Double secret carry...

[Sevens]

Courthouses are dangerous places. If you are not a Lawman you don't get it.

Let's see if we CAN get it.

A law man should be armed, especially in a court house. The subject here in this conversation is a Judge.

I think it's safe to assume, perhaps we can agree that the Judge or "a Judge" is probably a good guy without a criminal history, would that be a fair assumption? It's obvious that the Judge controls the room (legally speaking) so for our purposes, it doesn't put the Judge at much legal risk if he elects to go armed, whether or not the law allows for this.

Would we not also be able to agree that each of the lawyers in the room, or all of the lawyers in the room are on a similar plane as the Judge with regards to their clean record, free of criminal history?

Should we not then agree that the lawyers should also go armed if they might choose to do so?

At some point perhaps we should discuss the training or learned ABILITY to be armed in a high stress situation. We should be able to agree that a law man should have the training, mindset and daily practice of navigating these situations, and we should be able to agree that a law man is well versed and well trained with the firearm.

Can we agree that "a Judge" or this particular Judge fits that same description in any way?

What do we know about the training and fighting ability of a Judge or this particular Judge?

As a law man or a former law man, are you carrying a .41 Rimfire Derringer and/or a handgun not attached in some manner of a holster to your person but rather sitting somewhere (hopefully) within arm's reach in an open, unsecured briefcase?

^^this is ludicrous and while it surely does not give us all the details on the hours of fighting and firearms training this Judge or a Judge may have, it paints the picture of a Fudd.

I'm genuinely curious if any random lawyer was given the courtesy of concealed carry by this Judge or a Judge in a court room filled with violent offenders.

 

[mckenney99]

Who can forget this knuclehead.

 

[Sgt. Buzzard]

The more you write the more you're proving just how little you know about the Criminal Justice System in general and the courtroom in particular.

 

[Sevens]

All good — I am here to learn.

Help.

 

[Hodado]

Who can forget this knuclehead.

I don't think a gun in this instance would have helped much bailiff was caught off guard

 

[REParker]

I have no problem with the Judge's position with respect to carrying in the courtroom. It's a volatile place rife with emotional possibilities. Better safe than sorry. For some, like a very good friend of mine, they obey the laws they feel have value, ignore the ones they feel are stupid, restrictive or of little or no value, and take their chances accordingly. For example, a sign on a restaurant door has no value at all. A sign on a Police Station door has great value and is understandable. You take your chances and accept the outcomes...pick your poison. YMMV.

 

[sniper]

Before I retired, one of my duties was to sit in during Civil trials. One trial, the defendants lost, and as I was leaving, our Attorney approached me, and said the other group (about a half-dozen people) were angry with him...would I walk him to his car. There were some hostile looks, but nothing further. We got to his car without incident, and he drove off, leaving me alone, with a 75 yard walk to my car.

 

[AEM]

Decades ago, in rural North Florida, a small town Sheriff and the courthouse beat reporter for the local paper went to lunch across the street from the courthouse. While they ate lunch, a deranged husband had snuck a gun into a hearing in his divorce case. During the hearing, the husband shot and wounded the wife and killed the judge. He chased his wife up the stairs and out onto the second story roof of the courthouse.

The Sheriff and reporter were walking across the square toward the courthouse when they saw the husband standing over his wife, getting ready to finish her off. The Sheriff made an excellent offhand shot at probably 50 yards and wounded the husband who fell to the roof. When the deputies and the Sheriff got up there, the wife and husband, both wounded, were lying near each other. They were arguing.

The reporter wrote up a great story about it. I wish I had kept it.

Early in my career as a trial lawyer, there was no entrance security. After a few bad incidents all the courthouses installed metal detectors and X-ray and had deputies stationed at the door. Security was tight in the cities but in the rural counties the human variable still operated. I walked into a tiny courthouse and set my bag on the conveyor and started emptying my pockets into a tray. The deputy waved me in. I asked "Do you want to scan my bag?" He looked confused and asked "You're a lawyer ain't you?" I said "Yup" and carried my bag on in. I guess a dark blue suit and tie were all the credentials needed.

 

[Dave Fox]

"Knucklehead" here. Courthouses, like hospitals, are their own unique worlds. No courthouse in my experience is remotely safe from a smuggled firearm. And courtrooms are where the local community's most violent, asocial people are brought together in one place, often in packets of profoundly hostile factions, cheek and jowl. Those contributors to this thread who are ouchy because they, as citizens, cannot carry firearms into this cockpit are simply otherworldly. Years ago in my semi-rural courtrooms folks often attended court for the entertainment. Not so much now. Citizens are there to face justice, engage in often acrimonious domestic hearings, or are witnesses or partisans of those who are. And the mix of people attending court in this shiny new century are markedly less given to adhering to erstwhile norms of self discipline. ONLY court personal have any business being armed in the zoo that is a trial court. Personally, after a stint pounding rice paddies and attending law school on the GI Bill, I started off as a prosecuting attorney in the wide open Fayetteville, N.C. of 1972. A lay judge...legal then...kept his highway patrol issue .357 on the bench. He showed me his piece when I complained of our bailiff. In those days, bailiffs tended to be retired officers of some sort, but utterly untrained. The jury box was filled several times a day with prisoners, charged with everything from felony murder to driving with no city tag. This bailiff, with an H&R .32 in a species of cowboy holster, was wont to park his rump on the low barrier in front of the jury box after lunch, fold his arms, and nap, his revolver w/in easy reach of the unshackled prisoners. That's when, as a court officer, I started to carry. People in black pajamas tried to kill me in 1968. Although bailiffs are ever so much more professional in recent decades, I, personally, was enthused about enhancing my fighting chance of not being helplessly shot by an angry litigant in 2008.