Green Eyed Monster Causes Ok2A's Don Spencer to Throw Gun Activist Under the Bus?
OK2A's leader Don Spencer is coming under attack for throwing a fellow Second Amendment activist under the bus. We wondered about the November statement put out by Spencer attacking fellow gun rights activist Tim Harper but assumed that Harper wasn't associated with OK2A or Don Spencer. Sure, every time that Harper was in the news doing an audit of Second Amendment rights there was Don Spencer backing him up but we assumed that the reporters were simply calling Spencer as a source and sound bite guy. It turns out that Spencer was intimately involved with what Tim Harper was doing....
Spencer himself has often done these audits. Now to make this clear, STP isn't convinced that this is an intelligent thing to do but if someone is willing to risk arrest and loss of their gun rights, they are acting as a Rosa Parks figure and have some measure of courage that we appreciate. You can listen to Don Spencer defend the practice, in fact he talks about his own experiences doing exactly what Tim Harper has been doing. Spencer has done these audits at The Gathering and October Fest in Tulsa.
Spencer even did an audit at the Oklahoma City Zoo after gathering a group of fellow activists, and who is to say carrying a gun into a zoo is much different than carrying into a restaurant.
Just a month prior to the Tim Harper OKC arrest Spencer was on KFAQ talking about preparing legal action against the City of Tulsa, River Parks Trush and plenty of cops and other officials. He had attended the October Fest despite knowing that they advertised and had signage up to the effect of no guns allowed. He was right of course, it was a violation of civil rights but the point is that it was a contentious event, Spencer claimed he was pushed around a bit by a cop.
Tim Harper has also been quite active doing Second Amendment audit. He did one in Edmond in April, got a lot of publicity, had a dozen cops show up and was asked if the would warn the Edmond PD in advance. Well, again, we wouldn't do these sort of things but it isn't required that he give advance notice of his right to bear arms, that is kind of the point of exposing the right to bear arms, stir up some controversy, get some cops riled up and on the news, and educate people of their rights.
Harper has some dings on his records, several VPO filings, nearly all of which though were dismissed and one thing men know these days that VPOs are weaponized against them, leading many young men in a generation to avoid even dating women. Tip for the young men out there, sleeping with crazy girls is exciting, don't ask me how I know, but it does cost you in the end. I suppose you see your father go through it and learn. Harper himself comes across in his videos as calm and purposeful might not be the brightest bulb in the box, but he isn't radical or dangerous in any way.
At a meeting with Edmond PD after that Edmond audit one news report stated that Don Spencer was at the meeting between Harper and the police, there to support Harper. Which is what he volunteered to do when he stepped up to leadership of a gun rights group. And at that meeting Spencer was quoted telling the reporters that Harper was within his rights to do the audit.
We know that on November 6th Don Spencer suddenly threw Harper under the bus, putting out the following statement:
“While we support a person’s right to keep and bear arms, we acknowledge the right may stop at the discretion of the private property business owner. Mr. Harper is NOT a member of OK2A and has never had any authority to use or represent OK2A at any time. His actions to draw attention to himself while escalating tensions for profit of a social media platform is uncalled for, unwise, and does not hold to the values of the Board of Directors of OK2A or the majority of Oklahomans. His claim to any such authority with OK2A is FALSE. The position of OK2A is that these audits are unwarranted unless there has been a previously established problem. While the state of Oklahoma continues to adjust to the new law of constitutional carry, we request gun owners and those who exercise this right to respect the concerns of business owners and the general public while adjusting to the return of this basic liberty.
Mr. Harper’s continued antics and disregard for private property rights, as well as his needless escalation of concerns and tensions with citizens and law enforcement, continue to draw a negative response to the protection of our rights to keep and bear arms,"
The statement also was reported as stating that Tim Harper was permanently banned from OK2A membership. Now generally one would not do such a thing to a fellow activist, one would remain quiet or simply announce no affiliation. There was a stronger message to the same effect, perhaps a clarification a week or so later.
The trigger was the November 2nd visit by Harper to Twin Peaks in Oklahoma City. Harper carried a long gun into the restaurant, an AR rifle which while legally not classified as a pistol because it is 1/4” longer than allowed, also looks a lot like a scary black rifle to the average person. Management wasn't upset, the claim is that Harper posed with the manager during the visit and the discussed what he was doing nor did he stay for long. Where it blew up is when videos were posted on social media. Suddenly the restaurant was worried about their image with the liberals and allegedly a handful of citizens called in, of course Harper was long gone, having been invited to enter the restaurant but had been stopped at shortly after and asked to go sit outside to be served or go put his rifle away.
Four days later OK2A's leader Don Spencer throws Harper under the bus, and David Prater filed the charges on the 15th of November. Spencer for his part has bragged about his contacts with Ok County Prosecutor David Prater which makes a lot of people ask questions.
Yet all along we like most have assumed that Spencer and Harper were not coordinating on these audits, yet we have credible sources saying that Don Spencer was in constant contact with Harper advising him on the new law right up to the day that Harper walked into the Twin Peaks restaurant. What we are being told is that Harper depended upon Spencer's advice that a restaurant with less than 51% alcohol sales was legal to carry in. Twin Peaks management posted on Facebook that they had a 48% booze to 52% food ratio, well below the threshold. Spencer appears to still claim that what Harper did while unadvisable was not a crime. You wonder if Harper is in trouble because he thought he was dealing with an expert on Oklahoma law. One source claimed that Spencer asked Harper to stop doing the audits yet they referenced the incident at the black church that happened AFTER the incident at the Twin Peaks restaurant. We do know that Don Spencer threw Harper a bit more under the bus on the 15th of November in this video.
Harper is under a gag order, cannot speak or defend himself on social media or with the media, among other restrictions. But his friends are speaking out and Don Spencer is looking like a real traitor to the Second Amendment to a lot of people. Now we don't know that Spencer has any proof that he wasn't advising Harper or was in fact telling him to stop the audits but it hard to believe that was the case being that he showed up at the Edmond PD meeting and was constantly in the news defending Harper.
And the law itself, Harper is charged under a scatter gun list of statutes, Title 21 1272 to 1289.28. 1272.1 lists the right of a concealed or open carry pistol (his AR would be legally classified as a pistol if it was 1/4” shorter) as long as they are licensed under the Self Defense act, which might well be moot after November 1st 2019 and the Open Carry law went into effect. As for the exact statute that Harper is charged under, no one is saying. Section 1272.2 talks about firearms in places that sell low point beer or other alcohol where the majority of the sales is not liquor and there exceptions carved out for cops, the owner of the establishment, and for those possessing a self defense permit which Harper had and was carrying. As far as we could find there has never been a case litigated that says a long rifle is banned from low point beer locations and the statute is mute other than mentioning the owner can keep such weapons.
This is classic Prater, charge overly broad, ask for massive bond, make sure the defendant cannot defend himself, all for political reasons, i.e., pushing back against Open Carry. For Spencer's part, some people say that Harper was doing well with his Youtube channel and perhaps Spencer looked at Harper as competition.
Another very troubling part of this is that U.S. Law Shield refused to pay the bond, refused to represent Harper after taking his premiums including his friends say, an additional premium for bail bond should he be arrested while exercising his constitutional rights. One source claimed that it wasn't covered because Harper was causing trouble but it seems this is insurance and if I was a customer of U.S. Law Shield I would re read the contract very carefully. I mean you assume that you would be arrested for a crime if you need the coverage, no different than the pharmacist shooting long ago. Someone needs to take this to the Insurance Commission and see if Harper is being cheated.
