There are literally dozens of different police agencies all operating armed personnel in DC, though only maybe a dozen or so have actual jurisdiction. It’s the seat of government, a magnet for every disgruntled crank in the country. We’ll see how the hypocritical conservatives on the Supreme Court feel about random assholes being able to carry concealed handguns near them as they drive to work.

This also raises the issue presented in the recent Georgia law that both Skip Intro and RWC posted threads on. RWC repeatedly defended the notion, enshrined in that law, that if a cop should see a pedestrian in possession of a firearm that cop needed be required to have a reasonable articulable suspicion to stop that person that was entirely separate and independent from the observation of a carried weapon. Nevermind that the gun being visible was itself prima facie evidence that the person was engaged in a regulated activity for which a permit was required. Unless the cop had some other reason to stop the person, like observing them jay walking, that cop would have no justification to demand that person produce the permit that actually authorized them to carry at all.

Just for completenesses sake I’ll reiterate why the analogy to car stops doesn’t fly here. Cars have externally visible license plates and registration tabs. The cop can see and call in the plate number without having to stop the driver and ask to see if the car has been reported stolen / involved in a crime or if the registered owner’s driving privileges are currently valid. A handgun’s serial number isn’t readable at a distance, and even if it was conservatives in this country have actively prevented every effort to keep a non-NFA national firearms registration database, and have fought every attempt to end the private party transfer loophole.