flintknapper wrote: ...Here is the bottom line folks: Unless you want this to become either departmental or personal "policy" among LEO, then take the time to go the officer's superior and talk with him. Until we make every officer articulate why he disarmed the CHL, it will not stop!
yerasimos wrote: ... but I also see Flintknapper's point about CHLicensees making a collective, principled stand when firearms are seized for capricious purposes...
Regardless the the details of the nedmoore's experience, these are excellent points.
[STAND BACK: RANT APPROACHING!]
One of the big failings of the conservative/small gummint/libertarian wing of the country is follow through at all levels of government. This is where the Left excels, and why they are running the government (regardless of who is president) -- they EARNED it through sheer hard work. Conservative win an election or a court ruling and the average Joe stops thinking about it because he has a job and hates thinking about the government anyway, and goes shooting on the weekend. The Left wins a biggie, and immediately starts filing lawsuits and complaints and working on regulations and getting their people hired on to implement the regulations. Even if most of the lawsuits and complaints don't "win," it starts moving people in the desired direction just to keep from having to deal with the nuisance.
The I understand the wisdom of husbanding resources for big precedential cases, and focusing efforts on top level places like legislatures, like TSRA and the NRA do, but it is not enough. There have to be many followup actions, including administrative, legal (lawsuit) actions, and staffing of governments and schools with the right people, to make sure the precedents philosophies are followed at ALL levels.
In this case, taking it at face value, it might be that this cop -- and perhaps the HPD -- do not really respect he CHL law and CHL'ers in particular, and use the cover of the "safety of the officer" clause to make life uncomfortable for a CHL holder. Another example might the Round Rock PD and their apparently bogus "intentionllay failed to conceal" arrest and detention of {name escapes my mind right now}. It costs them nothing to do this -- they have the backing of their departments, legal powers, official immunity, they get paid for it, there is really no one to call them on incidents like these. However, if every time this happened, the police chief and the city manager and the council got 50 calls and letters, a threatened or actual lawsuit, publicity in the news paper and on the big name blogs, etc, they will start trying to figure out how not to attract such attention. Squeaky wheels get the grease. (Sudden thought: Another area of pushback might the the "banning of CHL carry on Texas government property by private leasing entities" like the American Airlines Center in Dallas.)
nedmoore complaining by himself might not budge a knotheaded police department/chief much, but a coordinated, consistent, and continuous pushback on all aspects of the CHL law, and more broadly, the 2A, would. TSRA might think such confrontations would jeopardize its relationships with LE and other branches of government, so maybe this would take a separate organization.
