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Baytown wrote:Good points all, though grey areas and officer discretion are good things.

Now, what we need in order to have all this non-sense stop to increase the the criteria for travelling.

If, for instnace you have been convicted of any sort of Misd A or B in the last 5 or 10 years, it would disqualify. That would cover car burglars, dope smokers, etc...

I fear that if a thug is the test case, the courts will rule against our side and we lose ground. Why would anyone care if a thug/thug can not carry a gun in his car, but you still can.

Honest, law abiding people, have little to fear.

Glenn

I hope you didn't think I was not agreeing with you Baytown...

I am with you on those points, totally...

I wish there was a way to cut and paste your suggestions in a letter and get them to someone who could incorporate them into quantifiable action in the next session...

Maybe someone already has, but I am not sure if these dangling participles will ever be truely resolved and all the ambiguity removed from all of this...

For what its worth, I believe the people who are at a disadvantage the most, are people like you in Law Enforcement...

Even the most "over-zealous" are more than likely just a product of the ambiguities of "bad law"...So I can't, and really won't throw big rocks at them for being that way...

I guess I feel 2007 is going to be at best a "clean-up" session in regards to CHL issues...Which may turn out to be good for everyone, we can only hope...

Baytown...

If I were to speculate...

I believe the law, as written, was not all that hard to understand and to enforce...

I think the DA's in this case complicated the issue (for whatever reason) and made it more difficult and dangerous for Law Enforcement in those jurisdictions...

I believe this law is a stepping stone to something that is going to have to happen in the next session...

For the time being, we will probably have to tolerate this effort by the DA's in question and their usurping legislative intent till we can get the terms defined, or we can take our grievances to the polls...

HB 823 in my opinion was an interesting test...But had very little impact on us as CHL holders...Other than giving a little heartburn to know that there are certain elected officials out there who have defined thamselves rather bluntly on the issue...

This is the big issue we we're talking to some folks with this last weekend up in Dallas...

The question you should ask your DA, or for that matter a DA candidate...

"Do you believe in enforcing legislative intent, or if you feel the law is too ambiguous, ignore the law, and instruct Law Enforcement in your jurisdiction to do the opposite?"

As a followup, or clarification statement:

"In regards to how the DA's in Harris, Dallas, Bexar, Travis counties are conducting an aggressive prosecution of UCW's, even though HB 823 which was signed into law and is in effect now, allows unlicensed (non-CHL'ers) to carry a gun in their vehicles while "traveling"...Is the intent of that law not clear?"

"Why would these large metropolitan DA's be doing the opposite, and making zero effort to publically, or privately, ask for direction or clarification from the legislature, or the State of Texas's Attorney Generals office???"

I think it is imperative that we go to our candidates meetings in our area, (before the primaries) and ask these kinds of questions of them...Get them on record, and get that information to the TSRA legislative and legal representatives, either way they go on this issue...