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There's The Law, and there's the natural law. Rosa Parks broke The Law by sitting in the front section of a Jim Crow bus, but she acted in support of the natural law, which is that law which endows mankind with certain inalienable rights - including the rights to equal access before The Law, and to keep and bear arms. And she's just the first example that popped into my head of when a person, in good conscience, broke The Law, and still acted correctly.

In the earliest days of the Civil Rights movement, it was more productive for civil rights activists to act within the law in pursuit of their aims. Later, when it became productive to act outside of the law to pursue those aims, civil rights leaders still insisted on non-violent civil disobedience. And it was that the civil disobedience was non-violent which gave it its legitimacy. That is why Rosa Parks' action was legitimate, even though it was illegal.

Whatever the state of the CHL laws in Texas or in other states which have shall issue laws and regardless of the fact that they've been around for a few years now, public acceptance of concealed carry through the process of legal codification is still in it's relative infancy. Remember that for years concealed carry was looked at askance by a large part of the public, who saw no legitimate reason for why a person would want to carry a gun. This view has been constantly reinforced by the press. That is beginning to change, but we, as a community of gun owners and carriers, have not yet fully arrived at the point where the vast majority of the general public views it as either socially acceptable or desirable.

So given that, although there are legitimate arguments that one can make in favor of carrying regardless whether one is licensed to do so, one should also take into consideration what perception one lends to the right to carry movement in the eyes of others, if one is caught carrying illegally. For my own part, as long as I've been a gun owner, I have only carried illegally for very specific reasons, such as when making a late night trip to an ATM. I have also tended to avoid putting myself in those situations where I thought being armed was necessary. On the whole, I have avoided illegal behavior, including illegal carry. The odd thing is that, now that I am waiting for my CHL to arrive, I am much more conscious of the importance of behaving within the law than I was before. It is much like having a radar detector in my car. Before I got one, I used to speed routinely; not dangerously or recklessly, but speeding anyway. Then I bought a radar detector. The net effect was to actually make me slow down - even though that seems counterintuitive. So for my own part, I have no intention of deliberately breaking any laws when I finally have my license. I will respect .30-06 signs and any employer regulations. This is an "at will" state when it comes to employment. My employer is free to fire me if I violate his rules about carrying, including in my car on company property. Likewise, I am free to fire him for having stupid rules and to go seek employment elsewhere where common sense prevails.

That's just my 2¢.