TexasCHLforum.com

I'm not sure the Dutton/Huffine amendments would have done much of anything. I may be mistaken, but I believe case law already protects the citizenry from unreasonable contact by LEOs. Although the standard is fairly low, an officer would need to be able to articulate specific behavior and/or circumstances to establish reasonable suspicion. I think we may have some officers who take advantage of these low standards (at least at first), but I would like to think that most officers simply want to do their job and go about their business of catching real bad guys... I think the large majority of officers are professional enough to recognize the importance of the 4th amendment and don't set out to violate those rights just because they can. I would think (hope) that most cases where an officer violates someone's 4th amendment rights it was out of necessity or out of unclear guidelines. If we see a trend of systemic or chronic violations of the 4th amendment on open carriers, I think the courts and case law would be on our side.


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard of proof in United States law that is less than probable cause, the legal standard for arrests and warrants, but more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch'";[1] it must be based on "specific and articulable facts", "taken together with rational inferences from those facts",[2] and the suspicion must be associated with the specific individual.[3] If police additionally have reasonable suspicion that a person so detained is armed and dangerous, they may "frisk" the person for weapons, but not for contraband like drugs. Reasonable suspicion is evaluated using the "reasonable person" or "reasonable officer" standard,[4] in which said person in the same circumstances could reasonably suspect a person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity; it depends upon the totality of circumstances, and can result from a combination of particular facts, even if each is individually innocuous.