OCBA's Firearms Law Seminar

Today, I attended the Oakland County Bar Association's Firearms Law Seminar.

A very short lunch 'n' learn, it was hosted by the OCBA and featured a Police Lieutenant and an ATF agent.

Lieutenant Stout of the West Bloomfield Township Police Department started off the seminar. Lt. Stout is an NRA instructor and member, as well as the WBPD's firearms instructor and head of the Road Patrol Division as well as being the former head of the SRT team.

It turns out he is very much in favor of civilian gun ownership and concealed carry. He noted there's only 1 police officer for every 300 Americans so we can't all have one at our beck and call. He stated that in West Bloomfield, a township of 60,000 people on a typical night there might be only 5-6 officers working on a night shift so he said realistically people need to be active participants in their own rescue from criminals, even as West Bloomfield is statistically an extremely safe place to live, much of that I might add due to a rather excellent police force.

He gave a very quick overview due to time over use of force and some very basics of Michigan's CPL laws.

He noted most violations on the part of concealed carriers are alcohol related offenses, typically consuming alcohol and then being stopped driving while having your concealed pistol in the vehicle. In short, if you're going to drink, and as .02 is the limit, you need to lock up your gun unloaded in a wrapper in the trunk.

While I know this stuff and teach it, it's always good to hear it from another perspective and he had a few elements in his presentation that I will happily adopt as they were quite effective.

In addition, I found out that WBPD does have classes where they let civilians shoot using the CAPS simulator system and I'm going to sign up for that. They're one of few departments that let civilians use the simulator so it should be interesting.

Next up was a now former ATFE agent who is with another government agency who went over some of the ATF issues. He indicated there are 5,000 ATF employees and some are pro civilian gun ownership, some are anti civilian gun ownership and many are whatever the current administration wants them to be.

He noted he was consulted for a court case where after a person bought a shotgun and then committed suicide the decdent's family sued the dealer on the grounds the dealer was negligent because the clerk was only 18 years old and that's against the GCA. Quick note - it's not. There is no minimum age for dealer or their clerk to be able to sell a firearm, but ATFE recommends no younger than 12 as they reckon 12 is a sufficient age to be able to testify under oath. In short a ridiculous case that was eventually dismissed.

Funnily enough, he did mix-up antiques and Curio and Relics, basically he was stating a C&R was anything before 1898, and I kinda politely pointed out the mix up.

He did give some very good tips on dealing with an ATFE dealer licensing hearing, which may come in handy.

Overall a very good if very quick presentation with some useful things learned.