Charles Austin Miller
New member
I ask this because I know I have seen citizens with side-irons here in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina; but tonight an apparent misidentification brought the local police down on me. Three squad cars, as a matter of fact.
My visiting nephew asked to examine one of my tactical shotguns that I've built-up and keep stashed upstairs. The one I handed him was a Rem 870 Marine Magnum with pretty extreme tactical mod. The thing looks like a plasma rifle out of a sci-fi movie, right.
Well, he wanted to go outside to try the SureFire frontend with its blinding throw (260 lumen), and because it was 11:00 PM I didn't think anybody in the neighborhood would notice. We went out in the front yard with the thing for 5 minutes, okay.
A car drove by, and the driver saw my modified shotgun, and he raced right down the block to the police station and REPORTED me.
He told the cops he'd seen two males with an ASSAULT RIFLE.
So... at 11:15 PM, three squad cars pulled up, and LEOs were on the ground with weapons drawn.
I defused the situation immediately, explained everything, showed the cops the modified shotgun, even let them examine with it.
Their parting advice was: "Next time, do that in the backyard."
Ten-Fo
But my question is, WHY were they so excited about what looked like an assault rifle? Is it illegal to sit around in your front yard examining your rifle?
My visiting nephew asked to examine one of my tactical shotguns that I've built-up and keep stashed upstairs. The one I handed him was a Rem 870 Marine Magnum with pretty extreme tactical mod. The thing looks like a plasma rifle out of a sci-fi movie, right.
Well, he wanted to go outside to try the SureFire frontend with its blinding throw (260 lumen), and because it was 11:00 PM I didn't think anybody in the neighborhood would notice. We went out in the front yard with the thing for 5 minutes, okay.
A car drove by, and the driver saw my modified shotgun, and he raced right down the block to the police station and REPORTED me.
He told the cops he'd seen two males with an ASSAULT RIFLE.
So... at 11:15 PM, three squad cars pulled up, and LEOs were on the ground with weapons drawn.
I defused the situation immediately, explained everything, showed the cops the modified shotgun, even let them examine with it.
Their parting advice was: "Next time, do that in the backyard."
Ten-Fo
But my question is, WHY were they so excited about what looked like an assault rifle? Is it illegal to sit around in your front yard examining your rifle?