barres wrote:
I'm kinda playing devil's advocate, here, but I have thought of this very question at times where I had to disarm, but was wearing an OWB holster that wasn't easily removable. If someone saw my [empty] holster, would I have trouble until I proved that it was, indeed, empty. In other words, does the presence of a holster automatically lead to the conclusion regarding the presence of a handgun?
For what it is worth, I once entered a courthouse with an empty holster -- I was in a hurry, and it was a pain in the neck to get it on and off, so I just locked the gun & ammo in the car. I showed it to the deputies (it was under a vest), they asked if I was an LEO, I said no, CHL and gun is in the car, and they said okey-doke. I didn't run around in the court house with it actually exposed -- it was under my vest -- but it wasn't a weapon either.
The "intentionally fails to conceal" seems a pretty high bar for a cop or a prosecutor to meet, and I don't think an empty holster meets this (despite the vapors that some univ administrators have about empty-holster protests.
). It doesn't prevent a knot-headed cop from giving you grief, but generally I would not worry about it. I would keep the holster covered just because I do not want to randomly alert the world as to my gun ownership, but I don't see an actual legal issue.