There are things everyone ought to know not to do. Like, pull a gun on the cops. Doing that is generally an indicator you’re committing Suicide By Cop, or otherwise are tired of living. No help if it’s a toy gun: by the time the PC Plod figures it out, numerous new orifices in your epidermis will be letting air in, and blood out.

But this guy — the picture looks like a selfie, but it’s actually his mugshot — managed to run into a couple of York, Maine cops who were flying high on the spirit of Christian forbearance.

He, on the other hand, seems to have been flying high on other spirits entirely. Now, a splitting hangover is far from his only problem.

After York police on Saturday asked a Canadian man staying at a local hotel for his identification, he returned with a gun by his side, according to police.

Police didn’t immediately know it was a toy gun, according to Sgt. Steve Spofford.

Daniel E. Sears, 42, 2931 Park Lane SW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, is charged on a felony count of criminal threatening with a weapon, according to the police report.

Wait, what? Canadian? Aren’t they the ones who shake their head sadly at Yanks With Guns? Well, it takes all kinds to make a country.

The incident happened at the Atlantic House Inn in York Beach around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, according to the report.

Police went to the hotel because some women who were also staying there complained Sears was harassing them, according to police.

“The officers responded to disorderly conduct at the Atlantic House,” Spofford said.

This is one of the first hints that Sears had been hitting the Judgment Juice™. One thing that magical chemical elixir does, when it’s not turning run-of-the-mill Canadians into Mr Hyde, is make that same Mr Hyde cocksure that all the women within his bursting radius love him. Why, he can tell by the way they try to ignore him!

At first Sears appeared cooperative, he said. When the officers asked him for identification, he said he would get it.

“He returned with a gun, held at his side,” Spofford said.

via Intoxicated man with toy gun arrested in York, police say | SeacoastOnline.com.

This is the part where the cops had every right in the world to blast Sears to Kingdom Come, but instead they backed off, de-escalated, called for backup (you know, that one of the Rule for Gunfights that says, “bring friends with guns”?), and then asked him to come out, please, without the gun.

He did, and was taken into custody without further ado. The cops found two kids in the room, apparently Sears’s kids; family members are coming to take charge of them. Sears is in York County Jail for the time being.

We’d offer a thumbs down for Sears’s conduct, but we think he’s probably getting that from enough points of the compass already. We would like to note the professional, responsible (and, it turned out, correct) approach the York PD took to what turned out to be not all that routine a call. Sometimes the hardest correct call is not to shoot.