THE DANGERS OF 'ADVERTISING'

Be observant. If there is a four-wheel drive pickup in the driveway with a gun rack in the rear window, it's a pretty safe bet that the occupants own firearms, are probably hunters or target shooters, and more than likely are proficient in the use of firearms. This is a simple observation, but a possible danger signal nonetheless. Bumper stickers or placards in the window of the house such as 'Is there life after death? Trespass here and find out' or 'My home is my castle,' announces to officers that the occupant resents outside interference by authorities, possibly to the extent of resisting arrest if that should become necessary.

So reads part of a well-written article titled "A Brief Look at Officer Survival" by a lawman named Denny Hansen. Doubtless, some of our readers will take umbrage at his advice. "I'm a God-fearing, law-abiding American citizen and can put any sign I want on my door. Who is this cop to say that it heightens his suspicions of me as some sort of dangerous weirdo?"

The fact is, nothing in Hansen's article shows any bias against the law-abiding armed citizen. The piece ran in POLICE MARKSMAN, the journal of police firearms instructors. The magazine (available through Police Marksman Association, PO Box 17690, Montgomery, AL 36117 and in my opinion important reading for all police survival instructors) is published by Charles Leslie Dees, a civilian and the founder of the National Marksman Sports Society, the first organization to open Police Combat shooting to private citizens as well as cops. (NMSS is now run by Bud Hardner, 873 North Wahneta St., Dept. CH, Allentown, PA 18103). The magazine is not your enemy and neither is Denny Hansen.

I teach deadly force to qualified armed citizens. I write this column for such people. And I have to agree with Hansen.

With close to 15 years of badge-packing behind me, I have to confess that every time I've pulled over a car with a visible gunrack or an NRA sticker, I was consciously aware that the person I was about to contact was more likely than the average motorist to be armed. Not to be a badguy; to be armed. That's two different levels of awareness, folks.

I would typically ask for license and registration, then comment in a friendly way, "I see you're an NRA member. Me too. Do you happen to have any firearms with you at the moment, sir?"

I was aware that a "no" answer didn't mean they didn't, but their response was one way to gauge their attitude toward me as a cop, which was something I'd need to know in the minutes that were to come. The vast majority were, of course, decent people who did not abuse firearms or policemen.

The question, by the way, is not out of line. The fact is that the Supreme Court guidelines of Mapp and Terry actually give us authority to search persons and their immediate surroundings for weapons if we believe them to be present, for the officer's own safety. When your bumper sticker advertises that you have guns, what do you expect?

What we're talking about here can lead to tragedy. Early in 1987, a pair of uniformed officers were given a list of premises they were to hit with search warrants for suspects named in a drug sweep. As they pulled into position at one such home, they noticed a car with an NRA bumper sticker in the driveway. Both cops were NRA members and gun buffs themselves (and, it later became apparent, sympathizers with lawfully armed private citizens). Yet both instantly thought, "Great. That means there's guns in there."

After knocking and shouting, there was no response. One officer thought he saw and heard someone at the window. The door was unlocked. The officers did what the warrant empowered them to do: they entered. Fearing that the movement they'd perceived was someone waiting for them in ambush--someone they now had reason to suspect had access to guns--they drew their SIG-Sauer P-226 autoloaders from their Safariland duty holsters.

As one of the officers entered the living room he was temporarily blinded by strong sunlight streaming in the window...sunlight that had to clearly illuminate his uniform and badge to the man waiting there. But the man lunged at the officer, catching him by surprise, and grabbed at his service pistol. In the short struggle the gun, which was in double action mode, discharged. A Federal 115-grain 9mm hollowpoint struck the assailant high in the chest. He appeared to be flung backward and collapsed to the floor, mortally wounded.

The man, it turned out, was not the drug dealer the warrant was sworn for; he was the new, legitimate occupant of the home. Investigation showed that he had uncharacteristically been drinking during the day, and was depressed because his young wife had left him. He had no criminal record. There were several loaded guns in the house, including a Chief's Special on the headboard of the bed a couple of rooms away where he'd been resting, but he was not armed with a gun of his own at the time of the shooting.

Why did he attack a man who was obviously, visibly identifiable as an officer? Perhaps it was the attitude Denny Hansen wrote about in POLICE MARKSMAN: the territorial imperative of "my home is my castle" that can enrage a man who feels that even a policeman has no right to be in his home without his permission. Yet, as I later testified, the officer was not at fault. He was following orders and executing in good faith a warrant he'd been issued by his superiors, and he handled it the way training told him he should. Because of the sweep, the department's manpower was very short and backup was unlikely to be available; in any case, there is no indication that more officers present would have kept the tragedy from happening.

The officer was indicted for manslaughter. After a five day trial, he was found not guilty by a jury of citizens on November 11, 1987.

Frankly, the reason neither my station wagon nor my 4WD have any gun-related bumper stickers has nothing to do with giving cops the wrong impression. My real concern is that it would flag my vehicles and the homes they're parked in front of as prime targets for gun thieves.

Picture it. Your family car is parked in the lot at the Mall as Joe Sleazebag and his partner Mickey the Mope, cruise past. The stick-on logos scream out at them: "National Rifle Association." "Insured by Smith & Wesson." One of two things are about to happen. The first is that two drooling cretins smash in your windows and ransack your car for the guns they expect to find in the glove box and under the seat. Even if they don't find any, you can say goodbye to your radio or your dashboard stereo, which they might not have taken unless it was a Blaupunkt in a BMW, but which they might as well steal now that they're there. You can also say hello to the guy at the auto body shop.

Or maybe our two greedy junkies will be smart enough to do something much more terrifying. They stake out the car unobtrusively until you or your wife leave the parking lot. They discretely follow, making note of your home as the car is driven into the port. Now begins the casing of your home.

Fact: Guns and prescription drugs are the only stolen goods scumbags can sell on the black market for more than their real value, instead of a dime on the dollar or less. Therefore, they are high priority targets for theft. And, since you've made it clear to the thieves that guns are important to you (who puts a bumper slogan on their car if the subject isn't important to them?) they now have reason to believe that you're into guns enough to own a whole bunch of them. Now, it's just a matter of how long it'll take them to hit your home, maybe at a time when the wife and kids are alone there. Or maybe they're hungry enough for their next fix of smack or rock cocaine that they'll jump out of the car right now, and pounce your wife as she's going in the door...

Signs and bumper stickers can turn into nearly insoluble problems in the courtroom aftermath of a justifiable shooting that triggers a Grand Jury indictment or a civil suit. A good friend of mine was forced to draw his Colt .45 automatic on the sidewalk outside his home and trigger a fatal shot in self defense. He happened to be walking his dog. My friend didn't kill a man; he killed a large dog that seemed about to bite out his groin area. For various reasons, the powers that be still went for an indictment, and got one. Opposing counsel made much of the fact that he was a man who owned a Doberman himself, and they cited the sign on his lawn: "Bad Dog." Why, they asked rhetorically, would anyone who didn't have a Rambo Complex own something so ferocious that he needed a "Bad Dog" sign?

The answer came in court, and it was simple. Prevailing law in that community required anyone who owned a Dobie, a German Shepherd, a pit bull, or a Rottweiller to post a sign with exactly those words: "Bad Dog." Needless to say, he "walked" on the charges.

Talk to your own attorney about that issue. I've heard some say that to have a "Beware of Dog" sign is to hang yourself civil liability wise, since you're admitting that you harbor a dangerous animal. Other lawyers, including my own counsel whose advice I follow, tell me that to own a protective dog and not post the warning signs is to fail to alert potential victims to danger and to put oneself in a giant civil liability trickbag.

My own grounds are festooned with "Beware of Dog" signs. What you won't see at my place are those signs with the big revolver and the statement, "Never mind the dog, beware of the owner!" You are saying that you are more vicious than an attack dog. I can guarantee you that evidence technicians who arrive at the scene in the wake of a home defense shooting will photograph that sign from every angle and make enlarged prints; opposing counsel will flash those pictures to the jury at every opportunity.

One of my clients, a professional man, shot and killed a guy who pulled a loaded automatic on him in his office. None of the investigators bothered to photograph the many degrees and honor certificates that lined the walls of this good man's office. They did, however, take several shots of a sign he had near the executive washroom. It depicted a mustachioed dude with a Stetson and a smoking Colt Peacemaker. The legend printed beneath it was, "Gunfighters Don't Charge By the Bullet."

Oooh...did the prosecutor have a ball with that one! He implied to the jury that the man who hung that sign on his wall perceived himself as a bad-ass gunfighter. "And notice the wording, ladies and gentlemen of the jury...Gunfighters Don't Charge By the Bullet. You wonder why he emptied a whole clip of ammo into his poor, innocent victim?"

As it turned out, I wound up being the one to destroy that argument in court. It went sort of like this:

Attorney: Mr. Ayoob, is there a saying in your profession that "Gunfighters don't charge by the bullet?"

Ayoob: No, counselor, that's a saying in your profession.

Attorney: What do you mean by that?

Ayoob: You see signs like that in law offices and CPA offices all over the country. It's their way of saying that you're paying the professional you've consulted for what he accomplishes for you, not for the physical means he expends in doing it.

Lawyers have an old joke about this:

 A client comes to the attorney with a problem; the lawyer solves his problem with a single letter and sends him a bill that says "Writing letter: $1000." The client calls back and says, "A thousand dollars for one letter! That's outrageous! I won't pay!." The lawyer promises to send him a new bill. The revised bill says, "Writing letter: $5. Knowing what to say in letter: $995."

That's what we're talking about here, counsel. It has nothing to do with guns or gunfighting, and I've never seen such a sign in the office of a firearms instructor.

The jurors, a couple of whom had already heard the joke, found the whole thing immensely amusing. The prosecutor and his arguments had just slipped a few notches. My man walked on probation, albeit with a conviction on his record; he had been drinking and the jury explained that they didn't feel a man under the influence of alcohol could make a reasonable and prudent decision to shoot in self defense. They added that if he'd been stone sober they'd have found him not guilty. In the following civil case, a second jury did find him not guilty, ruling in his favor and awarding not a nickel of the $3.8 million plaintiff's counsel had asked for.

A happy ending...but not all potentially inflammatory signs and stickers can be that logically explained. If I'm speaking for you, what answer can I have for your plaque that reads "Kill them all and let God sort them out?" Or for "They'll get my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers?" Or the picture of the electric chair with the slogan, "Justice: Regular or Extra Crispy," Or maybe, "Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again."

The other side's lawyers are gonna have a field day. "Let God sort 'em out?" Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant stands accused of manslaughter, which means killing a human being with reckless and wanton disregard for human life. I show you this sign on his wall--"Kill 'em and let God sort 'em out"--and I ask you whether this man's own slogan bespeaks that reckless and wanton disregard for irreplaceable human life!

"Pry it from my cold dead fingers?" Ladies and gentlemen, the man before you has made it clear through his own conspicuously displayed slogan that he cares more about mere property--AND PARTICULARLY, MORE ABOUT HIS DEADLY GUNS--than he does about priceless human life!

"Regular or Extra Crispy?" We shall give you proof that the accused is a man obsessed with the death penalty, and that in this case he declared himself judge, jury, and executioner. Lacking the electric chair, a picture of which he hung on his wall, he resorted to his .38 Special.

"...Survivors will be shot again." The defendant and his experts say that the reason the deceased trespasser took one bullet in the chest and a second in the back was that the accused had fired a two-shot burst while the man faced him, and the first shot spun him around and the second bullet thus happened to enter from behind. But ladies and gentlemen, the prosecution will show that the defendant shot and wounded him with the first shot and left him down and helpless, and finished him off with a second murderous coup de grace...AND WE'LL PROVE THAT HE HAD PREMEDITATED THAT MURDEROUS INTENT AND HAD EVEN POSTED NOTICE OF IT WITH A CERTAIN SIGN!

If you don't think it'll go that way, you haven't been to as many trials for murder, manslaughter, and wrongful death as I have, and my typical caseload is a dozen on the average at any given time. By the way, even if the burglar you shot was coming at you with a meat cleaver at the time you dropped him, the opposing lawyer who is paid to make you look like a monster will merely describe him as a "trespasser." In a recent trial, a prosecutor who had taken money form the family of the deceased with the promise of a conviction told the jury on summation that my client had gone after the deceased with a .357 Magnum in his hand and anger in his heart. It was a brilliantly eloquent final argument that might have brought tears to my eyes had I not known something: the prosecutor never mentioned the loaded .38 Special found at the feet of the dead man, whom physical evidence clearly showed had initiated the deadly force attack on my client, who had shot him in self defense. That client is a free man as I speak, but it shows you the depths to which a prosecutor who is an advocate for conviction instead of justice can sink.

Get rid of those signs and bumper stickers. Burn 'em, use 'em for kitty litter, or give 'em to some old boy you'd like to see sent to prison by a jury that perceives him as a self-proclaimed "Death Wish Vigilante." My friend Rich Davis wears a T-shirt I had custom made for him after the Goetz shooting that says "Yes, I Have Five Dollars for Each of You," but he wears it only on his own shooting range. I have souvenir "Lethal Force Institute" T-shirts available for my students. They are for range wear or for when you're secure among friends. That's the way I wear them anyway, and when I leave the range they're covered. We have golf shirts available with just the LFI logo. It looks like little flight wings. It's actually an ur-uachti, the winged disk of Egyptian mythology. (The benevolent sun god Ra supposedly transformed himself into one of these to defeat evil god Set, and it thereafter became a symbol of the protection of the innocent from evil). It's low key enough to wear in public. A T-shirt that says in bold block letters "LETHAL FORCE INSTITUTE" is not something to be wearing when you're involved in an encounter.

Of course, there's no guarantee that bumper stickers, wall plaques, or T-shirts will hang you if you're involved in a shooting. One of my students reportedly was wearing an LFI T-shirt when he took down a mugger. The cops who arrived at the scene knew him, and just smiled when they saw the shirt. The mugger, who lay supine and nursing his shattered legs, found himself looking up the muzzle of a custom .45 auto in the hands of a big blonde dude wearing a shirt that said, "LETHAL FORCE INSTITUTE" and, if he could read, apparently figured it just wasn't his day. My student was not charged and the mugger went to prison after he recovered. Still, that's not something to count on. If I'd been Dan, I'd rather have been wearing a shirt that said "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men." A provocative T-shirt can often start an encounter. We've all heard the tasteless joke about the guy who walks into an ethnic bar wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the statement, "I Hate Stupid Ethnics." But have you heard the true story of the guy with the Miami T-shirt?

No, I don't mean the Miami Dolphins T-shirt. This one has a loaded revolver pointing out from it with the logo, "Miami: See It Like A Native." I've got a picture of a guy wearing one of those. It was taken in the autopsy room of the Metro-Dade County Medical Examiner's Office. It is splattered with blood, and the wearer is dead. His mugger apparently didn't like it, and the unarmed T-shirt owner didn't have a lot to say or do about the criminal's reaction.

The bottom line is this: slogans, stickers, signs and T-shirts that show you to be a gun owner or to have strong feelings about guns and crime and violence and killing, can come back to haunt you in more ways than one. The display of such insignia on your car, in your home, or on your body can cause you a world of grief.

Professionals who carry guns are guided by two words. They are "low profile."

Enough said.

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