the form of the Constitution and law, I had never been an active participant.

It's hard to express knowing that, as a father, I made a difference that will allow me to lawfully carry my sidearm into the parks we often visit and have the ability to protect my children should the need arise.

There are a few hurdles left for Delaware in terms of making us a Gold Star State...

1. Pass legislation that changes us from a MAY ISSUE state to a SHALL ISSUE state. As it stands, the process is cost prohibitive enough to ward away the average Joe from obtaining a permit.
2. Place a time limit on the state for processing permit applications.
3. Amend the grandfathered ordinance in Dover that regulates the carrying of firearms in that city to, instead, regulate concealed carry and the discharge of weapons to bring it in line with every other municipality in Delaware.

I don't know how realistic these goals are, but hopefully we'll have a chance to find out in my lifetime.

It Really Is A Happy New Year....

When you have the option to conceal your weapon and be prepared in the event your life is in danger.

I'm proud to say that, after a process that technically started on August 19th, I received my Delaware Carry Concealed Deadly Weapon permit today, December 31st.

Four and one-half months it took to complete this process, two and two-thirds of that waiting on the state to process my application and do all of the background checks and make sure everything was copasetic.

As I've mentioned before, now that I have my in-state permit, I'll have my Pennsylvania non-resident permit within a couple of weeks instead of a quarter of a year... and for a fraction of the price.

In case you've never seen one, this is basically what they look like -- I've removed and altered several things so as to protect it from being reproduced.

This is the front... if I seem to bear a striking resemblance to Russell Crowe, that's because I also felt it necessary to photoshop his somewhat homelier face over my devilishly handsome visage as to cut down on the number of Internet stalkers. *coughcough*

I do want to point out that this is a license to carry a concealed deadly weapon and not necessarily a concealed handgun permit. So, technically, this would apply to blades, chains, knuckles and so forth. I, personally, don't get that, but then again, I've never been in a fist fight in my life and wouldn't know how to hold my own -- a reason for obtaining this permit, so I have the best method possible to protect my children and family.

If you're a Delaware resident and have wondered about obtaining your permit, please, feel free to ask me any questions. If you've ever been concerned about your safety, I ask that you consider taking a training course and, perhaps, even purchasing a pistol... women in particular.

I can't validate this statistic; however, as a woman, you have a 50% chance of being assaulted in your lifetime. A 130 pound woman against a 225 pound assailant is simply not a fair fight.

Delaware CCDW Process Podcast

So, on of the Christmas gifts I bought for myself was an iPod Touch which is, technically, an iPhone without the phone, nor the camera -- a glorified PDA with built-in wifi. Now, having bought it more for being a techno-geek myself, I don't actually own a whole lot of music. The music I do own is generally Irish and celtic rock in theme.

So, I loaded up iTunes and went over to the podcasts section to see what was available -- I had 8 gigs to load and not many CD's to burn... I began to subscribe to a lot of things that interest me. I got the DCI Field Pass and, with my current interest in law, the Litigation Podcast. Of course, I had to get the podcasts regarding Second Amendment activism and found one called the Gun Rights Activist Podcast done by the guys over at Gun Rights.

In listening to the latest podcast, the host, Mark Vanderberg, solicited podcasts from listeners to explain the process for getting a concealed handgun permit in their state. Having done sound production in the past, I had all of the software and a nice condenser microphone already setup on my PC, so I opened up a new file and began to record.

The result was a 17-minute monologue discussing some of Delaware's laws, the process by which you make application for a Carry Concealed Deadly Weapon permit here, as well as my experiences with the process.

You can get the podcast HERE.

My segment starts about twenty minutes in, after which an interview with John Pierce over at OpenCarry.Org -- forums I frequent -- can be heard.

Enjoy.

Merry Christmas to All

Happy Hanuka.
Happy Kwanza.
Happy Festivus.

Here's hoping your holidays have been safe and enjoyable!

So, I know that Santa was good to me and I received almost everything I'd ask for -- some of these books included:

• Making Sense of Search & Seizure Law
• Origin of the Second Amendment
• Black's Law Dictionary
• Pirates and Patriots, Tales of the Delaware Coast

My family truly thinks I'm looking to make a career leap from web developer to lawyer; however, I'm already too much in debt to attempt to earn a degree from a proper law school -- in the meantime, I'll continue to work on a degree in Criminal Justice for fun.

The last book, Pirates and Patriots, Tales of the Delaware Coast... Written by a Southern Delaware columnist who authors a regular column called 'Delaware Diaries' I was drawn to this book as it mentions my great ancestor -- the first of my line to come to the new world in the early 1600's who is recognized as 'The first settler of Sussex County'...

I also got that boat motor (hand blender) that I've been wanting for some time, though my thought it odd that I wanted the kitchen appliance and my wife the belt sander for her hobbies; it's usually the other way around.

So, my two girls are on a short break before the new year, so I'll be hard at work watching them... it's good to have some down time to spend with my daughters. I honestly hope you all have the same opportunity.