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C-dub wrote:I'm still curious why you thought being in or out of a vehicle made a difference on the requirement to notify since you were actually carrying. I thought you were going to say that you didn't notify because the gun was in the car and upon entering to retrieve your insurance you would then be within reach of your gun.

I guess since I've had numerous encounters while outside my vehicle....such as my car being broken down on the shoulder, or pulled off from some country road to take photos, etc, and no request was made for ID, and in this instance it felt more like one of those encounters than a traffic stop, I reacted literally.

As an aside, while I don't mind informing an officer that I'm armed, it really doesn't make a lot of sense to me, since anyone with criminal intent isn't going to admit being armed.

gigag04 wrote:Bet if you get it fixed the ticket gets dropped.

That's what he indicated. It expired in August and I tend not to notice things like that so I didn't realize it had expired. I got the sense that if it had expired in say, October, he wouldn't have given me a ticket. I'm not complaining about the ticket btw, I had it coming. He was very professional and polite --struck me as a fine officer.

RKirkwood wrote:I thought we had to hand him our CHL with the ID regardless of being in the car or not.

That's what I was thinking afterwards. Fortunately, the delay apparently didn't bother him.

Got out of my car at a convenience store and hearing someone call out turned to find a DPS officer out of his vehicle calling me over. We approached each other and he told me he stopped me because my inspection sticker is expired. He asked for my DL and because I was not in a vehicle I only handed him my DL. Then he asked for my insurance which meant I had to bet back into the car. At this point I said, before I do, you might want to look at this, and handed him my CHL. He asked me where my gun was and I told him on my right hip. He told me he appreciated letting him know I was armed. I got the insurance from the car and he checked it, then went to write out a ticket. I waited outside my vehicle. He thanked me two more times for letting him know I was armed. He was very professional and courteous throughout.

In retrospect I'm thinking that I should have just handed him both DL and CHL even though I wasn't in a vehicle. Although it didn't lead to any problems in this case I can see where with a less understanding officer, it might have.