Cleveland Cavaliers basketball star James Harden was arrested early Saturday morning in Houston during a routine traffic stop, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from gun rights advocates. Harden was hit with a misdemeanor charge after an officer allegedly spotted a semi-automatic rifle inside his vehicle. Following the incident, the NBA player was released on a $100 bond.
Gun Rights Debate
According to details from charging documents cited in media reports, the firearm was visible to the officer who approached the vehicle. However, the arrest has raised immediate questions because Texas is a “constitutional carry” state, where eligible citizens can legally carry handguns openly or concealed without a permit.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) quickly stepped forward to challenge the justification for the charge. Andrew Gottlieb, the executive director of the CCRKBA, expressed confusion over the state’s handling of the situation.
“Let me see if we have this straight,” Gottlieb said. “Harden had a gun, in Texas, which is a ‘Constitutional carry’ state where no carry license is required, open carry is legal and it was not in a holster. It was in his vehicle, allegedly in ‘plain view’ even though it probably wasn’t visible to any other motorist, but only to a police officer who approached the vehicle after it was stopped. We could argue all day long about the holster issue, but this seems like government trying to micromanage how someone travels from Point A to Point B with a legally-owned firearm in a state where gun ownership is as common as cowboy boots and sirloin steaks.”
Mark Walters, a CCRKBA director and the host of Armed American Radio, called the situation “nonsense,” arguing that a lawful gun owner shouldn’t face jail time over a missing holster in a pro-gun state.
Harden is currently scheduled to appear back in court on June 22 to face the misdemeanor charge. Representatives from the gun rights group argue that the penalties being discussed do not fit the alleged infraction.
Original reporting: Tampa Free Press — read the source article.
