Ohioans For Concealed Carry Discussion Forums

Fright Night is a yearly even held on the streets of downtown Dayton. very much like a festival in any city. I went there tonight and at the entrance are signs that say, No weapons or a fake weapon as part of a costume. Plenty of police at the entrance to enforce this 'rule'. If you go as Darth Vader and have a fake light saber sword, they will not let you on the streets unless you relinquish the fake saber sword. How is this even remotely legal on the city streets??

Until light sabers become actual weapons, how is it even a fake weapon?

This has been discussed before, for sure at the Open Carry Dot Org forums. Maybe here as well. I think they powers that be have mostly refused to reply to inquiries about the legality of what they're doing. And since statewide preemption has no enforcement "teeth", no organization has squared off to take them on.

Does anyone have a link to the event page/website?

Is this the thing where admission is charged? If so, I think someone started working on it last year or the year before, then didn't pursue it further.

BB62 wrote:Is this the thing where admission is charged? If so, I think someone started working on it last year or the year before, then didn't pursue it further.

Yeah I think that's the one. If this was in your and my 'backyard' I expect there would have been some cowboy (hat) diplomacy engaged in by now, if we'd have been stonewalled by conventional efforts in, ahem, polite government channels.

Now on the other hand, sort of...this week marked the first time in many years I've attended one of these haunted house attractions. They seem to largely be prominently posted against carry of any sort of defensive tools. Since the one I went to was in Kentucky where such signs don't in and of themselves have the weight of law, I carried anyhow. The performers really do their best to frighten EVERYBODY, it's what most attendees are paying for. Guess what you could say I did was to turn down my normal "color code of awareness" sensitivity somewhat in order to play along.

While the friends who talked me into going along were greatly entertained, it didn't do much for me one way or another, and the group seemed a little bummed out about my lack of reaction. They blamed it on my fire/EMS job being "Way more frightening". That's not particularly true. Anyhow, the only part of these haunted attractions that goes against my grain is some of the performers feel obligated to make physical contact with as many patrons as possible. One lady ghoul was so grabby that I held her long enough to land a big smooch on her. Think she was quite lovely under that makeup, in any event she didn't want to play anymore.

Somewhere in this I'm trying to make the point that these haunted houses MAY be a good occasion to leave the gun behind. They really are doing their best to scare the bejeebus out of everybody. On the other hand I wouldn't have liked the pitch dark walk back to my vehicle afterwards without having my (ghost) blaster along.