One of the problems with the laws is that not everyone in the legislature agrees on what should be in it. So, when we try to get things passed, we make compromises. Then we go back later and try to work on what we gave up and get it back in. This happens on any controversial issue that people are really passionate about, not just guns.TxBlonde wrote:Then why was I told we con not... They really need need make these laws to where they talk backwards and inside out... To many lawyers in this. IT needs to be more clear
So, what happened is that to get CHL laws passed at all (from 1877 to 1995, there was no way for the average person in Texas to carry a pistol legally in day-to-day life), we compromised and put in some places where the law would not apply. A couple years later, we went in and got the 30.06 sign requirement for general use. A few years after that, we were able to go back and get some places made legal that had been forbidden. But to get that through, the tactics required us not to just repeal the section (which would have been clear) but we got a requirement that the sign be posted.
Now, the downside to this is that there is a bad side effect to it. The same set of facts now makes the person who violates the law guilty of two different misdemeanors at the same time. You can be charged with both criminal trespass by a license holder and unlawfully carrying in a prohibit place. I don't know if this added penalty helped make it more palatable to the legislators who were borderline on the issue and voted for this change or not, or if it was just the tactics used, or maybe even a sense of fairness (it only seems fair to require notices to make the place off-limits to me), but that is why the law gets so confusing sometimes. That old saw about not watching laws or sausage being made holds true for even reading the laws and understanding them.
As to cops not knowing the law, I would give them almost two years before I really held them up as a problem. Cops go to training on a four year cycle (two two-year training units but the class is only required once every four years). Small departments need to find classes at regional academies, which do not teach the law every week, or sometimes even every month. Larger departments teach their own, but it takes a while to cycle the whole department through training. While the class is only required once every four years, I think most departments try to get their officers trained on legal changes every two years, knowing the way our legislature is set up. The very best departments put out bulletins with legal changes to their officers as quickly after Sep. 1 as they can, and the very best cops read them and study them. But the last time I did it, the bulletin was about 35 pages long and only covered the Penal Code, the Transportation Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, and a few very specific selections of other laws (I took a copy of the old Gould's law book for officers and comapred it to the new one line by line - a very tedious process). So, I can see how a cop could be getting his update on the session two years ago even as late as this July, after the current session has ended with its changes coming. In my mind, there is no real excuse for taking four years though.