Well I’m sorry he treated you like a threat. The whole thing sounds pretty humiliating. I’ve gone pretty fast down that same stretch of road and have been fortunate enough not to get pulled over. I’m pretty sure it is a 65mph zone except for right before the toll, and then coming up to the rotary in Portsmouth.
It’s kinda hard, when you are caught off guard by some of the questions the may ask. They teach them how to do that in Police Academy. I’d chock it up to an unpleasant experience. Next time a Police officer asks, be truthful. An AR could be referred to as a .22 caliber target rifle and an O/U could be described as a field or skeet gun. It’s almost always worth it to keep the stuff covered or in the trunk. I even got rid of all my bumper stickers and NRA decals a long time ago. It just gives them reason to ask questions, and points out to criminals that there may be a firearm in the car. We use to go through CT, NY and NJ and sometimes through WDC to matches in Quantico. We didn’t want any hassles from the locals and it was worth it to be in stealth mode.
Several years ago I went to a match in New Brunswick Canada. I had my rifle and about a hundred and fifty rounds of ammo. I came to the border crossing and they asked me what I was doing and I gave him a truthful story about going to a Palma tournament. Like a border control guy would know what the hell that is. I specifically left out the words rifle and match. I kept telling him about how we do it every year, and it’s great fun, love coming up here, they come down to compete against us, yada yada yada. I almost made it through. He asked me a couple of other questions and then he popped the firearms question. Well about an hour later they let me go. They looked at everything and I do mean everything in my truck. Only thing they didn’t do was pull the bullets out of the cases and dump the powder. He even tried to trick me with some math questions and about how much ammo I had, and how many rounds do you shoot per day. They were very nice and professional through the whole thing though. It’s a good thing though that I went through the truck and my shooting stool and my toolbox and got rid of things like stray 9mm bullets; AR-15 magazines and the like. That would have required a lot more of an explanation.
Every other time it has worked like a charm and I’ve never been asked to pull over. That was one time that I was alone though, and all this was pre 9/11. I haven’t been back since then and I know the Canadian firearms laws changed so you have to buy a permit.
Brian
![[smile]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/001.gif "Smile [smile]")
