Nashua Open-Carry Litter Pick-Up

[Porcupine_in_MA]

I think it was meant as yesturday "there was an incident today"

but the event is Sunday March 15th.

That's right.

Anyone want to carpool from the Manch area?

That's what's happening. I'll be picking up Jeremy, Ryan and then Dan Stewart from Merrimack. PM me if you want to work something out because we'll probably be taking both our cars.

[timf343]

This will be my first litter pickup.  So a few questions I'm sure have been asked before.  Is there a FAQ somewhere?

What size trash bag should I bring?
How many bags should I bring?
I imagine wearing plastic/rubber gloves is standard?
What do you do with the full bags?
What is the procedure if one of us is approached by police -- what does the one being approached do?  -- what do others do?
Does anyone print handouts/brochures/pamphlets/whatever to hand out to curious citizens?
How long do we spend picking up litter?

Thanks!
Tim

[Ryan McGuire]

What size trash bag should I bring?

People usually get tired of it after having filled two bags up

I imagine wearing plastic/rubber gloves is standard?

I wear one glove on my non-shooting hand. Whenever I am OC, I choose to be in "condition yellow", and I don't want anything to interfere with my shooting hand.

What do you do with the full bags?

I'm not sure if there is a good place, but if we can't find a public dumpster we can throw them in the back of my pickup and I'll take it someplace appropriate.

What is the procedure if one of us is approached by police -- what does the one being approached do?  -- what do others do?

Nothing special, just tell them you are picking up trash to be friendly. I wouldn't mention anything about the gun unless asked about it. In that case simply inform the officer that you are armed for your own protection and that you are carrying legally.

Does anyone print handouts/brochures/pamphlets/whatever to hand out to curious citizens?

Hey, that's not a bad idea, although 90% of people will not even notice the gun, and 99% of the people will not mention anything. I've talked to one person who was curious during three litter pickups I've been involved with, and that was a 9yr old kid.

How long do we spend picking up litter?

I tire pretty quickly of it, not because it's really hard work or anything, it's just gets kind of gross after a while. A couple hours probably.

[doobie]

This will be my first litter pickup.  So a few questions I'm sure have been asked before.  Is there a FAQ somewhere?

What size trash bag should I bring?
How many bags should I bring?
I imagine wearing plastic/rubber gloves is standard?
What do you do with the full bags?
What is the procedure if one of us is approached by police -- what does the one being approached do?  -- what do others do?
Does anyone print handouts/brochures/pamphlets/whatever to hand out to curious citizens?
How long do we spend picking up litter?

Thanks!
Tim

I usually have a box of 20gallon bags.  I don't know what I'll bring.  Probably just two bags.
I use rubber/latex gloves
I usually leave 'em near town trash cans or in them.
"What seems to be the problem officer?"  I've never been approached by police on OC litter clean ups
Nope, really never had a curious citizen.  Only one guy just said, "please don't shoot me." once.  He was from Bawston.  Everyone else usually just says thank you for picking up litter.
Usually pick up until we get tired.

[Porcupine_in_MA]

I'm bringing rubber gloves and trash bags for everyone. We usually drop the trash off in some city trash cans. We usually go for an hour or two at the most.

[Porcupine Realtor]

Hey, Doobie, I may carpool with you from ManchVegas if you have room in the vehicle.
Mark

[doobie]

Hey, Doobie, I may carpool with you from ManchVegas if you have room in the vehicle.
Mark

PM "Porcupine The Prickly Polytheist" I'm carpooling with them.

[beretta92d]

if i can,i'll try and make it down...

Somebody make sure to film/take pics...

(shoot,even let the papers know and if they do show up..let it "slip" about what happened that caused us to do a OC trash pick-up/protest)

[timf343]

Wow!  What a turnout!  I heard someone say there were 28 of us today.

It was great meeting everyone today.  I learned some new things today and met some great folks.  My wife and I are both excited at the process and are definitely interested in becoming more active.  Hopefully we'll meet some of you again on Tuesday in Manchester.

Thanks again,
Tim

[timf343]

Someone mentioned "Scan America" today during the walk and much to my surprise they have an archive.  So I wanted to find the radio traffic from my incident, and there it was!  Go to NH/Hillsborough County and then the Nashua archive.  A lot of it was difficult to understand, but I was able to hear some pertinent pieces at the following times.

03/12/2009 5:39 pm to 5:55 pm
06:45 Initial contact
08:30 Backup arrives

Around 6:05 I was allowed to leave and walked to the bank.

03/12/2009 6:10 pm to 6:25 pm
06:40 They are following me home...."keep an eye on that guy"..."get his address"

03/12/2009 6:25 pm to 6:40 pm
Nothing (yea, it was a long walk)

03/12/2009 6:40 pm to 6:56 pm
Nothing (I called into Porc-411 at 6:47 pm, so I'm assuming they just wrote it down/nothing on the radio)

The radio traffic from our litter pick up today is also archived there but I haven't listened to it yet.

[timf343]

Listened to the recordings and heard only one mention:

Litter Pickup Radio Log

1:31 pm
2:30 "Protest has begun at city hall"

1:46 pm
No mention

2:02 pm
No mention

2:17 pm
No mention

2:32 pm
No mention

2:47 pm
No mention

Maybe there was another frequency that this scanner wasn't picking up?

[doobie]

http://hillsborough.nh.scanamerica.us/modules.php?name=FeedArchive

Starts at Audio recorded on 03/15/2009 from 01:31 pm - 01:46 pm around 2.5 minutes in "Just be advised protest is beginning at city hall 10-15 of them there." 

[Porcupine_in_MA]

It was a wonderful time folks! So anywhere from 20 to 28 folk showed up. One of, if not the biggest, OC events I've taken part in. Really got open-carriers noticed in a positive light. Thanks again for everyone showing up and making it the best OC event yet.

[KBCraig]

03/12/2009 6:10 pm to 6:25 pm
06:40 They are following me home...."keep an eye on that guy"..."get his address"

Water under the bridge, but when I first saw the report that they'd followed you to your house, I thought of Pete Eyre (of Bureaucrash) and his incident in Virginia, where he was tailed by an off-duty cop. Pete avoided going to his own house because he didn't want this guy to know his address.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PDqIMvJXdY

[Keyser Soce]

They also made a transmission that said "the protest has started, there are about 15 of them outside city hall".

Although there was no police interaction, we were watched the entire time by two undercover cops. It would seem that they were briefed to expect us and not bother us. This presents a problem for activism since the goal is to get them to not harass anyone for open carrying, not to not harass us for open carrying because we're special or protesting or they were instructed not to.

In the future, I will not generally bother attending OC events that are publicized. I may try to put together an event where the next time we have two dozen oc'ers, we break up into groups of 3 and hit 8 completely different sections of town unannounced.

Those interested should pm me.