Can you cite some code for that there law? I surely can't find it anywhere in my copy of the Texas statutes.
Dug through my appropriate folder and came up with two pamphlets on Texas firearms law. The third "source" is my recollection of a poster put out by either the Texas Department of Public Safety or the Houston Police Department, and displayed either in a police station or a gun shop. This was back around the time the concealed-carry law went into effect at the end of 1995.
The first pamphlet is an abstract that basically quotes criminal and civil law. I compare it to the second, which gives chapter and verse and quotes verbatim, and I see the language is substantially identical.
The first pamphlet was produced in 1991 at the expense of the Texas Smallarms Academy for free distribution under the aegis of the Harris County District Attorney, Johnnie B. Holmes (that's Mister Texas John Law to you and me -- he had a squared-off look and a handlebar mustache that just had John Law written all over him). This pamphlet appears to incorporate case law and executive policy as well as reproducing parts of state criminal code almost verbatim.
The second is a Texas Department of Public Safety pamphlet covering the same subject, produced by the state under publication number LS-16, titled "Texas Concealed Handgun Laws and Selected Deadly Force Statutes [Effective 09-01-95]". This pamphlet cites chapter and verse, which the first pamphlet dispensed with. The principal difference between the two pamphlets is that the newer one includes some additional sections of definitions, and it leads in with the concealed-carry law, codified as Vernon's Civil Statutes, Article 4413 (sections of).
The information you ask about is quoted in the portions of the two pamphlets that reproduce Penal Code Chapter 46, "Weapons". The definitions are mostly in Paragraph 46.01, and the section expressing their prohibited nature is Paragraph 46.05, "Prohibited Weapons".
The poster I saw had illustrations of all the defined weapons in Chapter 46 as cited, but it also contained some objects that are not specifically defined: including the shuriken (throwing stars) and nanchuka (fighting irons), as well as various medieval weapons, a fighting quarterstaff IIRC, a length of threaded pipe, a tree branch or shillelagh, and one or two other items, as well as several that are listed in the defined and prohibited weapons: machine guns, short-barreled firearms, silencers, AP ammunition, zip guns, knuckles. The 1991 pamphlet produced by the District Attorney also specifically named "thowing stars" in a section "Offenses Involving Weapons", in a paragraph subtitled "Transfer of Certain Weapons Prohibited."
The actual definition of a handgun as an "illegal weapon" (the phrase is also frequently used by the Harris County 1991 pamphlet) in my mind -- I'm not sure this is right -- stems from the frequent inclusion of handguns (which have their own definition, which the DA cautions us includes nonworking firearms in some cases) in offenses of possession, transfer, and premises. So there arises a nice distinction, too fine for a poster, between a handgun as an illegal weapon and as a prohibited weapon -- very thin, and very slick. I may have fallen down on it. The other weapons with which handguns are grouped in these prohibitions are illegal, whereas handguns may only be prohibited -- and under certain circumstances. I think this paragraph in particular in the 1991 pamphlet, which I read carefully at the time, may have led me astray:
"Circumstances of Non-Applicability"
"......Although a person may lawfully possess an otherwise illegal weapon [emphasis added] on his own premises or premises under his control, one may not lawfully carry this weapon back and forth from your home to your business on a regular basis. Habitually carrying the weapon from home to business is a crime....."
This elision of "prohibited" and "illegal" weapons, in a paragraph that was pretty clearly discussing handguns, completed, I think the identification in my mind of pistols as "illegal weapons". So I think that distinction needs to be reintroduced in the case of handguns -- but I don't think there are any other categories of "prohibited" weapons that aren't also "illegal", too.
"Chemical dispensing weapons" are illegal, but an exception is made for "small" ones made for personal defense. So in Texas, you may carry the half-ounce size of 5% OC + 1% CN, but not the 15-ounce size? They don't define the boundary.
I think the key here is discretion of law enforcement. The law tells us what is in the law; and the poster told me a little more about what the police agencies are prepared to enforce against. The list was pretty broad -- and the term "prohibited weapons" (which I recall as "illegal weapons") is therefore pretty comprhensive, excluding only long guns, federally licensed firearms (so I hear anecdotally), "legal" knives, small pepper-sprayers, and sofa cushions.
The point here is that the list of "illegal weapons" or "prohibited weapons" is indeed quite long, and the weapons available for a person to defend himself under the law very limited indeed if officers' discretion goes against you and they decide that you are the problem. Which was the whole idea of the law.
There are just a whole lot of things lying around -- hammers, kitchen cutlery -- that constitute "illegal knives" or "clubs" if the Law decides you're an intruder in your own kitchen: your snarling soon-to-be-ex-wife points the finger and presto, you're not only a VAWA offender, you're a felon under Texas law because you had a rolling pin in your hand. Capiche ?
I don't know whether body armor is a regulated or prohibited "weapon": it's a gray area. Personally, I might like to own a Level II vest on New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July -- hold the trauma plate, but gimme the kevlar hat.
I notice that Texans are allowed by law to purchase firearms, if not otherwise prohibited, in contiguous states -- all four of them.
Hoax bombs and explosive devices have their own sections.
Hope this helps. Had to write it up twice: was almost ready to post last time, when I got nailed by a kernel fault. That hasn't happened in a long time.