Is it legal for us to carry a small survival pack? If some hot head police officer think we carry a gun on to the train because our little pack look too millitaristic.

Why wouldn't it be?

-john

Why did I have a vision of Pink Floyd singing " are there any ETS forum members in the theater tonight, get them up against the wall?" when I read this post. An individual's demeaner and appearance will determine how authority reacts. If ' Bruno' the midlife crisis biker on a Harley with an american flag , POW/MIA tshirt and atitude gets into a intellectual debate with me in a Rover 2000 TC wearing a suit and tie who is going to get searched by L.A.s finest? Right, Bruno did, in spite of the fact there was a cased Colt New Service and 100 rounds of ammunition in my trunk. Bruno had a butterfly knife and went bye bye. If you ever do get searched, just say it's a disaster emergency kit. They aren't that uncommon really and most emergency personell, including law enforcemnt have their own variations.

Where are you?

I ask only because I question why you would even raise the question, speaking as a lawyer.

I can imagine that a scruffy looking fellow in public transit with an odly shaped pack might at the moment arouse scrutiny. And, as we say in my biz, you may beat the rap, but won't beat the ride -- as long as you have no individual component in your kit that is unlawful (please note that I did not say illegal -- the distinction is going to be the subject of a future post) you have nothing to worry about.

There are some legal concepts under which the accumulation of otherwise lawful items can be construed as the construction of an unlawful device, such as a fertilizer bomb. But, the intent behind all suck constructs lies in the context. You can carry 50# of amonium nitrate around with a gallon of diesel fuel if your have a farm and a diesal truck. If you live in an apartment of the upper east side in NY and are carrying same -- all bets are off.

I admit my first response was a little flippant (sorry Picard), but it always gets my goat when people are self conscious about things that there is nothing wrong with.

My point being, if you know there is nothing wrong with what you are doing, hold your head high and don't sulk around.

Obviously, unless you are carrying illegal items, there is nothing wrong with being prepared. People might find it odd, but it certainly isn't illegal.

However, I get the impression that legality isn't really your issue. I get the impression that what you are really trying to ask about is getting hassled.

In that regard, I think the advice already posted is good. Your look is importaint (if you look scruffy people will think differently about you than if you are clean cut and well dressed).

Also, attitude is importaint - a good attitude is going to draw less attention and make it less likely that people (including police) are going to pay much attention to you than if you look guilty/shifty. It is also importaint if you end up dealing with police. A good attitude is going to make the interaction go much better.

If you look scruffy and are difficult/look guilty (etc), it is obviously going to be a much different interaction than if you look reasonable and have a good attitude.

Certainly, you could consider that you want to be scruffy and surly(or whatever) because it is your right. But extra attention is part of the price you get to pay for that privilege. The good part is you get to decide.

Good luck!

-john

My experience with the police is that they will usually treat you as well as you let them.

If you're well-dressed, not acting 'suspicious,' and talk to them without putting on a wise-guy attitude, you'll probably slide past what might get somebody else a ride. Of course, the operative words here are 'usually' and 'probably.' They get up on the wrong side of the bed, too.

A cop friend of mine has a little test he gives people when he's talking to them: If they look up to the left before they answer him, he says they're looking for a lie. Much better to look him in the eye and give direct, brief answers. Oh yeah, and call him 'Officer.'

This thread reminds me of a difficulty I had recently with the TSA. I'll put it in it's own thread on the campfire side.

The easy answer is not to look militaristic at all!
My packs are civilian book, camping, climbing, hiking or school packs be it a fanny or backpack. For me it’s mostly an old Mountain Smith fanny pack that I have traveled the world with and never had any one look twice at. One of my bags got looked in once during a border crossing. The officer looked up and asked camping gear? You bet I love it, I told him with a smile.
But like others mentioned I am clean cut and dressed properly for the environment and make sure I do not attract attention to myself.

Is to hide it in plain sight. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

And don't walk around with one hand in your pack.

Sue

My problem is I do that often because I'm absentminded. I have to focus "off-scene," as it were, to collect my wits and answer questions. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

-- Craig

Exactly. If I'm attending an evening event in Center City, Philadelphia, I dress up for it. I may not wear a tie, but I will wear a sportcoat, decent shoes, etc. I try to "Dress For Success," as it were.

I could dress like a bum, but I'd increase my chances of being treated like a bum. I try to dress slightly better than most, carry myself in a classy way, and not act like an idiot.

On my side, I'm a tall, thin, geeky, nerd who's very nearsighted. I tip the scales at a whopping 130 pounds, so I don't look threatening. In fact, I've been told more than once I look like a somewhat undernourished FBI Agent. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I make no apologies for what I carry. If someone spots my eyegoggles or particulate mask and questions them, I'd reply I thought it would be prudent to carry them after the bombings in London.

I also carry Wave or SwissTool, a small Swiss Army MiniChamp, and a Blade-Tech Mouse Light. Nothing that should get anyone overly excited.

-- Craig

One other thought here. Since 911, Madrid, London, more police are patrolling with explosive-trained dogs. If you've worn your clothes to the firing range, or if you reload ammo, you will smell, to Rover, like eau de gunpowder, and he will find you intoxicating. His human partner will want to get to know you better.

You know this for sure or are you speculating? It would really stink if going to the range is going to make you a target.

-john

That's easy enough to handle. I would ask for a receipt at the range. Keep it on my person for a while. If questioned, I'd pull out the receipt and give the name of the range and perhaps who saw me there.

-- Craig

It's a phosphate compound, which is one of the things they are trained for.

I depends upon how the dogs are trained. If you reload and were the same clothes to the airport, you are more likely to draw a false positive on their swabs, which is a real pain. When you tell them, 'yes, I hae been handling smokless gunpowder', it just makes it worse. Most of the TSA folks are not real bright, and have NO imagination.

What is a phosphate compound? When I go to the range, I am shooting either smokeless powder (nitrogen based) or blackpowder (sulfer/pottasium based). If someone is using a phosphate based propellant, I have to think a lot of people downwind are going to be getting sick from the exhaust in short order.

I did get my vehicle searched once after I had hauled a bunch of spent brass cases back from the range loose in my trunk. I removed them all, but the residual powder and ash that was left in the trunk was enough the dog reacted to it and I had to wait while they parted out the back end. I told them what happened, but they still had to search, and in the end we were both glad that the dog did his job. It was a good test, albeit a little inconvenient.

That one made me blink, too. I googled it w/o hits.

I stand corrected. It's a nitrate, not a phosphate.

Actually, nitrate is a little short of the mark. Modern smokeless propellent is based on nitroglycerin and/or nitrocellulose predominantly. While it's true that the molecular constuction of both contain nitrate submolecules, the chain sequence of nitroglycerin, or tris-nitroxy-propane, bind up the nitrates in a much more unstable and irregular fashion than conventional nitrate molecule chains like that found in fertilizer, which require a solvent to liberate the nitrate molecules into an unstable configuration. That is why you don't mess with unbuffered nitroglycerin, and why they add buffers, stabilizers, etc to make smokeless propellent really safe to handle. When UV and heat decompose the additives, you have problems.

Nitroglycerin is the explosive component of dynamite, which is a common explosive agent that the dogs are trained to scent. That's why the dogs key on powder residue.

Even if you look scruffy (long hair, a couple days of beard, beat up jeans), body language is going to cover you most of the time. When it doesn't, and the cop asks you what you are carrying, tell him the truth.


If he chooses to arrest you after that, go along with the gag. Tell the judge the truth. Stress that it is a first aid and emergency kit. Or better, a handful of first aid and emergency items you carry with your daily stuff.

If that doesn't work... I doubt I could convice everyone here that breaking would be a good idea. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Depending on the sensitivity of the dog's nose, and the amount of time since you've gone to the range, and how many times your clothes have been washed... YES, we occasionally have one of the contractors get hung up in the explosives detectors at the gate at the Nuc plant... and a (trained) dogs nose is a lot more sensitive than the sniffers at the gate.

Supposedly which direction you look depends on which part of your brain you are using. If you are remembering stuff, you look in a different direction to if you are inventing stuff.

For naive use it is not very reliable. One reason is that inventing stuff doesn't necessarily mean you are lying. Brains are complicated. For example, if I ask you how many chairs in your kitchen, you might remember it directly as a number, or you might imagine a little picture of your kitchen and then count the number of chairs in it. The counting phase could involve a different part of your brain to the remembering phase.

Another reason is that you really need to "calibrate" it because we are not all the same. For example, a left-handed person won't necessarily look in the same directions as a right-handed person. And of course, if you know the trick you can be trained to fake it out.

That said, I'm told it is a technique used by professional interrogators, eg against captured spies in the military. And it may be the kind of thing which people use subconscously. Don't try to fool your mother. She will have the calibration down pat.

Let's get back to the original point here. What, exactly, are you carrying that would subject you to arrest? Most people on this forum carry a folder, fixed blade, or pocket tool. Other than that, there is very little in your pockets/pack that would get you in trouble (maybe some strange looks, but that's been covered in other threads).

Some states ban knives over 3 or 4 inches, switchblades, etc. The law is usually written with exceptions for use in a trade, while hunting, or for some legitimate purpose. The exceptions are usually loose enough (and a policeman's understanding vague enough) that how you interact with him can be just as important as what you have on you. Well, unless it's a big honkin' machete.

Some things are against the law because they're bad, and some things are against the law because they're against the law.

------------------------
Supposedly which direction you look depends on which part of your brain you are using. If you are remembering stuff, you look in a different direction to if you are inventing stuff.
________________

I'm not saying it's a good test, I'm saying he THINKS it's a good test.

I assume you haven't had a lot of experience with private security/high security personnel, common sense and "strictly legal" go out the window... you're guilty until proven innocent, and while it may not get you locked up in prison, it can be VERY frustrating, and possibly end up costing you LOTS of cash, in the form of missing/lost work. Long story short, when I'm working the Nuc.s, I stay away from the range and hunting. As far as EDC goes, I've never had a problem, but then again, I don't/haven't flown any where since 9/11, and don't plan to as long as I can avoid it. I refuse to pay to be hassled that much.

Troy

It is inadmissable, as it is unscientific. I'm cross-domanat *raises right hand, quirks left eyebrow*. When I'm bs-ing someone, I look them dead into the eye that is probably dominant, based on thier obsderved handedness, and let them wilt under my gaze.

Oh, wait, I do that most of the time.

If were you were looking during a first questioning was all the probable cause an officer could come up with for giong forward, and you didn't walk, your lawyer wasn't trying.

At worst, I think a cop might give you some grief about a large knife. Otherwise, if you act like a normal, decent human being, the most you'll get is an odd look. (Of course, there are always wannabes and personnel with chips on shoulders, but every profession has those.)

Re judges, a cop brings a case like this into a courtroom where a judge has a packed calendar, the man or woman in black may well get PO'd and bounce it most rapidly.

Re dogs ... they may be less than rare in large cities, but the cost of acquiring, training, housing, paying or rewarding comp-time to their handlers will mean they'll not likely become common in small-town American. A lof of small departments still can't afford (or won't spring for) narcotics-trained dogs, which are much more readily available.

Course, if the demand goes high enough for explosive-trained dogs, the market will supply them. It's no harder to train the right dog (nose, drive, intelligence, desire to please) for explosives than it is for drugs, termites, fire accelerants, whatever.

In short, i think with or without a dog, most cops have enough real things to worry about w/o hassling Joe Average who happens to carry some survival gear.

Don't come to the LaSalle county area if you don't expect to find K-9 units, almost every municipality has at least one, and for the few places that don't, their neighbors are only too happy to assist, they're primarily drug-dogs, but most; Ottawa, LaSalle, Utica, Peru, and (I think) Streator are all cross trained for explosives. About ten years ago, everybody started competing to have the fido with the most busts, and since 9/11, explosives have become a high priority second interest. I personally know some of the handlers/partners, and I wouldn't even think of trying to get something past their animals, like one of the guys is fond of saying "the nose knows". Maybe the generous amount of coverage in this area has something to do with the proximity to the Nuc plant, but I don't think so, because, as I said, most of them started out as dope sniffers.

Troy

i think the generous K-9 coverage is due to the proximity of I-80.

i'll shoot you a pm, wildcard ... i'm originally from Bureau County.

With the pictures of the london bombers getting on the subway having been released I'd expect that anyone wearing what looks like a heavily loaded bacpack and a shifty expression should expect to be hassled by the authorities for a while. If you carry something that looks like it could be dangerous (whether the pack or you or whatever) then don't expect much sympathy from the police or your fellow citizens when you get stopped and searched.