Open carry picnic, Bellevue downtown park
News, Guns ·Saturday June 27, 2009 @ 21:25 EDT (link)
One of the msgun members was harassed by a cop jogging and open carrying in Bellevue Downtown Park a few weeks back, and eventually "frog-marched" out of the park. Although Bellevue forbids carrying firearms in parks, they are not in fact allowed to do that and state law "fully occupies and preempts the entire field of firearms regulation": "[l]ocal laws and ordinances that are inconsistent with, more restrictive than, or exceed the requirements of state law shall not be enacted and are preempted and repealed." As a show of solidarity, we decided to have an open carry picnic in that park. There was also communication with the police department and city lawyers and they "did remember their faults this day" and formally repented of the evil which they had done, and I believe a memo was sent around the department making officers aware of the law. The picnic was 1300-1700; I arrived a bit late but didn't miss anything: a small group was walking the park looking for open carriers, and a place to set up. We mostly brought cold lunches, augmented by some hot dogs cooked on a camp stove.
Two policemen on bicycles came up toward the end of our picnic—well into post-lunch shooting-the-breeze time—and chatted for a while. As you can see above, they were in good spirits. Above you can also see how many open carriers it takes to fold up a camp table….
Afterwards—after we'd sat and talked about guns, politics, and whatever else came to mind, some of us headed over to All Purpose Pizza (2901 S Jackson St.); I drove to TH's to wait for the others to walk back from the park and I (with Katt) followed TH's car over. I'm still not a huge fan of goat cheese, but it went well with the pizza.
I took the long way back... I asked for directions to I-405, which wasn't the best way (I took a left off S. Jackson St. onto Ranier Ave. S, followed it across the I-90, took Martin Luther King Jr. Way S (those ingrates! don't they know it should be "Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. Way S, Peace Be Upon Him"?!), and then followed I-5N up to WA-520E. Looking at the map, I could have taken a right on Jackson and then 23rd Ave. E straight up to WA-520 and saved a lot of driving. As you may guess, I don't know Bellevue that well; I shall know it better hereafter.
Books finished: The Universe In a Nutshell.
