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Thanks, Txinvestigator. I certainly don't mind being reminded of rules that could save my life or the lives of my loved ones.

Everybody has their own strategy to deal with bad guys while driving, and mine is to use my driving skills to get away from the problem, not to pull out a gun and escalate the problem and draw fire towards my car that I have my child in.

Renegade, I'm not looking for an argument, either, so let's be friends and agree to disagree. I don't see myself driving down the road shooting out the window at a car in the next lane. However, my driving skills probably don't match yours. I take it slow and easy. I wouldn't know how to evade someone who was trying to run me off the road to carjack me or kidnap my daughter. However, after I pulled over, I would certainly have a surprise for them, and I'm confident their plans would be foiled. If my gun happened to be in the trunk, I suppose I could politely excuse myself and ask the attacker to wait a minute while I retrieved my gun from the locked trunk? Or to follow your scenario, how safe would my daughter be if I were driving madly at escalated speeds, running from a bad guy? And what if he was shooting at me while I was trying to get away? Would she be any safer in that scenario? I know you must think I've been watching too much CSI to have all these ideas, but I think you have to go over every possible scenario in your head in preparation, then choose what you think you are actually capable of implementing.

You seem very focused on a gun

Isn't that what this forum is all about??????????


For the rest of you, thank you so much for your concerns and advice. To put your mind at ease, my daughter always knows where I keep my gun. She does not have any curiousity or desire to handle it. I always tell her where it is and whether or not it is loaded. It has a safety button, as well as a key lock. I think that educating her about it is much safer than trying to hide it. Education demystifies and thwarts unsupervised curiousity.

Regarding the dogs, Toby is a 90 pound yellow lab and is not a licker. Happy, on the other hand, is a 10 pound rat terrier, and her favorite thing to lick is your toes! But rest assured that the gun will not be accessible to Happy's tongue, just in case she gets a "hankerin'" to taste it.

Thank you all for your advice / suggestions.

Renegade, thanks for your input, but I can think of several possible scenarios that would necessitate having the handgun accessible. If I'm going to keep it locked in the trunk, I might as well leave it at home. All you have to do these days is watch the local news and be provided with scenarios that would have been unthinkable in my younger days. You have to be prepared for the worst, but hope for the best. I will look up PC 46.15 as you suggested.

Greybeard, I think you are right. The only county I'm concerned about "traveling" through is Harris. I'm not sure how the "street cops" there feel, but I do know how their D.A. feels about the traveling law and refuses to accept it.

Thanks, Kevin. Good advice that I feel comfortable with.

Just before I woke up this morning I was having a dream that I still remember all the details of. I was with my daughter in a place that I grew up (Oak Dale Park in Glen Rose, Texas), and I was showing her around reliving my childhood. Everything there was changed and modernized, but it was still the same place. As the park was closing, my daughter and I were walking out with the new owner, and I noticed a nice, friendly looking man sitting to the side. As we approached the door, he suddenly appeared in the doorway, blocking our way, with a gun pointed at us. It was a pistol but really strange looking - like something from "Lost In Space". I reached down to feel for my pistol and remembered that I had left it in the car. As the man approached, he started shooting, so I yelled for everyone to get down and rushed the man and pushed his arm up in the air. He continued firing with me holding his arm up, and I shouted to my daughter to run outside and hide. I was counting his shots, hoping he'd run out of rounds before he overpowered me. There was a girl hiding behind the front desk. She was too frightened to move, and I yelled to her to call 911. Then I woke up. I was panting and drenched in sweat.

Anyone care to interpret my dream for me? I hope it is OK for me to post the dream here. It is gun-related, right? I think I'm a bit anxious about the trip. I've been homebound for quite a while.

Thanks, again!

I'm in "The Waiting Room" for my CHL. In approximately 2 weeks I will be driving from the Gulf Coast to San Antonio with my 8 year old daughter and 2 dogs. (I am a small-framed female - just to paint the picture.) I have only been stopped for a traffic violation once in my life, and that was over 25 years ago. I'm a very careful driver and always obedient to posted speed limits.

To get to my point, I plan to carry my pistol while traveling to San Antonio. Since I don't have my CHL yet, what would be the proper thing to do or say to an officer, if indeed I did get stopped for some reason? Also, would it be legal to carry it concealed and loaded within easy reach?

One other point, I printed out a copy of HB823 to put in the bag with my pistol. In your opinions, are most LEOs familiar with HB823?

Thanks for your advise.