Texas legislature is hearing HB910 (Licensed Open Carry)

[Dagga Boy]

In Texas, a lot of businesses are already signed against unlicensed carry. OC and private businesses starts a whole different set of circumstances. The great thing about concealed carry, is if you are doing it right the point is mute as nobody knows. Back to my gay/guns thing....you want to go to Chuck E Cheese and happen to be gay and/or carrying a concealed firearm it should be a non-event. You want to take your slave in with a bedazzled thing on a leash, and/or your openly carried firearm may illicit a response for the owner of that business to not want you there. The main reason I am for licensing is the background check that goes with it more than anything else.

Again,this is just my little personal opinion. I have become pretty agnostic on the whole subject as the tards on the extreme of both sides piss me off to no end,most like many things in this world I have really stopped giving a crap as any level of compromise on both sides is considered selling out, so I ll just let others worry about it.

[Tamara]

The main reason I am for licensing is the background check that goes with it more than anything else.

Yup, needing to get a background check keeps the skells from carrying guns.

[Dagga Boy]

Yup, needing to get a background check keeps the skells from carrying guns.

Nope, but I would like to know that if someone is pushing open carry on a business that they can at least legally carry and if this guy is in my store and I am not feeling good about it an officer has some probable cause to at minimum check a license. Again, it's just me and I am at the stage where if it is anything goes, then "okay".

[TR675]

I am not sure where I stand on this issue. I will say this: I am in favor of impressing upon people who choose to carry firearms the gravity and responsibility that come with that choice. The persons who scream the loudest in favor of open carry and unlicensed "constitutional carry" do not impress me with their apparent level of comprehension of the nature of their choice to carry. I can easily believe that licensing and training requirements weed out a significant portion of the uncommitted and dilettantes. I think on balance that this is a good thing.

I think licensing may also be valuable as a tool to weed out the obviously unfit as well as providing LE with a short-cut to easily ID good guys. This last is an issue of self-interest as much as anything. I used to get pulled over a lot and have had a grand total of one officer have a somewhat negative reaction to the possibility that I was CC'ing - which was understandable under the circumstances. Every other officer has relaxed a lot when they saw the combination of my demeanor and my license. Very often I was released with a warning instead of a ticket. Pet theory of mine that when a cop pulls over a CHL holder who puts his dome light on, his hands at 10 and 2, and says "yes sir, no sir" - that officer at the least things "solid citizen" if not "ally". Our LE can chime in on this.

All of these assumptions and beliefs may be wrong, but in the absence of other evidence I'm inclined to go with my gut on this one. And, noted that many states have not had reported problems with unlicensed CC'ers. I would call that absence of evidence, not evidence of absence, and do not necessarily think that because certain areas have had success with unlicensed CC that all others will. Would unlicensed CC make sense in areas with high concentrations of dirtbags? Or take away a valuable tool for LE to remove non-prohibited person dirtbags from the street because they're illegally carrying weapons? I think that question at least deserves more debate before making a final decision.

[Tamara]

I tend to be skeptical about this because I'm inherently skeptical of testing applied to rights. It was within the lifetime of many members of this board that some people would have had to have been able to pass a literacy test by reading "Ain't no ______s gonna vote in this here county" in Mandarin to be able to cast a ballot.

We all know the origin of most of the restrictive gun laws in this country.

Any time you put a legislative tool in the enforcement shed, you need to be prepared for it to be used by the people you disagree with most politically.

[Dagga Boy]

TR675....about sums up where I am at as well. As far as LE.....I treated CCW holders in California like gold, and never cited a single one. I even cleaned some stuff up for a couple out of state folks with ChL's who ran into some issues with our guys where both sides were a little under informed on he laws.

I am an urban animal. It has never been socially acceptable to openly carry firearms in dense urban areas. To me it is more of a social norm issue. I am very against "city folk" shoving their ideals down the throats of folks who live in low population areas, and the opposite is also true. To me it is more of a cultural/social issue than a "rights" issue. Doesn't making me anti-2nd amendment, just sensitive to there being differences from not only state to state, but regions within states as to what works for those locations.
With that said, I am starting to warm to the "do whatever the hell you want" as those who are traditionally anti-gun seem quite happy shoving a bunch of stuff down my throat that has also been socially unacceptable in our history. Thus my sort of agnostic approach lately. Who knows, I may start to open carry my 6.5" 29-2....just because.

[Tamara]

Arizona has been an important test case for Constitutional Carry, because Alaska and Wyoming are hardly urban and Vermont is something of a special case. Phoenix, however, is the twelfth largest MSA in the nation and growing fast, so it will be interesting to watch how things develop there over the years.

(I will also note that two different issues, Constitutional Carry and Open Carry are getting conflated here. There are many states where possession of a CCW permit allows open carry, including all three states I've lived in as an adult, and yet in none of those states is it common. I don't see why CC would necessarily make it more common.)

[TR675]

I am an urban animal. It has never been socially acceptable to openly carry firearms in dense urban areas. To me it is more of a social norm issue. I am very against "city folk" shoving their ideals down the throats of folks who live in low population areas, and the opposite is also true. To me it is more of a cultural/social issue than a "rights" issue. Doesn't making me anti-2nd amendment, just sensitive to there being differences from not only state to state, but regions within states as to what works for those locations.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I know that across the nation people in cities and people in rural areas behave completely differently and IIRC have seen studies that show that animals also have different behavior characteristics when living in large numbers and close proximity - again IIRC conflict avoidance and de-escalation behavior increases - less eye contact, etc. Walking around wearing a gun at people - gosh, I can't remember who came up with that phrase but it's a really good one - doesn't really fit that mold. I bet Glenn Meyers has some input on this issue.

Another plus for concealed carry: not scaring the horses. Urbanizing America isn't becoming more gun-friendly as a whole, although gunny Americans are becoming more 2nd-Amendment friendly/absolutist. Requiring concealed-only carry is good PR, IMO, based on the reactions to our local open-carry, Chipotle-frequenting idiots. I do not believe a very small percentage of OC carries will inoculate the rest of society against gun-ban propaganda and "get them used to it," I think it will upset otherwise uninterested people and push them towards siding with the ban-crowd.

[Bigguy]

Antics of the Open Carry in your face crown.

Archived video from the 84th session of the Texas House of Representatives.
http://tlchouse.granicus.com/MediaPl...&clip_id=10745

At about 1:37:00 on the video linked above, we hear Representative Nevarez. He recounts a meeting with a group of women were he stated that he would support an open carry bill that “looked and felt like concealed carry.” (Licensed Open carry.) He then mentions something that happened the day after he was sworn into the House. That is of course was the sorry affair in his office put on by Kory and company. He says flatly that that is the event that changed is vote.

That same sorry showing had other negative consequences, such as the call for “panic” buttons in the capitol. Second Amendment supporters won no friends that day, and in fact lost much credibility with those who had been persuadable up to that point.

Legislation isn’t passed by customers in a Chipotle’s. Bills become law in the Legislature, by being passed by both the House and the Senate. Getting enough members to support, then vote for a bill requires the expenditure of political capitol. Political capitol, just like financial capitol, is a finite resource, and must be budgeted. If you are forced to expend a lot of it on one bill, there will be less available for others. You may simply have to do without some bills you would have otherwise tried to push through.

There are folks working behind the scenes, such as NRA board member Charles Cotton, pushing gun friendly legislation. Two pieces of legislation they were pushing in Texas this year, licensed open carry and campus carry, should have gone through without much trouble, leaving time, effort, and political capitol for another important bill. HB308 would have been an huge gain for Second Amendment supporters in Texas, greatly expanding allowed carry locations. Unfortunately, the antics of the OCT and OCTC crowed generated enough ill will for licensed open carry and campus carry that there wasn’t sufficient resources left to push through HB308.

Doubt this? I refer you again to representative Nevarez’s statement above. Lest we blame liberal representatives for lukewarm support and claim that those events really didn’t have much impact with crucial legislators, go to 1:40:00 on the vide above were representative Stickland pulls another juvenile stunt, rudely trying to back Representative Phillips into a corner. Phillips had apparently had enough, and to the applause of many (if not most) of the members, tells Stickland, “The fate of your bill was cast when the senate decided they were not going to take up constitutional carry. I’m not going to argue with you. Your fate was treated as how you treated members on this floor as it related to your legislation of the legislation. It’s also how those that support your amendmeant have treated members of this house, their families, and our staff, that there is no reason when there are other members who have worked hard, who try to work with each other, they have to have a chance to have their hearing, they’re going to get a hearing.”

The simple reality is that the OCT and OCTC crowd not only failed to get any of their legislation passed (unlicensed open carry) but they actually derailed legislation that had a very good chance of passing before their juvenile tantrums. (HB308) To say that they are not doing damage is simply naive. Those who demand all or nothing so far have gotten noting.

Now SHOULD we have Constitutional carry nation wide? Put me in the camp that thinks so. I agree that it is a right that should only be taken away on a case by case basis by due process. I also believe that I shouldn’t have gotten cancer. I quit smoking many years ago, I drink very little and do my best to stay away from knows carcinogens. But I don’t live in the world I think should exist. I live the one that does exist. Where people get cancer for no discernible reason, and where Second Amendment rights have been eroded. Pigheadedly insisting that I shouldn’t have gotten cancer, and refusing to deal with the fact that I did would have proven fatal. People making asses of themselves over gun rights will prove equally fatal to the Second Amendment.

[Tamara]

Another plus for concealed carry: not scaring the horses. Urbanizing America isn't becoming more gun-friendly as a whole, although gunny Americans are becoming more 2nd-Amendment friendly/absolutist. Requiring concealed-only carry is good PR, IMO, based on the reactions to our local open-carry, Chipotle-frequenting idiots. I do not believe a very small percentage of OC carries will inoculate the rest of society against gun-ban propaganda and "get them used to it," I think it will upset otherwise uninterested people and push them towards siding with the ban-crowd.

Although I'm probably going to get tired of repeating it, "Constitutional Carry != Open Carry". If, as threatened, I go to Vermont after lunch, my cover garment is not going to suddenly evaporate. Well, I'm pretty sure it won't; I'll let y'all know if it does.