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New member in the DFW area. Recently moved to the DFW area. I was wondering how some of the DFW members who have a CHL have been treated on here. Im from a small town where having a CHL was basically a get out of jail free card. I enjoyed having that freedom. LEOs were alot more forgiving whenever you handed over the CHL and they knew you were a law abiding citizen. I heard that in the DFW area that cops arent so nice though. Anyone on here have any experience? I went from carrying everyday to carrying pretty sparingly because I havent got a good survey of the area yet. Any help would be appreciated.

Ty

TyHoe wrote:New member in the DFW area. Recently moved to the DFW area. I was wondering how some of the DFW members who have a CHL have been treated on here. Im from a small town where having a CHL was basically a get out of jail free card. I enjoyed having that freedom. LEOs were alot more forgiving whenever you handed over the CHL and they knew you were a law abiding citizen. I heard that in the DFW area that cops arent so nice though. Anyone on here have any experience? I went from carrying everyday to carrying pretty sparingly because I havent got a good survey of the area yet. Any help would be appreciated.

Ty

WELCOME! I live in the DFW area, and in the two years I've been a member of this forum, I do not recall any negative contacts posted concerning LEOs in this area.

Welcome to the forum Ty.

Welcome to the Forum. I doubt that DFW is different than any large metro area reagrding PD treatment of CHL's. There are myriad opinions among the force, I wager the overwhelming majority favorably view CHL holders. It's just human nature to dwell on the negative but that's is no indictation of a general trend. Ther are positive reports as well but they rarely make the headlines. In any case I wouldn't expect a "get out of jail free" treatment with any encounter anywhere.

Welcome to the forum, TyHoe.

I moved your post to the "General Texas CHL Discussion" area. It is a more appropriate fit here, and you will get a better response to your question.

Fist off, welcome to the forum.

And, while I don't know what small town you are from, but a CHL should NOT be treated as a 'get out of jail free card, and a CHL holder should NOT expect it to give them any additional privileges other than allowing them to carry a concealed handgun for protection. While I do appreciate those LEO's that understand our right to carry and support the CHL process, it should not make one bit of difference in how they handle you on an infraction of the law.

As to the Dallas and the other agencies in the Metroplex, they are like any large departments; you will find it runs from those who strongly approve of CHL'ers all the way down to and those who are totally against it. The more officers you have, the more chance you will have of that wide spectrum being in play.

Bottom line, don't do anything wrong to get stopped and you should have no problem. If you do get stopped, be courteous, follow the LEO's requests, and if you get one that treats you poorly because of your CHL, then you can file a complaint with the department AFTER the stop. Arguing with an officer during a traffic stop, whether the officer is wrong or not, is NOT the way to get drive away from the event happy.

Well said Keith B

Keith B wrote:... a CHL should NOT be treated as a "get out of jail free card", and a CHL holder should NOT expect it to give them any additional privileges other than allowing them to carry a concealed handgun for protection.

If it were, I would imagine that many more Texans would be applying for a CHL.

TyHoe wrote:LEOs were alot more forgiving whenever you handed over the CHL and they knew you were a law abiding citizen. I heard that in the DFW area that cops arent so nice though. Anyone on here have any experience?

My experience is they don't pull you over much if you're law abiding but if you speed you might get a ticket.

Abide.

Welcome to the forum! There's a ton of great info and great people here.

I've only had one LEO contact here, and that was getting pulled over for speeding. While the CHL didn't get me out of the ticket, the cop did put me down for a speed slower than I was actually going so I could take defensive driving. I can't say if the CHL came into play on that, or if he did so simply because I was courteous.

Carry away. I haven't had a single negative experience carrying since I've had my CHL.

Though I live in the Metroplex, I haven't had any interactions with law enforcement to allow me to form any sort of serious opinion. I carry a good percentage of the time when I'm not attending classes. This forum has helped me to be a LOT less concerned about carrying as long as I am following the rules/laws. Concealed means concealed, right? Welcome to the forum, I hope you can learn as much as I have from these folks.

Kythas wrote:Welcome to the forum! There's a ton of great info and great people here.

I've only had one LEO contact here, and that was getting pulled over for speeding. While the CHL didn't get me out of the ticket, the cop did put me down for a speed slower than I was actually going so I could take defensive driving. I can't say if the CHL came into play on that, or if he did so simply because I was courteous.

Carry away. I haven't had a single negative experience carrying since I've had my CHL.

Welcome to the forum TyHoe.

I've bee in the DFW area since 1987 and had my CHL since 2002. I have yet to be required to display it to an officer, so I'm not sure of it's magical powers. Don't do anything that would increase your chances of needing to either and you should be just fine.

Kythas, I have never had an officer cite me for the actual speed I was travelling. I think I've only received 4 speeding tickets in my life. Maybe 5. However, for two of them I wasn't speeding and one of those I wasn't even on the road the officer claimed I was speeding on. For the other 2-3, I was also given a break and the officer documented a lower speed by maybe 4-5 mph so that I could take defensive driving. Maybe it was a favor and maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was a favor for not trying to elude them and maybe it was to entice me to not take it to court so they wouldn't have to go either. IDK

Thanks for the welcome guys. I have been pulled over maybe 4 times in the last 3 years. 2 of the were for a registration sticker I didnt realize had gone out, about 25 minutes apart. The other 2 were for speeding. One in town and one on the highway. Every cop that I haded my CHL to with my liscense commented on it. They were all favorable. I ended up getting one ticket for the registration but nothing more. I may have spoke wrong on the law abiding citizen thing. I meant law abiding as far as carrying a gun went. My bad for the mixup.