acparmed said:
Euclidean-- IMO you did not brandish, you merely had it in plain sight, brandishing would have been to have had it in hand and displaying it in a threatening manner. Just having it lying in your lap is not illegal....IMHO..
Absolutely, I agree. And I think you did the correct thing. You said, "In Texas it's legal to car carry for a trip and I was going from Austin to San Angelo" so I doubt you would get much flack from
most DPS officers. I did much the same thing when I left work one day and stopped at a stop sign leading to a very busy street. A guy on the sidewalk crossed the street and started walking up to my door. I did not have my CCW permit at that time but carried my gun according to Arizona's open carry law between the seat and console in full view. He grabbed and tried to open my door, which was locked, and when he then grabbed the window which was rolled down about two inches and started demanding something in jibberish I could not understand. I put my hand on the grip, which he saw, leaving the gun holstered. He decided that I was not a good audience for his jibberish and turned and stumbled back to the sidewalk. The situation was diffused. In Arizona that could, I believe, be contrued as brandishing but it's questionable in my mind anyway.
What's really funny is about a year later, I was walking across the street to eat lunch with 3 other people from my office. I should probably mention that I work in downtown Phoenix about two miles from State Hospital which now routinely turns indigent patients out on the street. They stay in the area so they can eat at the shelters, get medical attention and medicine at the hospitals and bully people into giving them money and cigarettes. Anyway, we had crossed the street and noticed three surly looking guys sitting on a bench drinking from a bottle (in a sack). They were all three watching us, but one walked straight to us, bumped one of the guys with us chest to chest and demanded a cigarette. He said no and tried to keep on walking. The guy reached for his arm and I shoved him off and told him to beat it. He then turned his attention to me and got pretty close. As the police department taught me I moved into an interrogation stance and got ready to fight. I raised my voice and told him to leave. One of the guy's friend's decided to come to the party so one of the guys I was with started turning his attention to the new guy until it turned out that he had come to get his friend away from us. The situation diffused pretty quickly when the Capitol Police walked across to us from our building. Someone had notified him. We continued on our way to lunch without any more trouble. The police officer told us when we got back that he made them pour out their almost full bottle of booze and leave the area before he arrested them. The guy that was causing all of the trouble was the same guy that approached my car the year before.
Fast forward another year and I am on a smoke break in the middle of an Arizona summer in the shade on the north side of our office building. One of the women from the office had also come out and we were idly chatting. One of the guys that was with me during the earlier incident was out there as well. The woman and I were both sitting on a planter box, me close to the building, she a little way out from the building. The other guy was standing. I look up and see the same surly guy coming directly towards us and made a nod towards him for the other guy to see. We stayed where we were and waited to see what was about to happen. He comes right up to the woman, grabs her arm and says "give me a cigarette". I stood up and told him to get off the property and, as before he turned his attention to me. He decided I was the person responsible for the plight of the American Indian and started cussing and pointing his finger in my face. I told him twice to get his finger out of my face. He moved closer and continued jabbing his finger in the air right in front of my face and I decided I had had enough. I took a punch at his left temple and put him on the ground. The woman took off for the lobby to summon the Capitol Police officer, who appeared before the guy could get off the ground. He told the guy to stay on the ground while he got our version of what happened. When he asked him for his version he started pointing to me and babbling about the plight of the American Indian again. He ran the guy for wants and warrants and told him the next time he saw him on the property he would go to jail. What's funny is, he couldn't explain how he got on the ground. Not sure whether I knocked some wires loose or if they were lose to begin with. We've never seen him around our building again, but I do see him time to time near the State Hospital with his paper sack.
I don't think the guy is, in reality, that dangerous to a healthy and sober adult but you never know about some of these guys.....