There are many other reasons why LTCers don't want a badge.TexasAggLTC wrote:Ok, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this. I know a lot of people when talking about LTC Badges jump to the conclusion that you would be arrested for “impersonating a police officer”, but I don’t understand that logic if you have a badge that clearly says “Texas LTC License”, or something to that nature, and only verbally refer to it as a “Texas License to carry a handgun”.
If you never use the words “police” or “Law Enforcement” when speaking about your badge, gun, or self, how can you be impersonating a police officer?
I would understand if you had a badge that said “Police” or you were wearing a shirt that said “Police” or you verbally said “Police”....
It seems that those who want a badge have settled on Open Carry as the reason why it would be a good idea. Ultimately the argument is that a badge would put the sheeple at ease when they see an openly carried handgun. Why? Because they correlate a badge to the Police.
I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the badge argument has been around long before Open Carry was legal in Texas. I can only assume that the argument for a badge before Open Carry was legal is effectively the same argument for why Open Carry is effective. In lieu of an openly carried handgun, a badge would indicate that the bearer of the badge is carrying a concealed handgun, thus not an easy target and an effective crime deterrent.
I don't know the laws or court rulings regarding impersonating an LEO, but I would not want to be mistaken for an LEO in an emergency situation. I can think of other ways to indicate my status as an armed citizen if I were so inclined, such as wearing NRA apparel. Though at this point in time I choose to carry concealed and to not indicate my armed status