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by srothstein
Sat Jul 19, 2008 12:48 am
Forum: 2007 Texas Legislative Session
Topic: Car carry in the 2009 session
Replies: 10
Views: 8509

Re: Car carry in the 2009 session

There are a lot of police officers who do not like this law. They say they are letting gang members go when they have guns on them. When I asked why, they say the DA says to not prosecute. I pointed out that if they can prove the person is a gang member then he is still unlawfully carrying. So far, no one has come up with a way to prove a person is a gang member that a DA will accept. Cops want to go with what they "know" about a person (which is probably true but not good enough for court) and D.A.'s are not trusting the police databases where they try to track gang members.

I expect this to be one of the bases for the argument. How do you prove someone is in a criminal street gang? We might be able to hurt the argument if we wrote a rebuttable presumption in that a member who had been documented in the local police department as a gang member was a gang member. I kind of would rather leave it alone - gang members have their legal rights too and if they are not committing crimes, who cares if they have a gun?

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