I recently got my concealed carry permit and have just joined the USCCA. I do have one question about traffic stops that I’ve not seen addressed before.
If you’re stopped for something, let’s just say speeding for example, the police can obviously see that you have a concealed carry permit. My question is, does this apply only to the police in the state where you got your permit? Or is this information shared with law enforcement in all other states? Or possibly just states with reciprocity?
I plan on checking the duty to inform policies in all the states I travel to of course. But it also seems kind of important to know if they have this information already.
Not so. Police,at least here in Pa,have no such access. When and if,(hopefully never),you get pulled over,want to know the first thing an officer asks,BEFORE he ask for your drivers license? “Sir,do you have any firearms or weapons on you or in your vehicle”?
If they already know,they wouldnt ask. So no,they dont have this information here in PA. In PA,I am not legal bound to inform the officer of me carrying a weapon or conceal carry. It’s my option. I do for the officers safety and mine. I ride a big Harley. Was pulled over few years ago on “suspicion” of speeding. Officer asked is I was carrying any weapons. I voluntarily said “yes,would yiu like to see my CCW”? ( I did not offer my gun or my cc location on me). He checked my permit and drivers license and thanked me for being open of my CC.
Before you start going state to state. Check reciprocity from your home state to others you plan on traveling to. Their is way more to know than you think. Vehicle allowance,other states permit required,duty to notify,where you can have it/vs where you cant,mag capacity. Know before you go.
Ever in Washington State you are not required to inform them that you are carrying. Each state has their own requirements so if you are elsewhere you may be required to inform them that you are carrying. Telling them as a casual conversation is key to making them feel comfortable to receive the information. They may ask where you have it, just tell them and follow any instructions they may give you. OH, and keep your hands on the steering wheel!
I did a search on this topic a while back and what I found varied by state. Officers will run your car license before walking up to the car. The car registration in some states are linked to the concealed carry database and that information is available. However, there is no way for the officer to know if the driver they pulled over is owner of the car. Once they run your driver’s license, some (probably most?) states will have concealed carry information linked to the driver’s license so the officer, or at least the dispatcher, can have that information.
I was not able to find a reference to which states will check for concealed carry 100% of time time and which won’t. The police officers I spoke with in FL check themselves or had their dispatchers check for that information.
I understand what you said but I probably wouldn’t assume a police officer doesn’t know something just because they asked you about it. The police uses the tactic of asking questions that they already know the answer for all of the time to see if someone will lie to them or not so they can cut you a break.
Yes you are correct @Sandro I agree with you 100 percent because that is a good way of getting people to give voluntary information which can assist you in knowing who you are dealing with and investigative purposes.
Cutting a break? Not sure I follow that one,but in Pa where I live we have no “duty to notify law enforcement”. So if I dont answer and the officer later finds that I legally have a ccw,Im not going to get punished.
Cheetahsneverprospe used the word “see”. you are paraphrasing suspected police tactics to find who’s lying on any given question by law enforcement. Law enforcement are not trained psychologist to ask question like youre lying on a couch in an office. Ive never had an officer give me out of the ordinary questions to see if I was lying about something.
Here in Michigan we are duty to inform and our CPL status is not tied to our vehicle registration (the state DOES pull our picture from our drivers license for our CPL cards). Here they have to verify the CPL status through LEIN (Law Enforcement Information Network).
The most common question a Police Officer asks at a traffic stop is, “do you know why I pulled you over?” If you answer is no, then you weren’t paying attention to your driving. But if your answer is yes, you knew were doing something wrong and were doing it anyway! No malice intended, but the type of response might improve the situation. Best answer is something like, I’m not sure. I’m not from around here. (Don’t pull into your driveway half a block away after the stop!) Did the speed limit change?’"
I was a police officer in the early eighties when we had no computers in our cars and utterly dependent on our dispatchers for any information.
“Cutting a break” is for example when they can give you a speeding ticket but they decide not to. They do that “all of the time” for a lot of types of infractions. If you don’t have to inform them I don’t know why anybody would. I don’t have to inform them here in FL so I wouldn’t because I don’t know if that specific officer is against the oath he/she took to protect the constitution. Personal preference of course. Just have to watch one of the videos from Solo Yaker from YouTube for example to see that there are police officers (not all) that enforce laws that don’t even exist, and act too quick before even knowing if something is legal or not, so I wouldn’t risk it. Well, I can’t speak for experience because I’ve only had experience being a victim of criminals and seeing people dying in front of me in different instances when I lived in a way more dangerous country, but I was never stopped by the police neither there or here in the US. I’m only saying what I’ve heard from my mother-in-law that was a volunteer for a PD and talked to police officers a lot and what I watched on some random full unedited videos, honestly.
Here in Texas your DL is tied your LTC. LE won’t know this though until you present your DL. It is not tied to your license plate as any authorized person could be driving your vehicle.
In Texas, during a traffic stop, present both your DL, LTC or equivalent, turn your dome light on, and keep your hands on the steering wheel.
You do this and you’ll see the stress level melt away on the LEO that stopped you.
