{"id":335322,"date":"2026-06-13T21:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T21:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/335322\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T21:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T21:18:09","slug":"former-rockets-news-james-harden-arrested-on-gun-charge-in-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/335322\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Rockets News: James Harden Arrested On Gun Charge In Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Harden hasn\u2019t played for Houston in years, but one would hope when he retires, and reaches the Hall of Fame (which he really should do), he\u2019ll hang the jersey as a Rocket. I don\u2019t think anyone really associates him with any other team, and he does seem to like being in Space City.<\/p>\n

This is pretty much a non story, but it\u2019ll be everywhere, so we might as well explain it. That\u2019s the kind of quality analysis you can rely upon from TDS.<\/p>\n

The story is that James Harden and three friends, or other people, were pulled over at around 4 am on June 13th when an officer claims to have spotted a gun in the cup holder of James Harden\u2019s car.<\/p>\n

Allow me to put on a lawyerly hat for a moment. This sounds like pure, ah, bullshit. It\u2019s dark outside, it\u2019s likely dark in Harden\u2019s car, and the police car. Somehow this paragon of policing officer sees a pistol inside that dark car, in a cup holder? The skeptical, the cynics, among us might suspect the officer saw an (I assume as the car was said to belong to Harden) expensive car, with Black people inside it at 4am, and stopped them for Driving While Black.<\/p>\n

Oh, look, there\u2019s a pistol. Well, there\u2019s probable cause now, if we say we spotted the pistol beforehand. Was it seen beforehand? I\u2019m one of those skeptics, again. It might be easy enough to establish doubt about this in court, but it\u2019s a reason for the stop, and the arrest, now, even if it was post stop.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more (thanks to Bobby) the law in Texas<\/a> about guns in vehicles (including watercraft, but not bicycles) is somewhat odd. It\u2019s legal to have a concealed handgun in the car. It\u2019s legal to have a handgun openly in the car if it\u2019s in a holster and the owner of the gun also owns or controls the car. What\u2019s not legal is a handgun in the open and not in a holster. That\u2019s the charge against James Harden.<\/p>\n

He was booked and released on bail in about an hour. This is a low level misdemeanor, and often in these cases the officer will simply point out that the handgun needs to be holstered in the future. Ignorance of the law is not a defense, but this charge is somewhat odd. Legal if it\u2019s in the glove box, legal if open, but in a holster. What counts as open versus concealed? I admit I didn\u2019t look at the case law to see. (Also if the person is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, no exceptions to the prohibitions are allowed. This was not alleged as far as I can tell.).<\/p>\n

Anyhow, this is simply no big deal. You may not like Texas gun laws, but it\u2019s worth knowing what they are, as I imagine this story might be spun into a much bigger deal than it actually is in Texas.<\/p>\n

I think the eventual outcome will be a fine, but with no charge going on Harden\u2019s record, as I\u2019d expect Harden to retain a good attorney who will be able to cast sufficient doubt on the stop, unless there\u2019s camera evidence that might reinforce the City of Houston\u2019s case. Or it could be that bodycam footage if available sees the officer saying a gun was spotted.<\/p>\n

Harden haters will get a booking photo to enjoy for years to come. That should make them very happy indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Harden hasn\u2019t played for Houston in years, but one would hope when he retires, and reaches the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[119789,56,58,57,47322,35182],"class_list":["post-335322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-discussions-about-badasses","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-rockets-discussion","tag-rockets-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}