There are two accounts recorded of the incident pictured above. [Link to video] It happened on 12 March, in Tyler, Texas.

One account is from the eye witness who captured the video. Audio is included with the video. On the audio, someone joins the videographer. The videographer explains what has happened. From the audio in the video:

He tried to knife em, and rob em, and we had two open carrys, and the open carrys took him down.

(snip)

And that is what an open carry state is all about.

The Tyler Police Department had a somewhat different view of the event. From easttexasmatters.com:

According to a press release by the Tyler Police Department, 34-year-old Chad Boening approached a man and woman in the parking lot between FD’s Grill House and Bed, Bath and Beyond. Police say he brought out a knife and threatened the woman saying “do you want to see her die.”

Police say that a father and a son saw the incident from their vehicle and confronted the man. Both men brought out their concealed handguns to subdue Boening.

There is no mention of open carry in the police press release. Clearly, the handguns were out in the open when the police arrived. If the Good Samaritans were in a vehicle when they witnessed the assault, their handguns would not have been visible.

I don’t know what knowledge the videographer had of the participants. He considered them to be open carriers.

Unless we can identify the participants, it’s unlikely that we can resolve the question of whether the good Samaritans were carrying their handguns openly or concealed.  Clearly, they had licenses to carry. In Texas, that means that both open and concealed carry are legal.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included. Gun Watch

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39 COMMENTS

  1. Like I trust the police to get anything right in their after the fact report.

    They were carrying guns, they stopped a pyscho… does the type and location of their holsters really matter?

  2. It makes no difference whether the good Samaritans were carrying open or concealed. The fact they had guns likely saved at least one life that day.

    • Open or Concealed, just make sure you have one. NC no permit to open carry, including vehicle (must be in plain sight). Castle doctrine, stand your ground, honors all 50 states permits including non res.

      • “NC no permit to open carry, including vehicle (must be in plain sight).”

        LORD, isn’t this fun. In TX (you guys correct me) no permit to car carry, but gun must be *concealed*. Like 180 degrees out, you cannot make this shit up.

        • In CO, long guns must be unloaded when in vehicles but handguns can be in condition 1. Your rifle can be loaded when carried on horseback, however.

        • Yea, if a NC resident crosses into SC, must be concealed in console, glove box or trunk; no under seat etc. I cross county travel by vehicle & look up CURRENT regs on handgunlawus.org for any state I will be traveling thru. Have NC CCW which is good in 40 states counting NC, even semi communist DE. Have relatives in DE that find this amazing since DE is hard to get a CCW. Must admit NC is no cakewalk, but good in all but the most backwards states is OK for me. Also no NICS for firearm purchases with CCW; buy all you want & walk out the door with them then & there. And like I mentioned, NC is good with all 50. Heck, when we moved here I talked to different Sherriff dept people about my permit that had not expired from where I moved from but no longer lived there, no problem, fully covered.

        • What if you have a buggy? What if your horses get spooked and you need to scramble from the buggy to the horse – during the scrambling do automotive or equestrian rules apply?

  3. The perceived advantages of open carry are 1) deterrence, and 2) speed of draw, aside from advantages to the carrier such as comfort, convenience, and the option of bigger guns.

    Clearly the armed citizens in this case did not deter a crime, and the speed of their draw does not seem to be a factor.

    Which raises the obvious question: Who cares?

      • “They did not deter a crime?”

        It looks like they _stopped_ a crime, not prevented one.

      • Word choice is correct. They did not “deter” a crime, meaning they did not prevent the crime from happening because they were running around open carrying, what they did was stop a crime in progress, and for that purpose, it doesn’t matter whether their guns were openly carried or concealed before they drew down on the BG.

        • They prevented s couple of crimes from being committed. They did not deter the one crime from being ATTEMPTED.

          And they may have deterre a crime or two. For all we know the perp was originally planning to rob them,saw they where both packing heat and said ” gee maybe these guys aren’t the ones. I’ll go murder that nice defenseless couple over there. And for a bonus I can rape his wife “.

      • The deterrence argument for open carry postulates that the obvious presence of armed citizens convinces a would-be thug to decide not to practice his thuggery, at least not at that particular time and place.

        I’m not saying the argument is right or wrong, only that in this case it’s irrelevant.

    • Which raises the obvious question: Who cares?

      well if this lady was in California? she would certainly care! As she would be dead!

      you can’t carry there at all, so anything we 2nd amd persons can point to and say —see it does stop crime!—is a good thing!

      • His question was “who cares if they were openly carrying or concealed carrying?” not whether they were carrying at all. And by the way, there are quite a few of us in California who carry, we just don’t hail from San Francisco or Los Angeles. My county has issued something north of 5000 CCWs on a “shall issue basis, and Sacramento issues them on a “shall issue” basis as well (which irks the City Council no end).

        • That is true of New York State as well. It all depends on the county you live in.
          It really should be a state issue.

    • Open carry implies a bit more boldness. Ultimately, it is the action of getting involved in this situation that brought it to a safe resolution. Maybe they wouldn’t have felt as emboldened to take that action were they not open carrying?

      Although, which came first, the boldness or the open carry? Do we want emboldened carriers, open or otherwise, getting involved in armed robberies?

  5. This is just another example of “fake news”. Remember, gun-grabbers tell us that violent criminals will take our guns away and use them against us. That means the Good Samaritans would be dead and the perpetrator would have two, TWO I TELL YOU, guns to sell on the black market.

    /end_sarcasm

    • That guy would have taken there guns and converted them to high capacity ghost guns to sell to gangs of white supremacists outside a trump ralley. That is if he wasn’t too busy being shot.

  6. There’s a reason poor Dean tried to spin this lame story of alleged “open carry” intervention in the Lone Star State as an example of the success of pretty much the only firearm topic he remains hopelessly obsessed with, and that reason is that nearly 15 months after OC became Texas law, license to carry holders opting for open carry are as rare as hens teeth, and the fact that OC is so rare means that finding a verifiable example of OC deterrence and/or intervention to vindicate his nutty OC obsession in nearly impossible.

    Good to know the overwhelming majority of Texans licensed to carry a handgun continue to exercise common sense, good judgement, and still carry a handgun concealed on their person despite the OC option, or like a huge number of the State population who are not licensed, lawfully keep a concealed handgun within reach in their vehicle which is completely legal and unrestricted under Texas law as is carrying of a loaded rifle or shotgun in or out of their vehicle.

    • Open carriers are still harrassed and banned from most public access buildings. We, have to deal with folks like yourself that feel their opinions have merit. We have to deall with antis and constant police harassment or surveillance. It makes a quick stop at the store or tax office a two hr longer ordeal.

      • So Chris when folks who see you open carrying out in pubic and stare at you with a “look at that dumb@$$” expression on their face, you’re being harassed? Every time a business has a 30.07 sign posted that doesn’t permit open carry on the premises but does permit concealed carry, you’re being harassed? Absolutely hilarious, pathetically ridiculous, but hilarious!

    • I open carry everywhere permitted in Texas. That includes places with off-duty cops as security guards. I have never been harassed by anyone. In fact, hardly anyone even notices the 40 cal M&P Shield on my right hip.

      I did have an encounter with a woman on Sunday while eating out with my kids. She approached our table and asked if I was a police officer. When I responded “No.”, she thanked me for supporting open carry. The real reason I open carry is for comfort.

  7. Concealed or open carry, it matters not. Another DGU. Yay!

    In Louisiana (my current twenty) concealed carry in a vehicle is undefined (as in division by zero) because in Louisiana our vehicles are legally an extension of our homes, and concealed carry in a home is undefined because it’s a ridiculous proposition. Just saying.

    Charlie

  9. The only thing relevant is what they did when they saw a crime being committed What
    difference does it make how they were carrying before the thing went down?

  10. I’m going with the police report here.
    The witness’s use of the term “open carriers” may be akin to the use of “clip” when “magazine” is the proper nomenclature.

  12. Since the two men involved in stopping this crime happen to be my husband and son, and I was there at the time of the incident, I can resolve this question easily. They both have concealed handgun licenses and do not open carry. They removed their guns from their pockets after witnessing what appeared to be a robbery in progress involving a man with a knife. I don’t think it matters where the guns came from. I’m just glad they had them.

Comments are closed.