TexasCHLforum.com

Quote: " some Capt. in the D/FW area that told his troopers to Disarm CHL holders and return the weapon unloaded and give the Ammo back first then the weapon "

Ahhh, we may be getting warmer to a suspected burro-crat ... Coincidently, the young trooper did hand the 5 rounds back to me first - and we dropped one of them in the exchange. Had to open the pickup door as it had fallen in "the gap", then it rolled out on the ground. He apologized and definitely had to take his eyes off both of us when he bent over to find it in the middle of the night.

Yea, some of those "types" in east Texas seem not to know what the words "season" or "limit" mean. But they learn young what a game warden looks like ...

Quote: " I would desire to be on the highway with the violator sitting in a car "

Actually, that may very well be the more dangerous of the two. A Game Warden friend, Darrin Medlin, who often helped me with hunter ed. classes, got killed that way a few years ago. He could not support family as desired on what TP&W paid and went to work for Grapevine PD. He was dealing with a guy on side of Hwy 121 when hit by another drunk driver.

Regarding hunters with guns in camps, it was not the deer rifles that concerned them so much. Darrin (and others) said the spookiest part of the GW job can be the careless gun handling when in close proximity of dove hunter's shotgun muzzles when checking for 3-shot max ... With or without the Coors.

Quote: " Unless this is being told to them by their superiors "

That's the focus of my initial question - looking to see if certain "legal" people or some such burro-crat might have been expanding their turf ...

Quote: " troopers needing to be able to evaluate each stop on its own merit. "

Yep, I might be a little skittish too if having to work alone in the middle of the night out in the middle of no where. At least when trooper shined flashlight around inside the cab of brother's truck, he was observing coffee cups and not Coors cans ...

What trooper may or may not have known at the time (by running license plate on truck) was that we'd been on the road switching off driving for over 14 hours and groggy-eyed brother (also with CHL) over in passenger seat had one of those aforementioned "hot Glocks". It went unmentioned and untouched ...

Below is admittedly a "lazy-way" paste from another forum (http://www.thehighroad.org) and my reply, but I'm curious to learn if any of you guys (especially other instructors) have heard anything out of DPS in this regard.

----------------
Quote: "That being said, I have heard from a lawyer buddy that DPS had started instructing them to disarm all CHL holders when stopped."

Hmmmm ... Since-the-beginning TX CHL instructor here. And yes, that could now be the case, although it was not discussed in our last renewal school.

In the past, I recall the typical stop involved the trooper simply asking where the handgun was, then generally just leaving it there.

Coming back from an elk hunt in Colorado late last October, a young (solo) DPS trooper lit me up while running a little over 70 in a 65. Mudded-up 4X4 pickup with hunting gear and 2 concealed animals. 1:20 a.m. in the middle-of-no-where on Hwy 287 in TX panhandle (near Quanah). Hardly any other traffic on the road at that hour, so he likely had nothing else to do ... And needed a documented "contact" ? ...

When I handed DL and CHL to him he asked whereabouts at which point I told him of revolver under the floor mat. I was quite surprised when he asked me to hand it to him and asked "Are you sure you want me to reach for it?". He said "Go ahead", so I quite slowly opened the (very much loaded) cylinder before passing off to him over the steering wheel with the muzzle pointed down (at MY knees ...).

He then went back to his vehicle and subsequently returned the snubblie .357 and ammo separately - along with a warning ticket and a polite verbal to "slow it down a little". He asked if he had handled the stop to my satisfaction or if I had any questions.

At that point, I told him (tactfully) that I questioned why he let me reach for the gun, and indicated I had concern over that procedure due to the "action vs. reaction thing" (not wanting to insult his intelligence). He said "Well, you've had the class - and I trust you. But I was ready."

I told him it was the first time in over 10 years that I'd had an LEO touch my carry gun and left it at that. He suggested that I reload the thing promptly, that "If you needed it, it would not do you much good the way I gave it back to you. You guys have a safe trip home."

So yea, there may have been some semi-recent changes in Austin - not necessarily for the better.

----------------------