TexasCHLforum.com

I believe it has been posted before, both from me and other officers on the board, but there are multiple ways to get the information.

For example, in San Antonio, the city has even more databases than TxLobo has posted. They have a municipal court database that lists all of the tickets issued, with the cars the person was driving and the driver's information. They have a suspect database that lists all of the people reported as suspects in crimes, and the descriptions of the cars they were driving at the time. They have a gang member database, and a database of everyone who is on any police reports and the cars they were driving or owned.

And SAPD has written all of their own software. So, when a driver runs a plate, their software can check all of the databases at once. When the plate returns names from the various databases, it is easy to then run those names for warrants. And of course, the software combines the DL and warrant checks and gets a CHL return. I used to have a very good dispatcher there who would automatically do those checks for me even before some of it was automated as it is now.

So, the CHL is not tied to the registration but it may give the necessary information for the officer to get the DL/CHL returns.

Also, much more likely is that many officers have developed the habit of asking every person they stop if they are armed or have any weapons in the car. I always thought this was a useless question since the bad guys would not answer truthfully and I did not need to worry about the good guys. Not all officers agree with me or my definitions of good and bad guys (and I have to admit there are some good reasons for their arguments). So, some officers ask "do you have any guns with you?" and you may hear "are you carrying right now?" because you have a CHL.

I have several concerns about the government use of databases and our becoming a police state, but I also have to remember that my suspicions are nto always grounded in fact. Sometimes, it really is just coincidence. Sometimes it really is just a police department with a well developed computer system, And sometimes, it is the results of us hearing something slightly differently than what was asked.