DoD Trespassing Citizens Guarding Recruiting Centers?

The DoD Officially Trespassing Citizen Guards?

This is a follow-up to last night's opinion piece.

The first reports of armed citizens guarding military recruiting centers were sporadic and isolated. I’m sure once the stories hit national news, all the people who were mulling the idea in their minds decided to make a go for it and provide security themselves. The phenomenon swept the country, to where it became a common phenomenon in virtually every state that doesn’t unnecessarily limit citizens from carrying firearms. It was seen all over Las Vegas. One man said: "Veterans understand it, they're not going to let their brothers in arms, be sitting targets [...] Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force, all of them came out saying thank you, thank you, we appreciate it," Michaels said.

Of course, the police have been called in a few cases. One man was asked to leave a recruiting station on Warm Springs Rd. For the most part, the welcome has been encouraging and there have been no reports of frightened citizens panicking at the sight of armed Americans. While Nevada Carry doesn’t support the open carrying of long guns, this is one such exception, proving that most people don’t mind, and carried properly, don’t start a panic. Guns in the hands of lunatics who don’t care about laws are the problem. There have been many anecdotal reports that military veteran police officers, driving by or called to recruiting centers because of the guards, expressed enthusiastic support for the guards.

Unfortunately, a report from an involved citizen, Ron O of the Good Guy Zone, reported on Wednesday July 29, some guards in the Las Vegas valley starting running into problems. The following is from his post on a private forum 

Yesterday we had an incident at the Rainbow location where a woman in civilian clothing had an Army Sargent tell our guy to leave, and that was AFTER he'd been there for three hours already and several days in a row before that (along with me and others). We speculated that she was DoD. 

Today, an ex marine sniper/LAPD long term LEO and SWAT guy was told by this same women to leave the property on Craig in North Las Vegas. Being a former cop he asked to see her ID and she refused. He left the property and called a guy I was meeting this morning to let him know (the guy who was told to leave yesterday from Rainbow). 

This guy was more than rattled and all but terrified of the DoD. Our plan was to meet up at UNLV (several of us) and then head over to Rainbow to get the official word as to whose authority was being used to trespass us. Under the law only the property owner can do that. [...] 

Soon we had perhaps 10+ Metro and UNLV officers chatting with us. In the meantime we'd reholstered our weapons (with their permission). All but one went inside to interrogate the woman for quite some time. 

Eventually they came out, confirmed that she was DoD, and told us that they had orders from Washington to trespass all of us from their locations across the country. I asked for paperwork and they said she was trying to produce some, being faxed from D.C. apparently. 

I questioned their ability to trespass us without the property owner's written permission. Metro's position was that as a lessee they could trespass from the entire shopping center all on their own, but if another business wanted to invite us over we could then be there instead. I asked them where the military line ended and the rest of the property began. They didn't know.

This was a very calm and cordial discussion, and Metro supported our cause, some stating that they were ex-military as well. They wanted us to wait for the official trespass documents so they could read them to us but I opted to not wait, [...] 

 A third guy showed up long after I'd left and he said there were still three Metro vehicles out front. They told him that the DoD was not going to allow 'you guys' to be on any of their properties any longer, stating a 'negative impact on their mission' and 'possible security concerns because we represented provocation'. [...] 

 So Round 1 is officially completed. According to Metro we are hereby trespassed from every military facility in Clark County. It's only a matter of time before this woman hits all of the stations. As of THIS MORNING, the guys in the UNLV recruiting office had nothing but a kind welcome for all of us. But by 10AM that was over. 

Ron O. also posted videos on YouTube of the incident, but we are currently waiting to publicize those videos. Apparently, this woman has been “running off” citizen guards from around the valley.

Nevada Carry has requested confirmation from the LVMPD of the DoD orders. From the videos and reports, the interaction with the Metro officers was very polite and professional.

Wholesale eviction of citizens, legally armed, from public shopping centers where they are entitled by law to exercise their right of freedom of speech/expression (and presumably use their Second Amendment right as part of, or in, the process), is disgusting. Furthermore, even if the DoD had a compelling reason to stop the citizen guards, there is a far better way to do it. Mysteriously trespassing citizens and failing to take reasonable steps to secure recruiters is totally irresponsible. Maybe they could politely express their concerns and seek middle ground rather than treating well-intentioned American citizens as a threat.

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