The Alexandria police department has its officers going business to business, providing a flyer with **misinformation** on Virginia’s gun laws, targeting mostly open carry.

Unfortunately for the police, a VCDL member was present when they came into a restaurant this morning, handed a flyer to the owner, and chatted with the owner for a few minutes.

Afterward, the restaurant owner showed the VCDL member the flyer and said that the police told him that he didn’t have to allow open carry and if he saw somebody doing so, he could call the police!  

While true - a business owner can call the police to enforce a trespass charge - it is certainly out of the ordinary for the police come into a business out of the blue and encourage a business owner to infringe on his customer's civil liberties.

The flyer particularly endangers 18 to 20 year olds as it incorrectly tells a store owner that if they see someone under 21-years-old with a handgun on their hip, that is illegal!   That is NOT true and having the police show up on a bogus “man with a gun” call endangers everyone unnecessarily.

The flyer also makes these other FALSE claims about the law, which again could lead to unnecessary man-with-a-gun calls to the police:

* Open carry is not legal in churches

* Open carry is not legal in government buildings (we’ll show that’s not true when we flood their city hall on Saturday, December 13th - see below).

The flyer makes a point of saying that sometimes gun owners hold “demonstrations or events” to raise awareness of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms and those events “may cause alarm” and to call the police if the store owner sees “anything suspicious or of concern."

Aside from the blatant falsehoods, the flyer appears designed to demonize lawful open carry and to confuse and scare the business into calling the police to confront law-abiding gun owners.  It does this by citing laws regarding reckless gun handling to paint a frightening image of gun owners brandishing and shooting up his establishment!

The police, of all people, should NOT mislead the public or actively seek to create a chilling effect on the exercise of civil liberties.

--

You can see a copy of the offending flyer by clicking here:

https://vcdl.org/sites/default/files/Alexandria_Flyer.jpg


ACTION ITEMS

1.  So openly carried guns aren’t allowed in government buildings? Let’s flood City Hall with gun owners wearing “Guns Save Lives” stickers on Saturday, December 13th from 9:30 AM to 10 AM during the public comment period.  I will certainly be open carrying to make the point that it is NOT illegal and hopefully educate the police at the same time.  I will also address City Council about the egregiousness of the police targeting law-abiding gun owners exercising their right to openly carry handguns.

Address:

City Hall
Council Chamber
301 King Street
Alexandria, VA 22314

A big turnout would send a strong message that Virginia gun owners do not appreciate being discriminated against or having the police disseminating blatantly false, misleading, and inflammatory information to the public on gun laws.

2.  Let’s also flood City Council with webmail.  Click here:

http://request.alexandriava.gov/CCC/#tab=Departments&group=MayorandCityCouncil&service=CNC_GROUP

or

http://tinyurl.com/lglaus8

Suggested comment:

The Alexandria police are providing false, misleading, and inflammatory flyers to businesses about gun owners openly carrying handguns.  It is not the role of the police to foment public bias against gun owners.  Direct the police department to stop handing out the offending flyers and spend their time looking for criminals instead of encouraging unnecessary confrontations with law-abiding citizens who are doing nothing more than exercising an important civil right.

Quoted:
Jeez can't we just gift DC the whole city and toss in Arlington Co. too?

BTW....Are we to bring a weapon or a gun to OC?

Quoted:
Jeez can't we just gift DC the whole city and toss in Arlington Co. too?

BTW....Are we to bring a weapon or a gun to OC?

Quoted:
No reason not to OC... perfectly legal!

Quoted:
CUT OFF THE CANCER

Quoted:

But they should hand them out to all those business who received the previous incorrect flyers previously.

***************************************************
1. Alexandria PD has just removed the "no weapons" sign from the door of their building!
***************************************************

I have just received notice from a member that the Alexandria police department has just removed the illegal "no weapons" sticker from the doors on their building!

No sooner did I write the above sentence, then my cell phone range and it was the Alexandria Chief of Police, Earl L. Cook.

We had a pleasant conversation about the recent issues with Alexandria.  He was polite and professional and emphasized to me that his department is in no way unsupportive of the gun rights of citizens.  He said he ordered the "no weapons" sign taken down.  Citizens can carry in all the public areas in the station, including areas for documents, fingerprinting, etc.  Metal detectors remain for those who are going into the secure area of the building, where all doors are locked and visitors need to be escorted.

The Chief also said that his officers were sent to the same locations they visited with the original flyer to present the new flyer instead.  He acknowledged that there is no way to guarantee that the new flyers made it into all the same hands that the old flyer went into.

Finally the Chief assured me that 911 operators would also be trained on handling calls on someone open carrying.

The Chief and I agreed to keep an open line of communication directly to each other.

The issue of the "no weapons" sign on the door is now closed as far as VCDL is concerned.

We STILL have issues to bring up tomorrow morning at the Alexandria City Council hearing:

1.  I need to inform City Council that damage was unfortunately done by misinforming the public on Virginia gun laws by officers in full uniform.  That misinformation could lead to unnecessary and dangerous confrontations between police and lawfully-armed-citizens.  I will add that Chief Cook had his officers trying to go back to where the old flyers were handed out and provide the new replacement.  I will also say that the Chief said he is making sure his officers and 911 operators are up to speed on open carry.

2.  Any such flyer should have been thoroughly vetted before it was released, a vetting that was only applied to the new flyer.  Again, to his credit, the Chief said he has learned his lesson on that issue and it won't happen again.

3.  George McAndrews, who works for the City Attorney's office, told VCDL EM Ed Levine that the City would NOT be removing the "no weapons" sign on the police department's doors.  Those signs WERE removed, but who is Mr. McAndrews to be speaking on behalf of the City making such a definitive statement?  He said, "We are not going to allow guns into our police department.  We just are not."  Audio of the conversation is here and is one of the reasons that VCDL was originally gearing up for a lawsuit:

From soundcloud.com:  http://tinyurl.com/pdqaj45

4.  VCDL will also provide 500 VCDL Carry Cards, which summarize Virginia carry laws, for the Alexandria police officers free of charge.  The Chief agreed that the cards would be useful to his officers.

VCDL, the Alexandria PD did fix the flyer and put out a contrite statement about it.  The PD made mistakes, but have reached out to VCDL and gun owners.  We appreciate Chief Cook's honesty and professionalism in dealing with the issues. After Saturday's City Council meeting we will move on and hopefully have a good working relationship with Alexandria, just as we currently enjoy with other localities.

Quoted:
http://thebullelephant.com/the-power-of-a-single-issue-grassroots-group-vcdl/

Quoted:
Very happy to hear Chief Cooks professional response.  I live a couple blocks from City Hall and while I was there (guy in the Bodos Bagels shirt) I was unable to OC due to being in my jogging gear.  Hope the the OC folks enjoy the goodies I saw them buying at the farmers market.

I was the recipient of a "man with a gun call" over the summer in Old Town.  Was in the office parking garage on a weekend selling my AR15 and Alexandria PD pulls up.  Officer drives up to us but doesn't get out of the car.  He looks at the two of us, looks at the AR15, then says "cool how much you selling it for".

Quoted:
Very happy to hear Chief Cooks professional response.

<snip>

Officer drives up to us but doesn't get out of the car.  He looks at the two of us, looks at the AR15, then says "cool how much you selling it for".