Bullshit Traffic Law Gets Connecticut Man Ticketed For Bullshit Gun Law
Tyrone Watson, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was pulled over by Norwalk police for driving with an "illegal" cover over his license plate. During the stop, the officer noticed a pistol permit in Watson's wallet and asked him if he had a gun with him. He said yes, and produced the perfectly legal pistol—except that it had an evil unregistered 15-round magazine (which would have been just fine if the paperwork had been filed before the turn of the year). That's how Tyrone Watson became one of the first people cited under his state's bizarre, new gun laws.
Under Connecticut law, "Nothing may be affixed to a motor vehicle or to the official number plates displayed on such vehicle that obscures or impairs the visibility of any information on such number plates."
That's a little open-ended, leaving drivers at risk if they so much as bolt their plates in place with one of those dealer-supplied frames that obscure a bit of the inspection sticker.
Also under Connecticut law, "Any person who possesses a large capacity magazine on or after January 1, 2014, that was obtained prior to the effective date of this section shall commit an infraction and be fined not more than ninety dollars for a first offense and shall be guilty of a class D felony for any subsequent offense," unless that magazine was registered prior to January 1 of this year—a bureaucratic ritual that apparently strips the object of bad juju.
But, according to the Daily Voice:
The handgun was loaded with 11 bullets, and had a magazine capable of handling 15 rounds, police said. Under the new laws passed by the state last April, it is illegal to buy, sell or manufacture magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds.
Weapons purchased before the law's passing are legally grandfathered in, but gun owners were required to register those magazines with the state by Jan. 1. The gun owner told Norwalk officers that he was unaware of the law or the deadline, according to the police report.
As a result, continues the report, Watson was "issued an infraction for possession of a large-capacity magazine and having a mutilated license plate."
The Hour, which claims Watson was actually pulled over for tailgating, says, "The officer wrote Watson a summons and gave him back his gun and the magazine, telling him to store the items in his trunk until he arrived at his home, according to police."
With regard to tailgating, by the way, Connecticut law says, "No driver of a motor vehicle shall follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent." Well, that certainly clears things up.
So here we have a Connecticut resident ensnared by one petty law that's completely open to interpretation by officials (illegal plate cover or tailgating—take your pick), which leaves him open to citation for violating another petty law, which is an entirely arbitrary paperwork requirement.
In this case, Tyrone Watson is on the hook for a relatively small penalty—but he's in the system now, and at risk of bigger hits in the future, despite having harmed nobody, in any way.
And so we find our world regulated just one step closer to perfection—for control freaks and lawyers.
Don't miss Brian Doherty's take on how enforcement of petty laws especially victimizes the poor, who are least able to navigate the legal system and shoulder even small penalties.
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Who carries with a magazine less than full? (excluding one in the chamber without topping off, of course).
Someone who buys into the notion of spring fatigue?
Fatigue only happens when the spring is exercised. Today’s spring alloys have little chance.of.taking.on a set. The springs that wear out.on my guns are the.magazine and recoil springs on my competition pistols. The carry mags.that get rotated infrequently don’t wear out.
I shoot probably 100-300 rounds a week in practice (used to do a lot.more) and still only.haveto change springs once.every couple.of.years, although.some years I do a beginnning-of-season tune up and replace springs anyway.
Most people don’t know enough physics to understand that compressed but unexercised strings don’t experience fatigue.
I shoot probably 100-300 rounds a week in practice
Sounds expensive.
I handload a lot so it isn’t as bad as it could be.
Fatigue only happens when the spring is exercised.
I know. That’s why I phrased my comment the way I did.
Got it.
What’s with all of the superfluous periods?
He’s got to be posting from a phone.
Typing on his phone. Sausage fingers.
I’ll have you know my fingers are very slender. But my phone forces typing with thunbs.
The first post I assumed they were there to indicate rage.
Rage only happens when posters are exercised.
Period right next to the space key on my phone.
I’m angered at these technological limitations. With Libertatecare, all of your gadgets will be perfect.
I wish I had thought to get an .Obamaphone with which to post here.
A society without phone welfare is no society at all.
How does a politician get to redefine a manufacturer’s terms? No law calling a Ferrari a pickup truck makes it into a pickup truck. It’s still a sports car.
1. Perhaps I already fired 4 rounds.
2. Perhaps I only had 11 rounds in the ammo box when I was loading the magazine. (Have you tried buying ammo lately?)
3. Perhaps I did not have the strength and determination to load the last 4 rounds because some magazines require superhuman effort to load the last few rounds.
4. Maybe, just maybe I was trying to comply with the law and did not yet have time to buy a 10 round magazine (which can be hard to find due to these new laws).
In other words, I carry less than full until I am empty. I don’t fire one and then reload.
I’m surprised the cop gave him his gun back.
They always give the gun back. Although, many times it’s after shooting them and planting hard drugs on the corpse.
First: Ticket and $90. Second: Felony.
Freaking insane.
It makes sense. The goal is to disarm everyone. What better way to disarm gun owners than to make every minor gun infraction a felony?
Yea, agreed. Just the differential is nuts.
First you get a $90 warning. Then your right to keep and bear arms is taken away forever. At least they give a warning first.
I learned this lesson during a traffic stop a few years ago in PA: always keep your CCW permit(s) tucked away behind all the other cards in your wallet. If a ln officer wants to fuck with you and he sees the permit, he can use.it as an excuse. Even.in PA, where you are not required by law to.inform an.officer.if.you are carrying, they claim they can use.it as probable cause for further questioning.
Which is, of course, bullshit. Police get away with so much illegal shit it is amazing. Part of it is because it is so difficult to.call them out.on it when they do illegal shit.
I informed the cop that I not required by law to tell him I was carrying, to which he basically made.some shit up and hassled me more.
Correct. All you have to show him is your CCW (this is PA):
6122. Proof of license and exception.
(a) General rule.–When carrying a firearm concealed on or about one’s person or in a vehicle, an individual licensed to carry a firearm shall, upon lawful demand of a law enforcement officer, produce the license for inspection. Failure to produce such license either at the time of arrest or at the preliminary hearing shall create a rebuttable presumption of nonlicensure.
That’s interesting. You have to produce the License for inspection, but not the firearm?
That reads as if you have to show the police officer your permit only if he demands to see the permit. It doesn’t seem that you have to inform them anytime you come into contact with a police officer, such as during a traffic stop.
Err….n/m, for some reason I thought you were responding to something else.
I hadn’t thought about that; we have duty to inform in MI.
I remember dunphy, on this very blog, advising that if you get pulled over, you hand the officer both your license and CCW, and that the officer would consider that a “courtesy”. He implied that the officer would be more amenable to you and that there was less likelihood of an accidental sighting of the gun (with the implied “and then you might get shot”, of course). Of course the officers want you to volunteer all your information. Of course.
I remember Dumphry being an idiot too, so why bring it up again?
Why not just hand over the driver’s license? Isn’t your wallet your “papers and effects” and exempt from unwarranted search?
I carry my license in a separate wallet. Cops consider trying to conceal the contents of your wallet while you fish your license out of it “suspicious” and will use that “suspicion” to justify further harassment.
This an important corollary to the Don’t Talk To The Police Theorem. Not only don’t talk to them, hide as much information about yourself from them as you can.
And password protect all your digital media. Phone, laptop, tablet, thumbdrives, etc. I guess that’s a corollary to the corollary.
“Bizarre” gun laws? It’s like you don’t even remember Newtown.
Think of the lives that could have been saved if barrel shrouds had been illegal.
Fucking things that go up, how they work?
I don’t know, because I still don’t know what part that would actually apply to.
The thing! That thing that goes up! It goes, y’know, UP!!!
It’s the shoulder thing that goes up, you cretins!
Never forget.
Out of congress next year!
Make it so!
Its part of the muzzle break.
Once again, this is why avoiding contact with the cops at all costs is a must. Luckily this guy didn’t get beaten or killed, but he got pulled over for an incredibly minor offence and ended up with the danger of getting charged with a felony if he ever gets caught with an “over capacity” magazine again.
Another thing I will tell you is that I had no idea about the “obscured license plate” shit, and I grew up there (since I never put anything on or around my plates, I guess I never had the opportunity). I assure you that most people there don’t, with those who do probably having gotten cited for it.
The tailgating thing I knew about. Connecticut’s driving test is (or at least used to be) pretty damn comprehensive.
The problem with the tailgating law is the ambiguity. Why not just say “must follow 2 seconds behind” instead of leaving it up to the officer’s discretion whim?
(Yes, that question was rhetorical.)
Actually, if I recall from my driver’s test all those years ago, there is a formula for determining this, something like one car length per X miles per hour. However, that formula would break down at slow speeds and it might be that the cops exploit this.
Honestly, I’ve never heard of anyone being pulled over for this, and I’m slightly suspicious, based on the guy’s name (racist!), that this was a “driving while black” situation and the cops just used something vague and bullshit to pull him over. Norwalk isn’t lily white but that never seems to stop cops.
I don’t remember the written test, and the only thing about my road test I do remember is that there were six inches of snow on the ground and I had better control of the vehicle than the licensed drivers we were sharing the road with. Nevermind the idiot pedestrians who tried to get run over by jaywalking in those conditions…
Also, whenever I leave a ‘safe stopping distance’ based on my ability to stop the car, someone jams their car into it.
Also, whenever I leave a ‘safe stopping distance’ based on my ability to stop the car, someone jams their car into it.
Tell me about it. Sometimes the only way to pass a slow car on the freeway is to tailgate the guy in front of you.
Yeah, that pisses me off.
I don’t know what they teach, I just know that the 2 second rule works no matter what speed you’re going. It’s easy to time it out while you’re driving or from video footage, if available.
I took an EVOC course (certification to drive emergency vehicles) for a volunteer job I have. They say 3 second rule.
Then I took a federal online safe-driving course (NTSB-sponsored, I think) which my employer required before I could rent a car on a business trip. They say 4 second rule.
Sheesh…
That’s retarded. 60mph is 88 f/sec. 4 seconds would be 352 feet! 75mph would be 440 feet!
People get pulled over in CA for the license plate covers here all the time. They are specifically marketed to obscure red light cameras, and cops don’t like that.
something like one car length per X miles per hour
I learned 1 car length per 10 MPH in NJ in about ’98 (which nobody ever, ever, ever follows). I would guess it’s something similar.
I’m slightly suspicious, based on the guy’s name (racist!), that this was a “driving while black” situation and the cops just used something vague and bullshit to pull him over.
That was my first thought. A Tyrone Watson gets pulled over on a bullshit violation like this? Hmm, I wonder why that could be.
“offence”
there should be some accompanying reference to words ending in -our (flavour, favour) but I’m so Day- and Ny-quilled up that it’s not coming.
What’s Epi’s favorite flavour of popsicle? DICK.
Shit, meant to put in the link.
Please tell me that there are more of those. My head hurts from laughing so hard.
Will this do?
An obscured licence plate is a license plate that will not be seen by a red light camera.
It’s evidence of stealing, essentially.
The cop is typically looking over your shoulder as you pull your license out.
And with the layout of my wallet – he’ll see a grocery store member card.
Same here, but not all folks are thinking “what are the cops going to use in order to justify repeatedly sodomizing me before killing me?”
Well, maybe they start thinking that after an encounter or two.
Well, maybe they start thinking that after an encounter or two.
Show me someone who trusts the police, and I’ll show you someone who has never interacted with the police other than a minor traffic infraction.
I just turned my permit around, put it behind all the other cards. I love learning from the misfortunes of others.
My permit is just a little piece of paper.
Well mebbe the “Tyrones” of Connecticut should.
My blood donor ID now covers my PA and UT CCW licenses.
How long does the UT CCW take to get? A weekend?
I think they might even have reciprocity with PA.
IIRC, it is.an.8 hour course.
“he’ll see a grocery store member card”
You don’t have your home phone number memorized?
It’s not based on that – and a benign piece of plastic helps hide everything else.
I will be rearranging my wallet today.
The cop is typically looking over your shoulder as you pull your license out.
He is? So what, he crawls in my back seat and looks over my shoulder? Not. My conceal carry permit can’t be seen by merely looking at my wallet. You’d have to go through my wallet to find it. I say this guy fucked up.
Why would you wait that long? Have your license and insurance in your left hand out the open window with your right high on the steering wheel where the cop can see as he approaches.
That helps. Last time I got pulled over (Friday) I was doing 35 over. I had all of my paperwork in hand and all of the windows rolled down. I was let go with a warning in less than a minute.
Noooooooo windows rolled down. Two inches down tops.
Anytime I’ve been pulled over (which is about 3 times in my whole life, not getting stopped at all is the best way to deal with cops), the cop sits in his car for a few minutes after stopping giving plenty of time to get out my license and registration.
NO he’s not – I already have my license and registration out and ready before he gets to the door.
For God’s sake, never give them your wallet. If it has any cash in it, you’ve just committed attempted bribery.
Hells no. I just made the.mistake of wilaiting.to.fish out my license until he was at my window. Normally I have all the papers ready before they get their fat asses up to my door. Some day I’m going to try dialing a donut delivery service.and see.if they can get there before the encounter is over.
This is a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If you reach for your license and insurance before they come up to the car, they may take all your reaching and grabbing as “he’s pulling a gun!!!11!!!!” and empty their service weapons into your trunk.
That is extremely unlikely as that is a pretty normal thing to do. Far more likely they will think you were hiding drugs or something and use it as an excuse to fuck with you.
Well they are “screws”
The lesson here is:
Take off that damn dealer license plate “holder” and don’t put any plastic cover on it. It’s a license plate, not a fashion accessory or an advertisment for the guy who ripped you off when you bought the car. And have them scrape off that damn dealer decal, or charge them a $10 a month advertising fee.
People are stupid
I would have made them remove the decal, but I’m fairly sure they would have done horrible damage to the paint job in the process. Besides, the great part now is that their name is permanantly attached to what looks like a rolling pile of junk (I don’t have a payment, I’m going to drive it into the ground)
I don’t remove the decal for that very reason. But that website they emblazoned onto the rear window was gone within seconds of getting home.
My grandfather used to buy new cars frequently, and he always ordered them to remove all decals, license plate borders, you name it. There was never any problem; they always did so with no complaint and no damage.
The decals actually come off very easily. I always remove them and it’s just like peeling off scotch tape. The annoying ones are the fancy decals of the dealership owner’s signature that have dozens of different pieces that each have to be peeled individually.
Not this one. I recall trying to deal with it early on in my ownership of the car, which is when I concluded that scraping would damage the paint (and I had no idea what solvent would work).
If you have to do more than one, or have to peel off pinstriping, 3M Stripe Off Wheel works like magic. Won’t scuff old clearcoat, much less decent paint.
Except that law is so vague (and traffic laws are so vague in general) that no matter what you do or don’t do, the police will find a way to pull you over for it.
Yep. Swerve to avoid a pothole in my state of PA, where potholes are so common I think we buried Ben Franklin in one because it was easier than digging a grave, and the cop can stop you on suspicion of reckless driving.
There are already a zillion ways the cops can use vague statues to pull you over. Taillight out? Tire tread too worn? Driving “erratically”? Driving “too fast for conditions” (I got nailed for that one once)? Headlights angled too high up? Using studded tires outside of the allowed time frame? Muffler hanging? They are endless.
Aggravated Use of Constitutional Rights.
It’s nice living in a state where police departments don’t have a monetary incentive to give out tickets and look for excuses to steal your shit, since everything goes to the state, not the department.
You live in Somalia?
You live in Somalia?
Maine. Though if you go to Lewiston you might as well be in Somalia thanks to Catholic Charities importing thousands of refugees.
I visited Saco once. It was nice. Cheap lobster.
Cheap lobster.
Bugs that have been eating garbage off the ocean floor for the better part of a decade. No thanks.
Bugs that taste good. If only cockroaches, their cousins, were so tasty.
If dog shit fried in motor oil tasted good and wasn’t going to make me sick, I’d eat it. I’m not a huge lobster fan, but it’s not because of their appearance or diet.
NY Tried to do that that because the state gov wanted more revenue. The localities response – do it and we’ll not write a single ticket again.
do it and we’ll not write a single ticket again.
I fail to see a problem.
Nor did I, but the state backed down because 35% of something was better than 100% of nothing – fiscal understanding the NY legislature ever showed, and the last.
*first fiscal…
Yep. I got pulled over once supposedly because my turn signals blinked too fast. I asked a cop friend about that and that’s when he explained to me about most traffic statutes being intentionally vague so that it’s very easy for a cop to pull over anyone they want because it’s pretty much impossible to not screw up somewhere. He told me the son of an ambassador had pissed off one of the cops in a bar one night just being a general smart-ass, and after that he and his buddies hounded the guy non-stop every time they saw his car until he finally gave up and went back home. Every few blocks they’d pull this kid over and ticket him for something different. This was about 20 years ago, and I naively thought these sorts of shenanigans were something out of the ordinary.
That old cliche about being run out of town is rooted in truth.
The real lesson here is that we need to do away with license plates all together – again, there’s no reasoning for requiring them that can’t be extended to your person.
The handgun was loaded with 11 bullets, and had a magazine capable of handling 15 rounds, police said. Under the new laws passed by the state last April, it is illegal to buy, sell or manufacture magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds.
10 + 1 = compliance, right?
But actual compliance with the law doesn’t matter, if you don’t have a little piece of paper. It’s like states where it doesn’t matter if you have insurance, you are committing a “crime” if you don’t have the ID card in the car.
The number of bullets wasn’t the problem. It was the size of the mag. The gun could have been empty and he still would have been fined.
If he loaded 11 and forgot to put one in the chamber then suddenly he wouldn’t be in compliance. That would be stupid but could explain it.
I shudder to think if the law only allows 10 in the gun as a whole. It probably does, because that’s how retarded these laws are.
To be honest I’d rather have clear but arbitrary laws than ambiguous ones.
Does it matter? Either way, they can abuse their discretion.
Can?
Well, shall. It’s in the Constitution.
It makes it harder in principle. I’d rather rely on the ability of a jury to read than rely fully on the discretion of an official.
In the following false dichotomy, would you rather have a ban on “dangerous gun accessories as determined by the Attorney General” or one that enumerated exactly what was banned?
I just mean they’ll screw you with the arbitrary laws by making more of them if they can’t screw you with total discretion. Besides, it’s not like they don’t fuck with you even when they have no blackletter law or regulations to point to.
I can’t disagree. It was just nice to indulge in the fantasy for a while.
“The handgun was loaded with 11 bullets, and had a magazine capable of handling 15 rounds, police said.”
Part of the story seems to be missing. First of all, with a simple glance, it is often impossible to see the difference between a 10 round magazine and a 15 round magazine, so at some point the cop had to actually unload the magazine and count the bullets. And with some magazines the only way to determine that it actually holds 15 is to reload it, so was this copy carrying the right ammo so he could load it and determine it held 15 rounds or did he just have the part number on the magazine memorized? This seems like a very unusual activity to take place on the side of a road during a traffic stop in cold weather. Either Tyrone made a judgment call to be open and honest with the cop and volunteered how many bullets were in the magazine, to his ultimate detriment, or that cop was hell-bent and determined to cite this guy, or both. Something is missing from this story or else things have gotten far more bizarre than I want to believe. I just can’t see a cop unloading a magazine on the side of the road in order to count bullets. What’s next?.. counting my lug nuts? I may be the next one arrested for driving one nut short of a full set.
There are already a zillion ways the cops can use vague statues to pull you over. Taillight out? Tire tread too worn? Driving “erratically”? Driving “too fast for conditions” (I got nailed for that one once)? Headlights angled too high up? Using studded tires outside of the allowed time frame? Muffler hanging? They are endless.
Fuck that, just wait ’til you get pulled over for “suspiciously” NOT SPEEDING.
Statistics clearly show it’s the 11th bullet that’s the deadliest.
Funny, King Cuomo claimed it was the 8th.
Good God.
“You fucked up, Justo. You trusted us.”
-Your Government
“You knew what I was when you picked me up,” said the rattlesnake.
“I thought youse was de-venomed.”
Headline Reminds Neighborhood Man of Onion Article
http://www.theonion.com/articl…..velo,2229/
“Shitty Neighborhood Rallies Against Asshole Developer”
My new favorite onion quote:
The number of bullets wasn’t the problem. It was the size of the mag.
I was thinking about the New York law; the one where, after they found out there’s NO SUCH THING as a seven round mag for any of the widely distributed modern double stack pistols, they said, “Well, you can only put seven rounds in it.”
So, why was the cop looking in his wallet?
15 rounds is large capacity? lol, too funny.
http://www.Privacy-Planet.com
Just more evidence of the fascist police state the we are allowing to be built around us. All hail the all powerful government! (Dissenters will be shot.)
This article is prompting me to take my NRA membership card out of my wallet. I have long ago scraped off the NRA sticker off of my car’s bumper. Why advertise for the gestapo to use against me, right?
Most people don’t hand their entire wallet over to the cops–just the license–so maybe the cop requested it? Seems odd. In any case, I have my permit squirreled away in my wallet not visible. You’d have to dig through the whole thing in order to find it.
Yes.
Thank you.