Who Is A Peace Officer And What About The Feds?
November 16, 2004
|
Posted by Aubrey Turner
Under Texas law, a “peace officer” or a “magistrate” can demand identification and the CHL holder must give them both the license and the CHL if carrying.
GC §411.205. DISPLAYING LICENSE; PENALTY. (a) If a license
holder is carrying a handgun on or about the license holder’s person
when a magistrate or a peace officer demands that the license holder
display identification, the license holder shall display both the license
holder’s driver’s license or identification certificate issued by the
department and the license holder’s handgun license. A person who
fails or refuses to display the license and identification as required by
this subsection is subject to suspension of the person’s license as
provided by Section 411.187.
It recently occurred to me that while I know who the obvious peace officers are, could there be other, not-so-obvious peace officers defined under Texas law? Given that Texas law is a strange beast, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the case, so I consulted the relevant state law on the topic. It turns out that there are a lot of peace officers included in the law, and some of them are a bit strange, like “(34) officers commissioned by the State Board of Dental Examiners under Section 254.013, Occupations Code, subject to the limitations imposed by that section.” I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason for this, but it leaves me with the mental image of a bunch of dental cops running around. We’re the dental police and we’ve got a report of insufficient flossing. You’re going to have to come with us.
Anyhow, there’s some good news in the statutes, since agents of the rat-bastard alphabet soup Federal agencies are considered special investigators under Texas law and are specifically excluded from the status of peace officers, which means there is no duty or obligation to show them a CHL or announce that you’re carrying. I couldn’t find the reference any more, but I recall an incident at one of the Texas border checkpoints (located quite a ways from the border) where the CHL holder announced the fact and the agent drew on her. Her companion in the car reached for his own concealed weapon, but didn’t draw. Fortunately, the other agent calmed the first one down and no one got shot. Perhaps this was a lack of training on the part of the Border Patrol at the time, or perhaps it was someone from a state where the citizens have no legal carry options.
Given the general attitude of our would-be masters in Washington, I’m not sure how Federal agents would react to an announcement that you were carrying. I would be very reluctant to surrender a legally concealed weapon to a Federal agent. In fact, Texas statute only gives peace officers the authority to disarm a CHL holder who is legally carrying (see link for Government Code, § 411.207) (and even then, the officer has to give the weapon back after the incident, unless the person is a threat or is under arrest). I wonder if the Feds have gotten any training in dealing with armed citizenry? It wouldn’t hurt for them to know the laws of the states they’re operating in (although I’m under no illusion that they give a rat’s ass about state laws, though).
Categories: Guns
While the Federal agents might not know the state law, there are a lot of misinformed state and local police out there too. You are more likely to encounter one of them who equates rudeness and failure to fully identify himself with some kind of professionalism. Add a little brandishing a gun and putting hands on a citizen and they really set themselves up for a tragedy. I met one.
I have often wondered the same thing. And even the obvious ones like police officers off-duty doing security or bounching, what about off-duty judges or fire marshalls. Alot of room there and the Texas CHL book doesn’t go into it very deep. :\
I know that the fire marshal and arson investigators are peace officers under the law, but I don’t know how they’re treated when off duty. I suspect that they’re never truly off duty, though, given that the law charges a peace officer to intervene if he sees a crime.
I ran across some interesting discussions regarding officers doing off-duty security on Packing.org and on tx.guns. In some jurisdictions, police and sheriff’s deputies working security are actually on duty with the establishment paying for their overtime. But in those cases they’ll be in uniform.
I guess if I run into a peace officer who is off duty and not in uniform, I’d demand to see some identification (both a badge and an ID) before I believed it.
The issue of magistrates and their powers is even worse than who is a peace officer. It would appear that Texas statutes have a section for magistrates in *every county* in the state. Further, how would you identify a magistrate out of court? Do they carry ID? What a mess.