Advertising with Bumper Stickers

A Florida man is claiming his First Amendment rights were violated after he was arrested Sunday for sporting an “I Eat Ass” sticker on his truck, which is apparently a violation of the state’s obscenity law.

I love to read the stickers and tags on peoples’ cars and trucks, but I did not write or read
this one. The only concern is, please be careful of advertising any thing on your vehicles.

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The family stickers always get me. Mom, Dad, Kids (boys/girls), pets.

Tell me what this says to you.
Newer Mini-van, low tread tires, with family stickers (Dad with hat, saluting and holding a rifle), Mom, Son (football player), Daughter (musician), baby, cat.
Real tree sticker, pink camouflage pattern seat and steering wheel covers, charging cords front and back, spare diaper bag, car garbage bag full of drive thru and take out trash, cup holders with drinks, two letter jackets with a lot of sports medals.
Bumper stickers: My teen is an honor student, go team with mascot of kids’ school.

Break it down. Dad serves, nothing to indicate he’s a veteran. Newer vehicle with low tread means a lot of miles are being put on it, that and all of the take out/fast food indicates they aren’t home much, extra diaper bag, letter jackets dripping in medals and stickers supporting teams confirm this.
Real tree and camo indicate the home probably has firearms, charging cords say plenty of electronic devices.
It’s not hard to figure out where a school district is, and as much as this family is running it won’t be hard to find this vehicle again. Follow it home once. Come back in the morning, kids are gone, Mom most likely is too. Does she have a babysitter or does she do daycare? If it’s daycare you have about 8 hours to cherry pick what you want from this house.

People share too much information. Plain and simple.

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@Spence, nice sherlocking :grin:
I’ve always flown low profile. That being said, I’ve still had both my car and my house burglarized. Since I’m now starting to teach CC, I decided to sticker up. Not going over the top, but being a teacher means increasing my visibility so I’m flying my flag.

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Good job here. I have one sticker and it is a Blue Line on the car. I wanted
to add the USCCA sticker onto it, but I put it on the front door with the
alarm systems permit license tag, instead. A sheriff office had to check it out
and asked, WHY? This is the house with the sticker. I have a ghost sticker from
USCCA that someone was nice to give me, that is the car’s.

Thank you,

William Smith

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It’s not sherlocking when you happen to know the family. Granted I’ve never been in their home, but the mom was rather surprised at how accurate I was.
She has since removed the stickers and makes sure to empty the teash more often.

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@Spence, Zee beat me to it. Felt very Sherlock to me!

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@Spence isn’t saying anything that isn’t obvious to anyone who pays attention to vehicles on a daily basis as I do while driving from state to state. I see so many advertising how many family members they have, kids school, ect and I just shake my head and hope they never have to deal with a break in since they can break in while they are home and already have all the information they need in the way if how many people are in the house ect…ect.

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I have been taught to not post the bad and the one sticker that may have directions
that you have weapons or belong to the bad clubs that do.

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Most people don’t think like that. Most people wouldn’t break in to someone elses home and steal from them either.

I like to read a large variety of subjects. For a time I was considering going in to Corrections. During that time I read a lot, studying what I could find about criminals. It was a massive eye opener. I spent a couple of months looking at all the information people put out unknowingly, drew conclusions and then, rather than victimize someone I would seek them out for conversation. You would be surprised how open people are when you tell them you’re conducting a study for extra credit on college assignments.

My last assignment during my corrections classes stuck with me. I was assigned the topic “Criminals and IQ.”

Most people know that IQ scores come from learning in schools and can go up or down as people learn or forget. What you might not know is there are 3 types of IQ to measure. Academic, verbal/social and the last is referred to as street smarts. I’m not going to break it down by race like I had to in my assignment, but I will say certain racial groups put less emphasis on academics and more on street smarts than others. Don’t underestimate street smarts.

You might not be able to debate scientific theory with a criminal, but if you listen, you can learn a whole lot. In essence, criminals, or at least burglars, do A LOT of “Sherlocking”.

Now that my lecture is done it’s homework time! Actually it’s not so much homework as it is an eye opener. Google improvised weapons by prisoners and look at the insane things they figure out how to make.

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Did my homework @Spence… pretty innovate and scary stuff.

I’m a fan of the fully functional crossbow McGuyvered in Russia. You have to wonder how that guy managed to sneak in enough resources to build one good enough to kill an Officer and take their weapon.

For the record I’m not a fan of him killing anyone, I’m just marveling at the ingenuity it took to build a functional crossbow and bolts from materials a prisoner has access to (in Russia that isn’t much either!)

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Everyone has and was educated very well and I respectfully say this. My concern is to
help with awareness that if someone that has their CCP/L and better have insurance,
( Better have some Insurance ) is ever in a shooting (Any Shooting ) and they have
used a firearm, when it comes to investigate that crime or self defense claim, and they
have posted any information that they’re in clubs, bad advertising on being armed, posters,
sticker on anything, home decorated with slogans’ and video, ETC………,

When it comes to the prosecution to research and investigate that person’s back ground in their
self defense case. Things can and may go badly for anyone that was involved with a firearm.

I am sorry for the misunderstandings. A USCCA Stricker got people asking questions, I hope their
questions got answered for the best. Thank You!

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I don’t sticker anything with gun related decals. For starters, Concealed means concealed; out of sight, out of mind. Second, people who do that to cars, trucks and SUVs are just giving a thief a reason to want to see if there is a gun in the vehicle to steal. It also gives them a reason to follow you in hopes you are going home so they now have a reason to break into your house for guns. Bad idea all of the way around. I am not against stickers and decals. Don’t get me wrong here. (I have Patriot Guard Rider decals on my motorcycle.) Just use some common sense about what you “advertise”, Criminals are always looking for a :sign" of what kinds of treasures they might be in store for when they do break in.

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Very true, @PGRSteve! I keep my curtains at home closed a lot because of that. And when they’re open, you usually see two rather large dogs in the window - so they’re a bit of a deterent.

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Thank you! I do not have decals or advertise that a firearm is in the car or do I show that
signs that I carry. I have 1 sticker and that is a USCCA insurance. I appreciate your help.

William Smith

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There’s a new blog post that discusses your idea of keeping your home uninteresting to criminals:

https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/blog/the-6-essential-parts-of-a-home-defense-plan/

and we’ve started talking about it here: Weekend Home Improvement Project: Reducing Curb Appeal?

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I have 2 membership logo decals on the vent window (back door window) drivers side and truthfully they’re very small been there for several years and not one person has ever commented or to my knowledge has ever seen them. One is a tiny NRA and the other is a tiny ISRA (IL State Rifle Ass’n) sticker. As in people who are always thinking people are watching them regarding their obsession with printing most people don’t pay attention to other people around them same as in what we have come to know as Condition White, same exact thing after observing people many years well before I ever had a concealed license. I really just think people make to much over it and unless you have a big 5”x 14” Bumper Stickers I don’t think you are even going to draw a head turn.

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Well, this coming Halloween, the entire state of Florida will not be able wall paper and decorate your HOME with Toilet Paper. Every store here has been emptied of this product and it will be impossible to rebuild the stock in time. Suggestions anyone.

Please keeping in mind our Color Codes that Col. Cooper gave us all and please know that you are very valuable to all of us. We need you and your family.

Situational Awareness: paying attention to what’s happening around you, not getting too tightly focused on things that distract your attention.

CODE: WHITE: oblivious to what is happening outside your focus

CODE YELLOW: paying attention to the environment and people not only in the immediate area but in the could-become-threat zone. Being aware of what options are available (exits, cover, etc)

CODE ORANGE: possible threat identified, time to prepare, evade, deescalate, make choices about what can be done

CODE RED: the bad situation is happening, time to act.