What exactly do you find vague about the wording of Texas law?
Nonsense. Cite it please. If you threaten someone with a gun that's not the same thing as "printing". Totally different concept. This is a discussion about accidentally displaying your firearm when you bend over in Winn Dixie to get Doritos from the bottom shelf, not threatening an ex wife with a gun under a shirt.
The OP wasn't asking about the "oops my shirt slipped up" scenario but about printing through clothing. By my reading of the law, if the printing is so blatant that you must have known you were doing it, then it would be an intentional failure to conceal and an offense.... these kinds of "oops my shirt slipped up" things simply don't result in catastrophes, shootings, arrests, public panic, etc. It just doesn't happen enough, if at all, to be concerned about.
My problem with all of this is that it makes many people worry so much that they stop carrying. I've talked to people over the years that are so convinced of this that they don't renew their CHL's. That's a real shame and it's why I hate to see this told and retold so much without any evidence of it ever happening.
By my reading of the law, if the printing is so blatant that you must have known you were doing it, then it would be an intentional failure to conceal and an offense.
I have not been able to find any cases where printing was prosecuted -
My problem with all of this is that it makes many people worry so much that they stop carrying.
The law does not have to enumerate every possible scenario by which one might intentionally fail to conceal.Show the law on printing. Show where it's written anywhere that the outline of a handgun through clothes is not still concealed.
The evidence for it being a crime is in the wording of the laws that I quoted earlier. Intentionally making the presence of the handgun openly discernible by ordinary observation to a reasonable person is a crime. If you intentionally make the presence of the handgun known by letting it clearly show through clothing, then that fits the description of the crime as described in the statute.Show the law on printing. Show where it's written anywhere that the outline of a handgun through clothes is not still concealed. It's not doing any good to continue to insist that it's a crime when there is not one piece of evidence of any kind showing that it is.
Unless you have the ability to search the court records for trials/convictions under Section 46.035 (a), then you have no idea whether or not anyone has ever been prosecuted or convicted for printing and you are just speculating as we all are.What IS clear is that it doesn't appear that ANYONE has ever been prosecuted for it in Texas.
I really doubt there are any. I can't imagine a DA wasting his time on something like this, even if a cop arrested someone for it.
The only way you'll know what happened in a trial court in Texas is if you find a newspaper report or you know the actual case and you search for the public transcript.
tulsamal I'll tell you what my instructor said since it makes sense to me. I was asking him about carrying a gun on my belt inside of a Wilderness Safepacker. "Some people" had tried to tell me that carrying it that way wouldn't "be concealed because everybody will know what is inside of it." My instructor said there is a simple test the police would use if someone claimed to "see that guy over there has a gun."
"Was the gun an auto or a revolver?"
"Was it black, blue, silver, or what color?"
"Were the grips wood or plastic?"
If the person can't answer any of those questions, then they didn't "see" your gun!! "I saw a suspicious lump" isn't the same thing.
And I've carried my Safepacker every day since then.
Gregg
What an excellent test to determine if a handgun is concealed! Thanks for posting it.My instructor said there is a simple test the police would use if someone claimed to "see that guy over there has a gun."
"Was the gun an auto or a revolver?"
"Was it black, blue, silver, or what color?"
"Were the grips wood or plastic?"
If the person can't answer any of those questions, then they didn't "see" your gun!!
tulsamal said:"Was the gun an auto or a revolver?"
"Was it black, blue, silver, or what color?"
"Were the grips wood or plastic?"