TexasCHLforum.com

Almost every topic I read through that asks "can i carry in blah, blah, blah..." someone or multiple people chime in and say those three magic words..."concealed means concealed." Please correct me if I'm wrong but I'm taking this to mean even if the place is posted with the correct sign verbiage, go ahead and carry anyway? The idea being that if your firearm is concealed no one will know that you're carrying anyway and so forth?

Well, what happens if you do get "outed" or worse case scenario you actually need to use your weapon in a defensive scenario? What then?

Please correct me if I'm taking "concealed means concealed" in the wrong way


good day

If a place is validly posted with a 30.06 sign OR you've been specifically told not to carry there by an owner / manager / rep OR you've received 30.06 in writing OR it is a 51% establishment OR is specifically forbidden in the concealed carry statutes OR is a Federal building OR if you're intoxicated. . .

DO NOT CARRY!

I would not carry in prohibited places - and I wouldn't suggest anyone here advocate it.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:4. No posting of messages promoting illegal conduct.

glock27 wrote:I carry everywhere. If im not supposed to and I need to use my weapon then ill deal with them consequences later. But ill be alive to deal with them... not a dead fish cause I wanted to follow a silly posting on a door.i

Well, hopefully your message above will not be used against you in court...

"Concealed is concealed" is generally reserved for times when a building has a blatantly non-compliant 30.06 sign, unenforceable "no-gun" signs or cards, or is a city / county / state government building that is not allowed to post the 30.06 sign. Also, places like some churches that may frown on carrying a gun, but seeking permission isn't wise because you risk getting legal notice if they say, "No."

I'm a noob at this, but I have gleaned from the wiser folks on this forum, that when you carry beyond an illegal 30.06 or gun buster sign, that you keep quiet and do not debate with the establishemnt, and do not let anyone know you are carrying, since some folks might not know the law, and might report you. i.e, how would they know you are ignoring their sign, if concealed means concealed.

I read that CHLers are 20 times less likely to commit a criminal act, but the most numerous offense for CHLers is 1) illegal carry (Dallas Morning News article). It's not worth it to me to intentionally pass a valid 30.06 just to flaunt 2A rights.

I think it's a pretty easy equation. A felony means no gun rights, federally. Carrying where you legally can't can be a felony, depending on which one you break exactly, and I'm not going to bother trying to remember which ones are felonies, and which ones aren't - I'm just going to remember where I'm not supposed to carry, and not carry in those places. (That's *a* reason to not do it - but personally I wouldn't do it even if they were all just class C misdemeanors. That's just how I am).

Simple, easy and fun!

oohrah wrote:I'm a noob at this, but I have gleaned from the wiser folks on this forum, that when you carry beyond an illegal 30.06 or gun buster sign, that you keep quiet and do not debate with the establishment, and do not let anyone know you are carrying, since some folks might not know the law, and might report you. i.e, how would they know you are ignoring their sign, if concealed means concealed.

That's how I take it too. If you want to carry and you think you're legal, carry away. If it's concealed, you're not getting in any trouble.

Exercising your 2nd amendment rights is best done in another manner. Hopefully with lots of cameras backing your legal right to carry.

Every man has to decide for himself if he thinks state law overrides the Bill of Rights.

Cletus wrote:Every man has to decide for himself if he thinks state law overrides the Bill of Rights.

I'm pretty sure that the 2nd amendment wasn't meant to be limited as Texas has limited it. Certainly not as Illinois has limited it.
Regardless, the decision to ignore state laws in regard to where you can legally carry is an entirely different decision that is fraught with personal peril.

IMHO, the founding fathers granted the 2nd amendment as a way for the masses to be able to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. No way they could see more than 200 years into the future.
Having a gun, or even lots and lots of guns, hardly protects us from the types of intrusions that our Federal government is involved in. Nor does it provide us enough military might to stand up to a country with modern weapons. The US government doesn't kill most people gun to gun anymore.. They do it from thousands of miles away on a computer screen. Still.. I'm glad we have that 2nd amendment, even if it's shrunken.

As a country we need to decide if we're going accept a bit of risk or if we're willing to give up many freedoms in exchange for risk reduction. Right now, we're busy giving up freedoms. You don't get both...

glock27 wrote:I would carry everywhere imho. If im not supposed to and I need to use my weapon then ill deal with them consequences later. But ill be alive to deal with them... not a dead fish cause I wanted to follow a silly posting on a door.



Edited to avoid rule violation

The problem with that is that if you're caught in a "not needed" situation and carrying illegally, you've committed a crime and bye-bye CHL.

glock27 wrote:I would carry everywhere imho. If im not supposed to and I need to use my weapon then ill deal with them consequences later. But ill be alive to deal with them... not a dead fish cause I wanted to follow a silly posting on a door.

Curious, why get a CHL in the first place?

Just off the top of your head - what do you think has a better chance of happening: You get spotted with a firearm? You run into a situation where you need to use a firearm?

A couple of thoughts here:

My 2A rights don't trump someone else's private property rights. If they want to post a 30.06, I'll go elsewhere to spend my money, etc. Getting a court to rule that a 51% sign and the like (other prohibited places, like schools) is some kind of rights violation is a good long stretch, too - and if a court won't rule it, whether I personally think it's a violation of my rights doesn't matter, really, with respect to the consequences.

The other thing to consider is, there's more than one way to skin a cat, and while I consider needing a license to begin with an issue, in the same sense that I don't need a license to buy some web hosting and put whatever speech I want out there - the law in Texas has changed a lot in the last decade or two, and I personally would not want to be part of turning that the other way around in the minds of the public by potentially being a publicized-by-the-media case of 'irresponsible gun owner' - even if that happening to *just* me might not have all that large of an effect. Of course, different conditions may mean different actions. But I don't think gun rights are in a position for something like a 'gun rights Rosa Parks', because "guns are scary". I just read in another thread, someone state that if there were a news article about someone being arrested with a gun in city hall, even if it's someone who was carrying and wasn't breaking the law (due to the 30.06(e) exception), people aren't going to think 'oh, a CHL holder, and the city is in the wrong' when they hear that. I think that's pretty much true - people are going to hear 'gun, arrest, city hall' and think 'scary bad man'. Now put that in a context where the law was actually broken, and think about it.

I basically agree that everyone has the right to decide if they thinks state law overrides the Bill of Rights, but like anything, there's responsibility that comes with that, and consequences - not just for the individual, but for others. There's also a lot of people who would be wrong in that decision (I figure you can ask any cop who gets a "I have rights" speech in a situation where the officer is clearly doing something that's *not* a rights violation about that).

Anyway, just a few thoughts I had. Like I said before, I wouldn't break the law re. prohibited places, nor a license being required, personally.