KBCraig wrote:That shouldn't be "weird", it should be standard procedure.jguzman75 wrote:This was a pretty good stop minus the ticket but what I thought was weird is he never asked where my weapon was...
In my three interactions with police where I have had to present ID, I have never been asked where my pistol was. Unless the officer has cause to disarm a CHLer, I don't really think it needs to be brought up, though I don't have any specific opposition to an officer asking.
Granted, two of these were instances where I called them out, one regarding a fight in the courtyard of my apartment complex and one regarding a suspicious person propositioning me for sex acts in the middle of the night in the parking lot of my workplace. Both of those instances were with Austin Police, and they never asked the location of my firearm. They did have an odd way of asking if I was carrying: "you don't have your gun on you, do you?", to which I responded that I did, and was asked not to reach for it and keep my hands visible. Both of these times were several months apart, in completely different parts of town, which makes me wonder if this is a standard way APD asks if a CHLer is armed.
The other time I was pulled over on my way to work by DPS near the Capitol building, shortly after the timing of the lights had been changed on that particular street. You used to be able to hit all green for more than a dozen blocks once you hit one, then one day the timing of the lights was changed so that in the middle, you were about 4 seconds short of making it through a single light. After several days of this, I tried accelerating more quickly off of a light 2 lights up to try and make the changed light, and ended up going about 8mph over (43 in a 35 for a very short period of time) due to the momentum of my acceleration. Anyone who has ridden in a car with me knows that I never speed and keep a continuous eye on the speedometer, so this was a very rare (and unintentional) event, but DPS is nearly always there monitoring traffic, so I got pulled over. I presented my DL, CHL, and insurance which she took, and asked me "do you have your gun with you?", to which I responded that I did. Nothing was said about my pistol beyond that. I was asked the standard questions of where I was coming from and going, which I answered. She informed me that she pulled me over for going 50 in a 35, to which I gave her a bewildered look and refuted that figure in the most non-confrontational manner possible. She took my info back to the car and had her partner stand at the front of my car while she ran me through the computer (and throughout the entire stop). She returned and amended her story that she had to go 50 to catch up to me, which is where the 50mph figure had come from. My guess is that she never got a solid clock on me, as I slowed down immediately as soon as I realized I was speeding. All throughout, APD cars (I recall 5 or 6 doing this) stopped and offered backup assistance, but were waved on. Considering that the vehicle I was driving at the time did not have the most "upstanding citizen" appearance and that the stop happened at night, It was an overwhelmingly positive experience and was handled in a very professional and controlled manner, which is true of all of my interactions with DPS to date. I believe it likely that the CHL offered a testament to my character that would not have otherwise been perceived in a similar situation, given my appearance and that of my vehicle at the time. At the end of the stop, I was given a warning, asked to slow down, and thanked for my courtesy.