Wish I was still in Texas.
We Texans need to work harder to get open carry passed so you at least have the option. Some days I get tired of IWB (inside the waistband), especially in the summer.
I finally just got rid of a bad heat rash, that lasted for a couple of weeks, that was shaped in the perfect outline of my Milt Sparks VM2 holster. LOL!
Restore?
Has Texas ever had open carry?
bump
Rep Lavender’s HB 700 for open carry had 25 sponsors and co-sponsors but died. It will continue to die without going to Calendars so long as Straus controls Calendars.
One of the biggest setbacks to open carry is that TSRA won’t endorse it. They’ll tell you they don’t oppose it, but demanding it as a gutcheck on endorsement would go a long way to enable it. That they haven’t done.
Here are your Representatives in the Lege that are stand up on open carry:
Lavender | Paddie | White | Larson | Burkett
Coauthor: Bonnen, Dennis | Bonnen, Greg | Capriglione | Cook | Fallon | Flynn | Gooden | Hughes | King, Phil | King, Susan | Krause | Laubenberg | Leach | Miller, Rick | Phillips | Simmons | Thompson, Ed | Toth
The biggest advantage of Open Carry is that it eliminates inadvertant reveal being a crime, making concealed carry more practical.
In addition AZ has a law for defensive display which allows the display of a handgun to ward off its need for use. Right now, if you pull it out, it had better be to use it, or you’re committing a felony. I’d like to see a version of AZ’s defensive display in an open carry law.
Kingwood has always been pizzed after the City of Houston annexed it for revenue purposes...
And couple that with a really poor implementation of “city services” (i.e.: adequagte fire, police presense) those folks have been looking for ways to basically give the City of Houston the middle finger and a big Heave-Ho since then...
This is just another burr under the saddle for this state, and I hope it irritates the hell out of the state Legislature for a long time...
But as for the issue at hand, technically it is a third rail on the track of gun rights...There would need to be a tremendous change in the Texas Panal Code, along with a revision to Section 30.06 and Section 42 that would require a lot of work from our state government, and those guys and gals don’t want to broach the subject of open carry in this state while we have had monumental successes with the Concealed Carry program since 1995/96...
Even the most stalwart of defenders of the RKBA in Texas are a little squeemish about tackling the issue of O.C. in this state...By dropping the issue early on back in the early 90’s, we were able to get Concealed Carry going and have tweeked that law over the years, very successfully...
Personally I would not mind the “option” to carry openly, but like many other places where I have traveled where it is allowed and accepted by most people, folks are more mobile, and are not local if you encounter them, and they might not be as well versed in the carry laws of that particular state...So I lean more towards the side of surprise, than letting someone else know I have the means to defend myself, and others, if you wanna get a little rambunktious...
Are YOU prepared, even if you are in a state that allows it, to be stopped, and questioned by Law Enforcement, which WILL be called to make contact with you when Joe Q. Pantie-in-a-wad-wearing Public calls in with a “Man with a gun” call???
Are YOU prepared mentally and physically for that encounter??? I’ve seen a lot of them go very well, and I have seen a lot of them go very bad for those willing to push the envelope back a smidge...
I really wish there was an easier path for this effort...There are a lot of things politically and socially working against such changes...EVEN THOUGH WE ARE RIGHT TO BROACH THE SUBJECT!!!
We need to be good ambassadors of our current allowances, even though we shouldn’t have to, we still need to be very humble and guarded with our own advances...We will eventually win more people to our side of the equation if we keep calm and press on with bigger,more threatening fish to fry up...
Just my opinion...