Posted on 08/10/2013 4:03:35 PM PDT by marktwain
McALLEN — Organizers expect more than 100 gun owners to gather Saturday at the McAllen police station to protest the arrest of a gun rights activist who sought to photograph himself outside the Police Department with a rifle slung across his back.
Zach William Horton, 37, had been traveling for work throughout the Rio Grande Valley, stopping at various police departments along the way and taking photographs outside them with his rifle.
In McAllen, the effort landed him in jail.
It’s a legal practice in Texas, which is an open carry state for rifles but not for handguns, said Robert Sneed, executive director for Open Carry Texas. Handguns must be carried concealed and with a permit.
(snip)
Horton was told to step away from the vehicle, and after he didn’t, police pointed their guns at him and arrested him on the charges of trespassing and carrying a weapon in places where weapons are prohibited because the police station also houses the city’s municipal court, the release shows.
On Thursday the trespassing charge was dismissed and Horton was formally charged with one count of carrying a weapon in places where weapons are prohibited; his bond was set at $25,000. Horton was sent to the Hidalgo County Jail. Members of Open Carry Texas were working to get him released on bond Thursday evening.
McAllen police Chief Victor Rodriguez said police officers had warned Horton that because the courthouse is in the building, it is considered a prohibited place, and because Horton had expressed his intent to bring a loaded firearm to the station, Rodriguez’s officers prevented him from doing so and stopped him in the parking lot.
(Excerpt) Read more at themonitor.com ...
It would be useful to know exactly what the statute says, “inside courthouse”, or “within 50 feet” of the courthouse for example. If the McAllen PD has made their own rule, I suspect that the city will be contributing to this organizations coffers.
I would argue that he could have avoided any problem by extending them the common courtesy of a phone call a day or two ahead. That often goes a long way in “smoothing feathers”. Just showing up unannounced creates the mood of just showing up at someone’s home unannounced.
According to the article, he did walk into the police station and announce his intention. Perhaps Miss Manners rules apply, if you don’t RSVP 14 days in advance, they are entitled to arrest you and put you in jail with a $25K bond. Perhaps they ought to send these troublemakers to a concentration camp.
Who was paying this guy to do that so that a law would be passed which would change the existing law and ban it?
There is already a growing open carry movement in Texas. I think incidents such as this will help it grow.
If you cannot exercise your rights for fear of losing them, you do not have them.
/johnny
Texas Penal Code Section 46.03
(3) on the premises of any government court or offices utilized by the court, unless pursuant to written regulations or written authorization of the court;
I doubt that a public parking lot serving multiple public offices would qualify, but it may take a fair amount of lawyering to show that in court.
They dropped the “trespass” charges very quickly.
I suspect that they were searching for something to charge him with, and this is the best they could come up with.
If it were otherwise, the signs would be posted at the entrances to the parking lot...
Whatever, Centurion. Sometimes you do have to give folks enough space to be familiar with the law that actually should apply. Having a copy with you would be greatly helpful!
I mean the idea shouldn’t be “Oh, we caught you, you idiots, you bumbled the law.” Golden rule???
So they are charging him with “the intent to carry a firearm into a prohibited area”.
BS charge. Apparently they forgot to charge him with the catch all of “obstruction”.
So what's your point? Don't do legal things, because someone might arrest your for it and use that arrest to justify making it illegal? I seem to have found a flaw in your logic.
It seems that they are claiming that the parking lot is a prohibited area.
I think they will fail in that attempt.
No lawyering needed. The law is clear. You just had to read a bit further in PC 46.03:
(c) In this section:
(1) "Premises" has the meaning assigned by Section 46.035.
And in PC 46.035:
(3) "Premises" means a building or a portion of a building. The term does not include any public or private driveway, street, sidewalk or walkway, parking lot, parking garage, or other parking area.
I believe that is their intent. This group is apparently acting in response to the dust up that C J Grisham, an Army Master Sergeant had with the Temple Police Department who arrested him for carrying an AR-15 type rife, an act that is legal in Texas. Of course they've charged him with something else, but it appears that the Temple Police Department doesn't like its citizens sporting firearms, legal or not.
So, these guys are asserting their right in other Texas towns in order to get just this sort of reaction. Either it's Texas law or it isn't.
Good job!
Seems like a slam dunk.
As this is a political activist with an organization behind him, I suspect that a settlement, complete with pictures of him, armed, in the parking lot, is next on the plate!
Well with all due respect, the mean spirits can really be tamped down by not returning tit for tat. Yes, stings CAN catch wrongdoers, but at the cost of the stinger playing Satan. God doesn’t get mocked, though He is very quick to forgive.
all democrats down there, all you need to know
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