TexasCHLforum.com

jeelliott71 wrote:And, as far drinking and carrying.....go to the DPS website FAQ section and it's tells you right there the right answer!!!!

But if you quote it verbatim, lots of people want to argue about it, which was pretty much my point.

I avoided bringing any particular issue into this discussion, because it happens with many topics: drinking, open carry, improper 30.06 signage, printing, traveling, etc.

I don't want to squelch discussion and debate, not in the least. This is a fairly busy forum, but it's not so busy that someone can't read the new posts once or twice a week and keep up with things.

My main interest is in making sure questions are met with accurate answers, not gun shop lore or conventional wisdom. Yeah, it's work to dig up and quote the appropriate statute. Not a lot of work, but definitely more work than just popping off with a quick 30 second response that isn't supported by the facts.

So I guess my plea is this: instead of a "I don't know, but... " response, let's all take a few minutes to provide an accurate answer to the best of our abilities.

Longtooth, thanks for that reply from a relative "old timer" (I'm not implying anything about age, of course!), and a moderator.

In response to a personal message, I said I don't think this is really a moderation issue, because I know the mods have to read every post, and that doesn't leave them much time for constructively engaging the discussion. Besides, heavily moderated forums die off pretty quickly. It's one thing to enforce the rules consistently, but another thing entirely to edit/delete/moderate posts based on opinions or complaints or who said what (and I haven't seen any evidence of that here).

We'll never run out of new members who have barely completed the registration process before asking if they will be arrested for accidentally printing while carrying drunk in church with one in the chamber. Not much you can do about that.

But my purpose in starting this thread was to bring attention to the problem so that those members who have been around for a little while will take it to heart.

There's a difference between opinion and advice. If you're offering opinion, please make that clear. And if you're offering advice, please refer to the law that backs you up. Add this to your bookmarks to help out with that.

This forum is one of the best gun forums around, and it's a great source for information on Texas law, and even federal law. I lurked here for quite some time (over a year) before registering and starting to post, and I've always been impressed that whatever the question, no matter how obscure it is or many times it's been asked and answered before, someone is along shortly to give the right answer and a cite to the law.

I'm seeing a troubling trend away from that, where people are piping up with opinions that are contrary to the law, and declaring how much trouble someone is going to be in if (fill in the blank), and they continue to object even when shown the law.

It's one thing to say "That's legal, but not a lot of people know about it, so expect some hassle." You know, the old "beat the rap but not the ride" routine. That's fine; it's interjecting some wisdom so people can decide their own level of risk comfort.

It's another thing to declare "You're going to be staring down a cop's barrel and probably get tackled and cuffed and probably lose your license and spend time in jail and suffer the heartbreak of psoriasis to boot!" (Okay, I exaggerated a little. But only a little.)

Maybe it's because the forum has gotten so popular and has so many participants, but it seems like more and more people pipe up without really knowing the answer, but feel compelled to say what they think it might be or should be, or what the old man at the gun store told them, or their wife's cousin's husband who used to be a cop said twenty years ago.

I'd hate to see this forum reach that breaking point where it's too busy to read, so everyone replies without reading what has already been said in a thread. There are plenty of those out there already, offering plenty of heat and little light (arfcom, CAguns.net, northeastshooters, THR...)

Okay, off my soapbox now.