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LOCAL "NULLIFICATION"; THE LAW vs) ACTUAL PRACTICE, HISTORICAL OBSERVATIONS

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  • leVieux

    TSRA/NRA Life Member
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    For a century plus, it was "technically illegal" for citizens in Texas to carry handguns, and specially to "concealed carry" outside of private property and/or very few codified exclusions. The Law of the time even prohibited most "car carry".

    IANAL ! My comments are from decades of living in Texas, especially South & Southern Texas, and from numerous conversations with Attorneys, LEO's, & others involved.

    BUT, what actually went-on during those many years?

    Since my earliest visits to Texas over 65 years ago, handguns were "everywhere". Indeed, Texas gun shops did business in handguns. Handguns were in daily use by many Texans and visitors, both urban and rural.

    When I first lived in the Lone Star State, I was a young Physician working in an urban Emergency Service of the local County Hospital and saw numerous gunshot injuries, almost all from handguns. Later, in the big hospitals of Harris County & the Texas Medical Center, I saw many more. The dangers of our drug addict infested 1970's & '80's Houston pretty much demanded that we be armed, Law or not.

    I knew Senior Physicians and "Old Texan" Attorneys who routinely carried concealed, long before the Law changed and CHL's / CWP's, etc. became real.

    Being young and naïve, I decided to "be legal" and leave my guns at home.

    BIG, BIG mistake, almost got me killed. As I have described the late 1980 incident on earlier posts here, I won't repeat.

    Immediately afterwards, when the criminal record of my attacker became available, I faced the reality of "what might have happened". This was soon linked to the tragic kidnapping of my Friend, Wm :"Pat" Fitzpatrick, MD, and the brutal execution-style murder of Pat and two other Houstonians.

    As I was frequently on all-night, late-night, or weekend in-hospital duty, I knew a few very senior HPD career Qfficers, who served as our internal Med Center Security force.

    I had several confidential "man-to-man" conversations with those Officers, during which I learned that, at least in Harris County, they all just completely ignored the then-illegal practice of concealed carry by Physicians, Nurses, and any other non-criminal citizens. This came as a great surprise to me, but certainly explained lots of things I had seen over the previous decade.

    I recall hearing that the then-Harris D A, John Holmes, would have just laughed at them had they brought requests to charge a regular citizen for "concealed carry", absent other evidence of criminality.

    I then discussed this with close friends, and was again surprised to learn that many of them also routinely carried, despite the "Law".

    While this arrangement had been necessitated by extremely "Bad Law", it set an arbitrary non-system of county-by-county legal practice, which was confusing and fraught with danger for the average citizen.

    Yet, the question of "When was the last time you ever heard of an otherwise Law-abiding Texan being charged or convicted with "illegal handgun carry" anywhere in Texas?" certainly was eye-opening for me. I couldn't cite a single incident of that.

    Today, when I see the technical nit-picking regarding our Laws in these discussions, my thought is this "What would be the likely practical result of sny minor technical infraction?"

    My experience tells me that the worst likely outcome wuld be an Attorney's bill.

    Go out, protect yourself & loved-ones, be courteous, avoid the near occasion of criminal activity, and quit worrying so much. Repeat the old saw "Would I rather see a 12 member Jury or the Undertaker?" and act acccordingly.

    Remember that in ALL of Life's major decisions, one must consider RELATIVE risk, as no reasonable course of action offers "zero risk" !

    Bon Jour,
    leVieux
    Lynx Defense
     
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    Axxe55

    Retiretgtshit stirrer
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    Dec 15, 2019
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    Lost in East Texas Elhart Texas
    Many years ago, long before it was "legal" to carry, many people did. I did. My father and brother carried.

    We lived by something taught by our father and uncles, "Better to be judged by twelve, than carried by six."

    Vertical and breathing, even confined to a prison cell seemed like a better alternative to me being dead.

    And the simple observation from my own conversations with friends and family in LE, as long as you were a law-abiding citizen, weren't acting stupid, most in LE pretty much didn't care, and didn't enforce such stupid laws prohibiting the carrying of firearms.
     

    wakal

    Just Some Guy
    BANNED!!!
    Rating - 88.9%
    8   1   0
    Mar 20, 2011
    1,538
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    Zephyr
    After he returned from Vietnam and opened a business, a friend asked the local cops about a carry permit since he was running cash to the night deposit after work. He was told that the only exception to the "no guns in public" rule was if he was carrying over $500. He taped five one hundred dollar bills to the outside of his shoulder holster and carried that way for years.
     

    Texasgrillchef

    Active Member
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    Jul 27, 2018
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    Lewisville
    That worked back then, many years ago. Simply because there were so many liberal dumb asses running around. Also back then many democrats were pro gun. Just look at LBJ and Kennedy. Both democrats and both who hunted and liked their firearms. As long as you were their wise law abiding, LE left you alone.

    However if you were the town drunk, or otherwise troublemaker, even if you weren’t otherwise breaking the law. You would get issues. If you went around pissing people off, in small towns, you might get issues. back then in Texas, the majority of people were pro gun democrat or republican.

    however now... democrats are anti-gun, it’s become a political debate, and you get anti-gunners stirring up all kinds of shit.

    Even when Austin had one of the first mass shooters in Texas from the tower. You didn’t see Texas and the people hailing for something major to be done and more gun laws.

    I don’t have my LTC, still waiting on the forever ending wait, and Hoping next year we will go constitutional carry. Even then we still want our ltc because we travel.
     

    Sasquatch

    TGT Addict
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    3   0   0
    Apr 20, 2020
    6,590
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    Magnolia
    I was raised by my maternal grandparents - my grandfather was a former LEO and Corrections officer, and retired from the state as a "public safety officer" (unarmed but sworn police officer) with the #1 public medical college in the state. He carried everywhere, he had a CHL when he remembered or bothered to renew it, but there was a 15 year or so period where he just didn't give a damn. He either carried a J-frame Smith & Wesson in his pocket, or a Beretta JetFire .22 short (plan with that was screw it in a bad guy's ear or temple and pull the trigger if things got dicey)

    He got his CHL again shortly after I got mine, and after a spate of multiple-assailant broad daylight crimes locally, he decided that 5-shot Smith was not enough and wound up going up to the 11-shot Glock 26, which he carried in a DeSantis IWB holster clipped to his pocket.

    I started carrying when I was old enough to walk into a gun shop and buy a handgun - which I did on my 21st birthday. We're an open carry state so I carried that way until my CHL came. I cringe now at what I thought was an acceptable holster back then, but hey, I was armed and I learned. The first time I say being armed saved me & mine from harm was in traffic - crazy guy almost hit us as we were coming onto a freeway onramp - he was trying to merge into my passenger door, my wife (#1) & step daughter were both in the car, on the passenger side. I honked and tapped my brakes, he went into a rage, sped past us, stomped on his brakes, then threw his truck into reverse and sped backward toward us. He came to a stop just a few inches from hitting us. Then he sped forward. I naively thought he was done throwing his fit and began to resume merging, when he did it again. As he was speeding toward us I grabbed the gun from the glovebox and set it on the dash for him to see. He stopped much further way, then rocketed forward. We started moving again as traffic was backing up. As we made it to the top of the ramp we saw dude weaving in and out of the slow moving traffic ahead of us.

    Cell phones were not in every pocket back then, so I took the next exit and happened across a cop before I found a phone. Gave him my statement and the plate # and description of the truck. Cop told me to be careful and that was that.

    I've had a couple other scary encounters with crazies since - oddly enough they've all been in or around vehicles, but that is not a big surprise as I've been driving for a living in one form or another most of my adult life, save for a day and a half stint as a telemarketer (I'm sorry if I ever called you to try to sell you google ad space if you're a realtor, that job and company sucked ass and I quit during lunch on day 2) - I have carried out of state without a permit, because what was I gonna do - stop at the border and check my gun?

    Every state should be constitutional carry, and laws disarming citizens or limiting how & where you can carry are bullshit, period.
     
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