Sheriff illegally takes away a Glock 26 from a Soccer Mom!

[Playboypenguin]

After reading both the article and the interview, I must say I am a fan of Mrs Hain's.

Really? I found her answers to show a complete lack of forethought. I also thought her answers continuously showed an attitude that lacked any degree of personal responsibility. She pretty much just said "I did because I can" and when asked if she gave any forethought to her actions and possible alternatives or compromises she pretty much ignored the question and threw the blame on others.

[Shorts]

What I find disappointing is the members here willing to personally criticize and name call Melanie Hain. That shows areal lack of class. Poor showing friends.

Disagreeing is just fine. We don't all agree on all accounts of anything. But the manner in which you disagree matters. Not only are your TFL peers watching, but so is everyone else on the internet.


There are plenty more articles and interviews with Melanie Hain (google). She has sat in the fire for this one and came out well.

http://www.lildobe.net/gallery2/v/PA...Doyle.flv.html

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news...community.html



Hain is not the first or the last to have to fight for rights in PA.

[Bud Helms]

PBP,

I personally would have concealed, but then I always do.

The situation here starts off with an attitude different from mine. And the law, if not the lawman, is on her side. The option she exercised was available to her. Just because I would not have done it, doesn't mean she was wrong.

And ... after revisiting this thread and reading it several times I have decided that, in my view, she's not the antogonist here. Not to mention ... I personally detest the "herd" mentality exhibited by these complaining soccer parents. A somebody-please-remove-the-cause-of-my-fears mentality. Very European.

[Playboypenguin]

I personally detest the "herd" mentality exhibited by these complaining soccer parents. A somebody-please-remove-the-cause-of-my-fears mentality.

That part we can agree upon.

The situation here starts off with an attitude different from mine. And the law, if not the lawman, is on her side. The option she exercised was available to her. Just because I would not have done it, doesn't mean she was wrong.

Like I stated earlier, I would not open carry either. I can however get behind someone that does...as long as I feel they are doing so responsibly and not in a way that damages gun owners as a whole.

In this case, i do not agree with the sheep that had issue with her actions, but I also do not support her due to the lack of purpose and reason in her approach.

[B.N.Real]

Frankly,I think she should be able to carry a handgun everywhere her children are and everywhere she needs to go.

Her safety is her respondsibility and she is taking that respondsibility forthright.

As a matter of fact,I would feel better about at least one parent that was trained in the safe use of firearms being at that sporting event just in case something off the wall happens.

The police cannot be everywhere and protect everyone.

This sheriff also does not speak for every one in the country and I suspect in more rural parts of the country,their may have never been a problem.

I find it amazing that handguns owners would say you should hide your right to carry if you feel you should'nt.

If she was carrying a AR-15 to the soccer game,yea,I would say that's in your face.

But it was a Glock handgun,holstered,safely put away where she could get to it if ANYTHING unsafe happened at that game.

As far as the lawsuit goes,she is undoubtedly aware that she will likely never get a million dollars or even close but to engage any lawyers in her case without paying them,she has to agree to ridiculous amounts before the lawyers will even get involved.

This has been and likely will continue to be a battle for her.

The lawsuit is there as a reminder that those that work for the counties and states and the government must answer for what they do to the general public.

The public trust in any one police person is that they will never let their opinions enter into what they do in their jobs.

That is a very tall order indeed but the VAST majority of police officers do this,with great personal self control everyday.

The irony here is that if Mrs.Hain worked for a private security firm or the police or the government,nobody would have complained at all.

And that is very,very scary indeed.

Why?

Because it indicates that some American's have already accepted that they cannot be trusted to have firearms and that only operatives of the government should have them.


And that is exactly what the Constitution was written to prevent.

[Dangerwing]

I apologize in advance because this post may offend some people.

I am sick and tired of everyone ranting and raving about whether or not OC is "in your face" or "to make a statement" or "in bad taste" etc etc. IT DOESN'T MATER!! Why do some people have a thousand tattoos? Why do some people have multiple piercings? Why do some people have "Darwin" bumper-stickers? Why do others have "Darwin was a moron" bumper-stickers? IT DOESN'T MATER. The fact is, if a person wants tattoos, they can have tattoos. If they want piercings, they can have piercings. You can put whatever bumper stickers you want on your car and no one can do a damn thing about it. Maybe any one of us would choose to CC rather than OC, but how Ms. Hain chooses to carry, and why she chooses to carry that way is HER business, not ours. Anyone that tries to judge her, or her actions, beyond the "legal vs not legal" aspect should go sign up for the Brady Campaign because thats what theyre all about!

[Playboypenguin]

I am sick and tired of everyone ranting and raving about whether or not OC is "in your face" or "to make a statement" or "in bad taste" etc etc. IT DOESN'T MATER!!

It doesn't "mater?" What do tomatoes have to do with anything?

But seriously, when someone exercises or abuses a right without forethought in a way that hurts the entire gun owning community it does matter.

I would feel better about at least one parent that was trained in the safe use of firearms being at that sporting event just in case something off the wall happens.

Do we actually know that she is well trained? I am not familiar with the requirements of obtaining a permit in her area. I do know that in most areas it is sorely short on actually training requirements.

I find it amazing that handguns owners would say you should hide your right to carry if you feel you should'nt.

I do not think anyone is saying that. What we are saying is she should not have marched into a situation such as a soccer game without forethought as to the consequences of her actions. She also should have taken into consideration the affects of her actions on the other parents and tried to reach a reasonable compromise. Carrying during your daily activities and how you do it is your business. At an organized event on public or private lands is another matter and you can be ejected. When you go there you are part of a community and have a responsibility to either take the feelings of others into consideration or have a good reason for taking a stand.

[SigfanTN]

I do not carry openly even though my state allows it. I carry concealed because that is what I am comfortable with.

I have to side with those that believe this woman has a right to open carry and should not have had her permit revoked based on this incident. I admire her refusal to back down on this issue and fight the illegal actions taken by the Sheriff.


"...the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
The statement that OC makes is THIS IS OUR RIGHT. It is "in your face" because most anti's don't get this, but force them to see a gun on someone's hip everywhere they go? I hope that eventually that level of exposure would desensitize them, especially if incidents like this one result in the legal gun owner being exonerated.

Put it a different way, open carry as a statement is like our "coming out". "We're here, we're armed, get over it". One day it would be nice if OC were accepted widely and the ignorant folks fearful of guns would be the minority. I hope I live to see that happen, but with the responses I've seen here among "gun people" I'm not holding my breath. Frankly, some of the comments and attitudes in this thread scare me.

[Bud Helms]

Dangerwing, don't let those panties get wadded up now. I said, recently in this thread, "... the law, if not the lawman, is on her side. The option she exercised was available to her. Just because I would not have done it, doesn't mean she was wrong."

I think that is the same thing you are saying. So you could have just as easily said, "Bud, you're a genius." I would have protested weakly but ended up agreeing that you do have a point there.

[Shorts]

Folks, watch this video here and stop speculating about what you think you know about Hain. It will answer a few questions, not all, but a few that have been posted here.

http://www.lildobe.net/gallery2/v/PA...Doyle.flv.html


Does ANYONE care to see pdfs of the legal documents so that you may all understand better? Is anyone going to answer or do you all care to continue to speculate!? I'm just looking for one person to answer. So far, no one has.


I'm not sorry to keep harping on this. I looks like folks are content to jaw flap rather than move on with facts at hand. Is it the concept that this thread is about or is it truly about discussing the real information?

It isn't about OC vs CC. We've established that each of us would have handled that intial thing differently. Even my husband and I don't see eye to eye on it. But is the rest of the case after the soccer game important? I think so. Anyone?

[zxcvbob]

Do I have to watch the whole thing? (it's been running for half an hour; doesn't say how many minutes it is total)

So far, she's doing fine. Even though the panel of experts is making up statistics, etc.

[Playboypenguin]

I do not think she came across very well at all. She was not well spoken and often stumbled. Could have just been nerves.

I was particularly unnerved by her response to the question of whether she was well trained. She avoided the question by saying "by who's definition" and then said since her husband is in law enforcement and she has been shown what to do by him that she is well trained. I would hope a mother of two children would go to a lot greater extent than that regarding proper gun safety training. Her continued argument that she does not have to know how to use the gun was disheartening.

I think her desire to open carry is a poor decision on her part. partly because she would be an easy target to a criminal and she is giving away her best defense by letting her gun be visible. Besides that, she was asked to not attend while carrying openly and chose to still carry openly with no good reason beyond wanting to carry openly.

I also took particular offense at the oppositions argument that she should not have a gun because that gives her an advantage in any confrontation or discussion. Talk about lowest common denominator thinking. Instead of everyone rising to an equal level he is suggesting it is the responsibility of the prepared to reduce their status to the lowest among them.

[Playboypenguin]

A little change of direction here, I wonder if people would be questioning her judgement and competence as much if she was a man with a gun at his kid's soccer game. Would people find a "father" with a gun as great a risk as a "mother" with a gun?

[Pappy John]

Does ANYONE care to see pdfs of the legal documents so that you may all understand better?

Probably wouldn't do me any good without my lawyer handy to decypher all the legalese gibberish they'd be full of. No doubt 25 single spaced pages just in the associated title pages.

It isn't about OC vs CC.

It absolutely is.

A simple IWB holster or a looser top over her existing holster, and this whole situation would never have occurred. Melanie and her family would have still been protected, no one else would have known, she wouldn't have become a headline topic, and we wouldn't have wasted all this bandwidth.

[Shorts]

I think people would have questioned her judgment anywhere she carried OC. Look at how people responded to her here, and these are gun owners! People at any location might and will be offended just the same as they were at the park. If it wasn't the parents at the soccer game, it would be patrons at a restaurant. It would be someone at a book store. It would be another person any other place a gun is carried and seen.

The arguments by the general public are not the same arguments against Hain by gun owners. The general public asks "Do you need a gun?". Gun owners ask "Do you need to be wearing it OC?". These are two very different questions. Yet the specific issue was all lumped into one convenient package of "gun vs no gun". The Lynn Doyle interview was a glaring example of that, with Miller from CeaseFire and the Detective quick to dismiss any civilian with a gun and especially Hain. Miller was a real piece of work. The way he treated that lady caller who described her experience at a rest stop. He was antigun all the way. Why did the interview discussion need an antigun side if it was an OC vs CC matter?


For the antis in this case its "Do you need a gun at a kids soccer game?" But it goes to, "Do you really need a gun at the mall?" <- Heard that over the Christmas holidays news reports. Or "Do you really need at gun at church?" How about "Do you really need a gun on college campuses?".

"Why do you need a gun at all. That's what cops are for"




I think gun owners need to realize that the general public doesn't give two bits whether the gun is OC or CC, just that there is a gun present.


Since people are still shy and can't ask for facts of the case....here ya go. I can't take the 'but's ansd 'ifs' anymore about what really happened when I've already read the documents and see from the other side.

Transcript from Appeal from Permit Revocation Hearing:
http://furryzone.com/user/insane_kan...of_License.pdf

Complaint:
http://furryzone.com/user/insane_kan.../complaint.pdf

[Bud Helms]

A side comment: it's not that people are still shy. It is that they have become shy. America didn't use to be this way, to this extent.

[Musketeer]

A side comment: it's not that people are still shy. It is that they have become shy. America didn't use to be this way, to this extent.

Exactly when was open carry of a handgun a common sight at a kids sporting event? I agree, society has become far more "gun shy" in the last several decades but there was no time in the 20th century where it was normal for someone to have an exposed handgun on their side while the kids played baseball. Likewise people did not generally wander the streets of cities with guns worn openly for well over 100 years.

We need to understand that while people are very touchy about the subject of their fellow citizens carrying guns it has been a LONGGGG time since they were not.

Remember, the OK Corral shootout started over a carry violation.

[SigfanTN]

Shorts, thank you for posting those documents and the link to the video. It is very interesting to me.

I hope Melanie Hain prevails in her suit. It is not about the monetary damages, but rather that she is vindicated for the obvious violation of her rights that took place.

Every gun owner who has posted in this thread should be hoping this goes in her favor. Do we really want to give the other side more tools to use against us? I mean her license was revoked based simply on a complaint from an individual who couldn't cope with their emotional response to an openly displayed firearm. Granted, most of us would not have been in this situation since it seems the majority of posters in this thread prefer concealment, but this woman has the right to do what she did. She is not required to answer to or respond to someone's inability to cope with seeing a gun.

I don't like hearing the big boom coming from certain cars that drive by my neighborhood. I don't particularly care for sagging pants and oversized clothing worn by "urban" folks. I don't like it when people let their dog crap on my lawn. Does anyone feel like I should be able to complain to authorities about these things that I don't like and have law enforcement take action on them? None of these are illegal where I live, but at least two of them may not be the "right" thing to do. I have to deal with it as these individuals have not infringed on MY rights.

Mrs. Hain has articulated her reason for open carrying, and since she has that right it should have been end of story. As she said in the interview posted before, it really has more to do with the people who felt uncomfortable than it does with her. After reading the information and seeing the video, I do not think she is a moron at all. This is another battle for our rights, and I hope she prevails.

[Bud Helms]

I'm not going to get into that argument.

This: "I agree, society has become far more "gun shy" in the last several decades ", is what I meant.

[CPTMurdoc30]

She should recover monetary damages.

Why what money did she lose from her CCW being taken away. From what I remember there is a lot more to the story than she open carried at a soccer game and got it pulled.

I think the department should pay all legal fees but other than that she didn't lose any money. I still don't understand how that entitles her to millions of dollars.

[Playboypenguin]

I think the department should pay all legal fees but other than that she didn't lose any money. I still don't understand how that entitles her to millions of dollars.

The case is groundless. She has suffered no losses. She is just grabbing for tax payer cash.

[HappyGunner]

This is the main problem with open carry, just to many people with their own ideas about peoples rights to own and carry a handgun in public.

Myself I like people not knowing I am armed, but I stand behind this lady to carry her Glock without having the stupid Sheriff sticking his nose into where it does not belong.

[dipper]

I don't know what is so hard to understand.
As I said in post #50, IF THE WOMAN IN QUESTION WANTS HER DAY IN COURT, SHE HAS TO SHOW HOW SHE WAS INJURED---SHE HAS TO ASK FOR MONETARY DAMAGES--it's the way our law works---end of story.

Unless she just wants to shake hands with the Sheriff and forget about it, she has to proceed exactly the way she is----her asking for monetary damages, is no worse than the Sheriff and his buddies making a conscience decision to crap on her constitutional rights---they knew what they were doing and THEY threw down the gauntlet.
Kind of like a backdoor attempt to " govern from the bench."

If there are people here who are OK with what the sheriff did, fine it's your opinion.
There seems to be some here who can read between the lines and don't like what he did---I am one of the these.

There are MANY examples of OTHER legal activities that if the Sheriff stuck his nose in illegally, the ACLU and others would be screaming their heads
off.

Not for gun owners though.
Frankly, I am just amazed at some of the responses here on this board BY GUN OWNERS.
Like my Grandfather always said, " everybody has a line they don't want crossed---just hope that when it is YOUR line, there are people left to support YOU."

OH, if you think the woman in question WANTS monetary damages, if you think that is why she is doing this, you're a bigger "idiot" than she is!!

[divemedic]

I find it outrageous, some of the comments here. You all sound like Brady supporters. One poster even said that she might get mad and shoot at a referee for calling a foul on her kid. That sounds like a "blood in the streets" argument to me.

How do we defend our rights in this country? We need to lobby our legislators, and get the laws passed that we want. When that fails, we work within the legal system to overturn bad laws. In order to do that, a person needs standing to go to court. Unfortunately, the only way to have standing in this country is to be damaged in some way. That means being charged criminally, or being able to show financial loss.

It is people like Hain, Heller, and others who help support our rights- they are fighting for our rights and our freedoms. Hain broke no laws, and is taking on an obviously anti-gun sheriff to defend our rights. Is it in your face? Of course it is. Sometimes that is the only way to defend freedom. Before shall issue, I carried OC in Virginia for years, and was repeatedly harassed by LEOs for that. The people who did that are the one of the reasons you have a CCW now.

Where would we be if George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the other FF's had been worried about being too confrontational with the Brits?

Some of your comments make me think that you people here are sunshine patriots.



These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. Thomas Paine, 1776

Mrs Hain, you have my thanks, and my respect. Keep fighting the fight, keep the faith.

[WhiteH2OWoman]

I loved this lady's responses! She clearly knew her stuff, and handled herself VERY well. Well done--and I say that as a pro word-wrangler.