guns in public

[maj_barnes]

Ever heard of the North Hollywood shootout?

[Bodysnatcher]

Guns in public without covering your a*** is just asking for trouble in ANY country. some counties have a shoot on sight policy where as others are prepared to wait but remember they dont carry weqponry for nothing. weapon carrige without proper authority or clearence results in big problems, (being shot is the easy bit! its not being shot, court cases, prison etc). as a profesional required to (occasionaly) carry a firearm in UK I still have to register my firearm with the local Police station of the town I am in on a daily basis, I have to carry paperwork to explain if I set off any alarms and more than once has a member of the public been a 'have-a-go-hero' type. (they are the worse ones, because you react to them differently)
Bottom line: dont do guns in public without legal and correct procedures in place 100%, signatures of all key people that you speak with and make sure every angle is covered, and even then double and triple check, and don't try and be smart and wear a balalclava!

[Epsilon]

Ever heard of the North Hollywood shootout?

Or how about the LA riots!

[ALove]

My Horror Story:
We were shooting a movie in town, and my friends told me they called the cops to let them know what we were doing. I had already done something like this with our PD before, and they only wanted to help out. But they actually didnt. So, once the last shot is in the camera, I say "Ok, lets head back to your place to watch it," and the sherrifs department comes flying across the highway with his gun out, telling us to drop our weapons and put our hands on our head. Well, I'm holding a camera, but I set my "gun" down anyways. We had to stand with our hands on our heads for about half an hour (one of my friend's girlfriend happens to drive by while we're all standing there). About 7 cars are here now. So they search our car, loaded with fake guns, all with illegally modified orange tips. They call us every name in the book like "silly billy kids" and "f*** stupid." After chastising us, they actually gave the guns back and let us continue home. Lesson: Call the PD yourself.

[Epsilon]

You are lucky it was the Sherrif's department... Police probably would have just taken all of you out at first chance! If that'd happened, the next day's paper would have probably also mentioned a large cache of assault weapons were confiscated and the young gang members shot in self defense, after they open firing on officials!

[ALove]

Well afterwords we came to the conclusion that the guy who stopped us was a rookie. All the other cops were kind of laughing behind his back.

[britishbulldog]

ok latest news

i didnt listen to any of your advice and.......

while i was filming today some old biddy called the police and we had an armed response unit (three vans) and a police car with loads of machine gun wielding police men and dogs and to cap it all off a police helicopter luckily they just gave us a talk and let us keep all the weapons etc but it just goes to show, dont ever think it wont happen to you (like me)

[UFProductions]

Good to hear you're all okay, ought to serve as a pretty good reminder to everyone here.

[OutcastJiob]

"I told you so."

[DEDFX]

Wow, the majority of your guys actually did get the police called on. I guess I'll call next time, hope they don't want to arrange a meeting and want us to pay for papers n stuff.

[Bodysnatcher]

guess I'll call next time, hope they don't want to arrange a meeting and want us to pay for papers n stuff.

trust me, it will make it all the more worthwhile in the long run and besides, if it all goes with out a hitch and no problems , then if you have to ask another time they will be more approachable? rather than have to explain that you were the ones that cost tax payers a fortune for no reason (if you know what I mean?) and would it be ok to wave some guns around a deserted parking lot for half an hour?

[NPMAX]

Always get the OK for the guns in public, I'll tell you this though it does not relate to film making, I had one of those lighters that looked like 1911, and was playing with it. The cops were ready to shoot first on that. I also pulled an Airsoft painted on a cop friend i was drinking with he told me if he was on duty and I had been someone else from the 5ft away i would have been deaad. HI told him before hand about it and all.

[Raptor]

Since this thread was already necro'd. don't think that all the movie accessories siting around will be a tip off tot he cops, they are on a weapons call, their entire focus is on people with weapons, the other stuff won't even be noticed. I hate nothing more than going out to shoot for the news on a weapons call, the cops are already jumpy, there may be more weapons floating around, it's usually dark... not a good mixture..

[JackBauerII]

Why not find an empty street and fill it with extras? A busy street can be created easily.

[ZombieKrieg2005]

But you have to find the extras, which means either paying, or more likely getting a street full of 13-16 year olds, the only ones who will do it for minimum pay. On top of this an effort like that is more likely to attract public attention and thereford police attention. It is illegal to film (in england anyway, dont know about usa) in public without public liability. The police tend to overlook this in the case of amateur filming but when you have 40 extras it starts appearing (from the outside anyway) to be more proffessional.

It is so much simpler to write a letter to the police station about your shoot and then phone them up a couple of days before. On the actual shoot make A3 signs stating that it is a film shoot and put them round the limit of the shoot. The director/cameraman and any other crew should have a photocopied reply from the police so if there is any trouble and you get blamed, whip it out and prove that the force knew.