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Spawned from Subject: Carry w/o license on apartment property

Charles L. Cotton wrote:

seamusTX wrote:That part of H.B. 1815 is badly written. It says, ...

If this isn't fixed in a future legislative session, it will probably end up being decided by case law.

I can't go into why it's written that way, but it won't be "fixed." The entire car-carry concept is going to come under attack in 2009 and this is one of the provisions the police and prosecutors want removed.

Is there any evidence that actual criminals are getting away with anything? I mean robbers and gangsters, not people whose only offense would be UCW.

The only thing I've heard about this is a speculative statement in a newspaper article that was quoted here a while back.

This seems like another case where something that has not been a problem in about half the states is seen as a problem here.

- Jim

I am not aware of any real problems, merely the speculation and scare tactics of the Dallas County DA, our own DA's office, and some police departments.

Chas.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:I am not aware of any real problems, merely the speculation and scare tactics of the Dallas County DA, our own DA's office, and some police departments.

Chas.

Do you you mean the Harris County DA? I thought that got fixed?

Liberty wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:I am not aware of any real problems, merely the speculation and scare tactics of the Dallas County DA, our own DA's office, and some police departments.

Chas.

Do you you mean the Harris County DA? I thought that got fixed?

Like a clunker, the Harris County DA office needs a lot of routine maintenance.

Liberty wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:I am not aware of any real problems, merely the speculation and scare tactics of the Dallas County DA, our own DA's office, and some police departments.

Chas.

Do you you mean the Harris County DA? I thought that got fixed?

Rosenthal resigned, but I saw one of his underlings bad-mouthing the Castle Doctrine and lying in the process. I can't say anymore.

Chas.

A politician lied? I'm shocked.

KC5AV wrote:A politician lied? I'm shocked.

I thought we elect the best liar? That's who I've been voting for, am I wrong?

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?

srothstein wrote: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?

I think this is a big part of the argument. As you say however, if a person is a gang member, he/she's unlawfully carrying. If the officer only thinks the person is a gang member, then he/she is a citizen the officer doesn't like. We all know gang members are going to carry regardless of the law; we also know good, honest, otherwise law-abiding citizens will be arrested for UCW if the law is changed back to pre-9/1/07 status. If the DA won't prosecute when the officer has evidence a person is in a gang as described in Chp. 71 of the Penal Code, then the DA needs to be changed, not the law.

Chas.

srothstein wrote:How do you prove someone is in a criminal street gang?

How do you prove anything to a jury? If a DA doesn't think he can convince a jury then Chas is right when he says the answer is to change the DA instead of changing the law.

Also, if the "gang member" has prior felony conviction then he's not allowed to have a handgun so they can arrest him for felon in possession and not worry about UCW.