Legal open carry of modern handguns was partially restored to Texans on January 1st, 2016. I was visiting Texas at the time and open carried a bit, but the cool weather in January made concealed carry more practical. I returned to Dallas in April, to visit family and a new grandchild.
This morning, on my aerobic exercise run, I was running west on Rosemeade Parkway. A black and white police SUV approached on the other side of the boulevard, but did not slow down, and continued on its way without any sign of interest in me. It was very near the Dallas/Carrollton border, so it could have been one of a number of agencies. A couple of days earlier, another black and white had driven by me on Marsh Lane without incident. Both drive-bys occurred after careful scrutiny by a police SUV a week earlier.
On Saturday, the 9th of April, I was running on the same route, on Rosemeade Parkway. At that point I had turned around and was running east, on the sidewalk, with the flow of traffic. The police SUV approached me from behind, and clearly saw that I was openly carrying. I was wearing the same outfit as in the picture. The police unit immediately slowed; but they started to impede traffic, so the officer did the sensible thing and sped up, then made a right turn into a sided street. As I approached the side street without varying my pace, the unit pulled up to Rosemeade. This way they were able to obtain a good look at me without impeding traffic or detaining me.
The pistol is a Glock 17 in a Fobus retention holster. I also had a Cold Steel Xl in the strong side pocket with a pocket clip; and an iphone 6+ in a holster in front. The red Dan Baum "Gun Guy" cap emphasized that I was not hiding anything.
I approached the SUV at about 11:39. I looked directly at the driver's position, and nodded my head in acknowledgement. I did not look back, but kept going on my run.
The SUV pulled out behind me and passed me for the second time that day. They did not slow down, and went about their business, just as I did.
They had done proper police work. The officer(s) saw something unusual; checked it out, did not find any probable cause of reasonable suspicion, and continued on without incident. A couple a minutes later another SUV with "Constable" on it drove past, but I cannot say if it was connected or not.
I have a strong suspicion that the first look over is what resulted in the later lack of interest. In my long association with police, my experience is that items out of the ordinary are passed around in the local peace officer community rather quickly. It keeps officers informed and helps to break up the deadly monotony that is over 95% of police work.
I suspect that the word quickly traveled around the area about the old guy exercising with a Glock and red Gun Guy cap. I became just another feature instead of a bug.
This is what commonly happens with the restoration of second Amendment rights in an area. I experienced it in Arizona, and it is spreading over all the country. First, there are horrific predictions of "blood in the streets" by the media that know nothing about guns, but know what they oppose. Nothing happens, the expansion of rights does not result in "blood in the streets". Then a few incidents occur where a "good guy with a gun" stops crime or saves an innocent victim. Sometimes it is a cop. The police chiefs start saying that the restoration of rights hasn't been a problem.
Nothing much happens, until the next step in restoring Second Amendment rights is up for a vote in the legislature. Then the whole process is repeated.
It is so predictable, it become monotonous.
It is all a part of replacing emotional propaganda with facts and logic; restoring American values that were degraded during the ascendancy of the "progressive" media. It isn't over yet, but it is happening all over the country.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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1 comment:
I think if we took a bunch of media morons to an event and made them an offer to pay them one million dollars to report when a fully loaded gun laying on a table actually fires its self with nobody allowed to touch the gun and tell them to sit there until the gun actually fires. In a few days we could hire a new group of media people to replace those that died waiting for the gun to fire its self. eventually we would have a media cleansing. Most of them are ignorant enough to go for the million dollars. Most of them could be talked in to a double or nothing.
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