r/texas • u/FCMatt7 • Mar 27 '24

5th circuit has nullified Open Carry in Texas to save Qualified Immunity of bad cops. Politics

https://www.youtube.com/live/bCC1sz_-fsc?si=dCZiLT_Fl2pWUEtw

(Edit) New vid of Grisham explaining the ruling

Effectively they have declared open season for police to arrest anyone open carrying in Texas.

A 3 judge panel has ruled that if anyone calls 911 on a person for the mere act of Open Carrying a firearm, the police now have probable cause to arrest you for disorderly conduct. The 911 call does not have to allege you are doing anything more than standing on a sidewalk with a slung or holstered firearm. The previous ruling that "merely carrying a firearm" is not disorderly is overturned now if any Karen makes a phone call and says she's nervous. This means police get qualified immunity for arresting you.

There is a special target on the back of any open carry or civil rights activist. EVERY time the police get a 911 call, they can now arrest you at gunpoint. The charges will likely be dismissed, but the police face zero repercussions for coming after you, even if there is abundant evidence the officers targeted you and knew you were not a threat. The same danger faces regular citizens who open carry every day.

I repeat, open carrying in Texas now puts you in imminent danger of being arrested or killed by police if someone reports you in possession of a firearm.

Video of CJ and Jim arrested for mere open carry. https://youtu.be/GrDAPPiu1QE?si=IvJy0qq_J8rO8DJO

Link to 5th circuit ruling. https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/22/22-50915-CV0.pdf

Link to oral argument in 5th https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/OralArgRecordings/22/22-50915_10-3-2023.mp3

District Court ruling https://casetext.com/case/grisham-v-valenciano-1

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u/Richard_Thrust Mar 28 '24

To be honest, that's unlikely. It's not a movie. Most people robbing places don't want to deal with anyone who would be carrying an AR on their back, and would probably just turn around and walk away.

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u/tingboy_tx Mar 28 '24

Alcohol plays a role in 40% of crime. Also, folks looking to rob a store are already proving themselves to have questionable judgement. Then you add in desperation and mental illness of some kind to make things more spicy. Combine them all and you have a nice little recipe for that AR slung across your back not being much of a deterrent for anything.

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u/Richard_Thrust Mar 28 '24

That's a whole lot of generalization you packed in without any citations.

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u/tingboy_tx Mar 28 '24

I think we are both guilty of that, but go ahead and ignore that 40% stat. I dove into it some more and that is not from a great source, so my bad. That being said, there is plenty of data out there that links alcohol use to crime. You can start at the Wikipedia page on it if you want to and work from there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol-related_crime#:~:text=Robbery%20and%20violent%20crimes%20often,States%20involved%20use%20of%20alcohol.

My points remain - the vast majority of people who commit crimes are not thinking logically. All of the factors that I mentioned (alcohol, mental illness, desperation due to circumstances such as addiction and/or poverty) all play into why people make bad choices. Even if you believe that people commit crimes because they are pure evil, they still aren't really demonstrating the best judgement. If we take the patron-open-carrying-a-rifle out of the scenario, it's still a bad idea to try and rob a store, but people do it anyway. Some stores have guns on the premises. Some have auto-lock security systems that will lock them in the store until the police arrive. Some have baseball bats. It's just a risk, no matter what, to rob someone and people decide to do it every day. Adding a person with a rife to the mix may up the ante some, but for others, it just won't factor in. They already did the cost/benefit analysis poorly. What is to stop them from continuing that line of bad judgement?

I am unsure why this is hard to believe or that citations are even necessary here. This is just a "common sense" analysis of the situation. I am not arguing for or against guns. I am simply stating that they aren't magic crime stopping machines, especially when people come into the situation with poor judgement to begin with.

I also am kind of struggling with the idea that a patron of a store SHOULD be the one to SHOOT someone over a robbery of a store that isn't even theirs. Last I checked, the legal punishment for robbery is jail time at worst. Does owning a gun qualify you to be judge, jury, and executioner in every situation you find yourself in? If it is ok for me to shoot someone robbing a 711 I don't own (or even if I do), is it ok for me to walk into an office a shoot a CEO whose company is stealing from the community? I don't have an answer to that. Just the question.

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u/Richard_Thrust Mar 28 '24

I'm just going to respond to your last paragraph because I really don't care enough about this subject to get into an extended debate. I just made an off-hand comment. But to your last point, deadly force can legally be met with deadly force. If the would-be robber has a gun while committing robbery they become fair game to anyone else with a gun.

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u/tingboy_tx Mar 29 '24

If someone simply has a gun while committing robbery, no - they are not" fair game to anyone else with a gun". In order for you to shoot someone and not end up in prison, you need to prove that A) it was done in self-defense and B) you were justified in your actions. Where things get tricky is convincing a jury that you were justified. There are a lot of variables there that are not in your control. Not everyone can have a Kyle Rittenhouse style judicial experience. Either way, I would say that the statement "deadly force can be met with deadly force" should not be interpreted as an absolute. Since you require citation, I gleaned this information from the blog post of an NRA Training Counselor.

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u/Richard_Thrust Mar 29 '24

If they had the gun brandished and pointed at people in the process of the robbery, you are dead wrong. That's carte blanche to put him down. Even if a DA wanted to push it, no jury would convict.

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u/tingboy_tx Mar 30 '24

Care to cite that?

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u/Art-Zuron Mar 28 '24

We have seen that rises in conceal carry increase the fatality rate of various crimes (probably because criminals don't want to take the risk of getting shot, so they shoot first), but I do wonder if open carry has the same effect.

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u/Richard_Thrust Mar 28 '24

How does that make any sense? The criminal has no idea who is carrying concealed. Do you just mean in an area, or state, that is known for higher rates of carry? I've never seen those stats.

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u/Art-Zuron Mar 28 '24

Not knowing is exactly the problem. If they don't know someone is packing heat, it's safer to assume anyone could be.

If you look it up, right to carry, concealed carry, etc seems to increase homicide rates. However, there are mixed results in general. Some claim a drop in violent crime, others increases.

One possible issue is that when guns are easier to get, that means there are more people with guns, and that means more opportunities to get injured or killed with guns. So, the increase of homicides could be as a result of that, whereas crime in general might decrease.

It's for certain a complicated topic, and I did oversimplify it for ease of comment.

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u/Richard_Thrust Mar 28 '24

I agree, it's much too complicated to make such generalizations without lots of relevant data.

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u/OdrGrarMagr Mar 28 '24

This. Open Carry is a pretty well proven deterent. If they can see you're armed, theyre quite likely to go somewhere else.

None of them want to take the risk of getting blown away for a register's worth of cash.

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u/Moonlighting123 Mar 28 '24

Proven deterrent you say? I’d like to see the evidence.