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By way of background, I am a rancher in Starr County (almost Mexico), and I regularly carry openly on the ranch. A few months ago I discovered the glass broken in the door of a mobile home that we use for storage and my reloading room. The door was also unlocked. Past experience was that it took a minimum of an hour and a half for a Deputy to respond if I call the Sheriff's office; so I called the Constable who covers this area, whom I knew well. I told him that I had had a break-in, and I was not certain whether anyone was still in the trailer. I put on my Sig P220 and went to the equipment yard where I could see the doors to the trailer and watch for him to arrive. While I was waiting, I noticed that a door to our maintenance barn was open, and a number of hand tools were missing. When the Constable arrived I described the situation to him. He radioed a request for a Sheriff's Investigator and then went into the trailer. He asked me to stand away from the structure in a position where he knew where I was, and where I could see into the building through the front windows.

After he had cleared the trailer and looked into the barn, I told him that I should probably go to the house and leave my pistol so as not to concern the Deputy when he arrived. The Constable replied,"No! It makes me feel better." When the Deputy, whom I had never seen before, got there; the Constable introduced me to him and we discussed what was going on. He asked me for Identification, and I gave him my Driver's License and CHL. During the entire process not one word was said about the .45 on my belt. I guess things depend a lot on where you are when. I have had a CHL since 1998 when I lived in Plano and traveled regularly to San Antonio and the ranch. I got the CHL primarily because I always had at least one handgun in the vehicle while I was traveling and at that time it was pretty much up to the discretion of the individual LEO whether to give you a bad time if you were stopped with a handgun in your vehicle. Until the last year I almost never carried concealed. Things are very different down here now, and I never leave home without it.