Hope the title follows as best as I can describe. It has to do with leaving an off-limits place and going from deep concealment to open carry or sloppy concealed. For instance, with the Georgia Tech students. Say a student keeps a gun in their backpack throughout the day, and they commute in ways other than a car, if they leave campus entirely, and were to pull their gun out of their bag and put it in their holster. Could there be any probable cause, or arrestable evidence if a police officer spots someone walking away from campus, while armed? I would think the only way you could be found guilty of carrying on school grounds is if you're seen leaving campus, removing your gun from your backpack, and arming yourself, or you admit to coming from school. If the officer only sees you armed and walking away from campus with your school supplies, there can only be speculation, as no one saw you armed while in the off-limits area, correct?
What you tell the police after a defensive gun use is, "I was in fear for my life. I want to talk to my lawyer before answering any further questions." Then zip your lips and call your lawyer and follow his advice.
I figured keeping the conversation as short as possible is best, but I mean in terms of no defense encounter. Just simply carrying in the event that an encounter happens outside of campus but before you can get to your housing or "safe place."
You are not obligated to incriminate yourself. AIFTG followed by either leaving or depending upon the officers answer. Don't lie of course. Looks bad if the officer is watching you walk out of the crack house with a pipe up to your lips and he stops you 100 yards later down the sidewalk and asks where you are coming from and you say "from my mom's house". Unless you mom owns the crack house of course.
Confed. TYrant, I think you have it right. It really depends on what the cops learned about you and your travel plans, or what they observed, or what other members of your party tell them. The cops might not have more than a "hunch" that you carried your gun unlawfully on campus earlier today. But they cannot detain you, much less arrest you, on a hunch. With more information or a stronger link between you and the gun and the school that day, the cops might have Reasonable Articulable Suspicion to detain you temporarily. They might ask if they could search you--not just for the weapon(s) but for other evidence showing you and that book bag were recently in school. They might detain you briefly for a "show-up" where they ask other witnesses if anybody saw you with that bag on campus a few minutes ago. Or they might have probable cause to arrest you. Variation of your own example: Cops see you ON campus property wearing a backpack. They see you walk off campus property. A few minutes later they see you on the same road, but farther down the block, and now you're openly carrying a gun. The cops didn't see you interact with anybody or step into any building or vehicle. It's reasonable for them to assume you had the gun with you all along. They can arrest you, and that puts the burden on YOU to come up with another explanation for where that gun came from.
This is what I was wanting to know. Though if the cops are watching you the entire time, I'd agree that they have enough suspicion. But if they only see you every 5-10 minutes (enough time to interact with different people and places) and you look different each time, could they really gain suspicion to arrest?
"Officer Friendly, will you tell the Court why you arrested my client?" "Yes, Sir. We saw him on campus at 2:00PM and then later at 2:15 when he was off campus. He had a firearm in his hand at 2:15,so we arrested him for being in possession of a firearm on campus at 1:30." "Officer Friendly, did you ever lose sight of the accused between 2:00 and 2:15?" "No, Sir, we had our eye on him the entire time except for the fifteen minutes between 2 and 2:15" "Officer Friendly, were there any cars, buildings or people within a fifteen minute walk outside of the campus?" "...ummm...Would you believe there's a 1-mile dead zone around campus where it's been cleared down to bedrock with no buildings, cars or pedestrians allowed?" "I don't believe you." "Would you believe there's a 100 yard wide minefield with guard towers every 100 feet along the perimeter?" "No." "Would you believe a blind organ grinder and a rabid monkey?" "No, I wouldn't. Can you come up with a better explanation?" " .... Sure, I like a challenge -"