Originally Posted by
wacojoe
Personal anecdote:
As a young Assistant District Attorney in Abilene, Tx. in ~1970, the local police brought in to me an interesting case. Seems the person arrested went into the town’s preferred late night eating joint late one night about bar closing time. Nothing wrong with that, but when he entered he was disheveled, bleeding from obvious signs of having been in some kind of physical fight and carrying a shotgun. He did not confront anyone or verbally threaten any harm, but, as you can imagine, the place cleared out in a rush and the police were called. The police officers came and arrested him, now they were asking me what charges could be leveled against the man.
After some scouring around the statutes, consulting with colleagues and such, I could find no direct laws prohibiting the acts. It was finally decided to charge the fellow with a general count of “Disturbing The Peace,” which he surely did, but Texas at the time favored open display of long guns at that time. I am not sure there are viable DTP laws left now other than making a lot of racket or a conservative attempting to make a speech on campus after the federal courts have made their run at them in the near fifty years since that incident.