DMN on Open Carry 11/25/12

[gdanaher]

The Dallas Morning News ran a piece in the Metro section today concerning the upcoming open carry legislation.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics ... ndguns.ece

It noted that the concealed carry law has worked out but that CLEAT has mixed concerns with regard to how the general public might respond to open carry, that officers would need to respond to every call/complaint of some bad guy with a gun, and that there aren't enough cops in Texas to respond to the complaints. Really???

[rwg3]

I thought it was an interesting article and all things considered it did not seem terribly negative. It did point out the uphill battle that the proposed legislation would face.

[Moby]

Beieve it or not I am unsure how I feel about this.
I have a license to carry a concealed handgun.
Right now I go most anywhere I want and no one knows I have a gun.
I also have no legal obligation to act if I see a crime with a weapon against another. (though I probably would)
I can choose to defend someone else or just protect myself and my family.
Any business can post a 30.06 sign and i cannot enter with my hundgun.

Should people in Texas start carrying openly (we are one of only 6 states in America where you cannot) then more business owners may put up that sign due to complaints from liberals and the uneducated. Then there is actually more restrictions rather than less.
It could also make a carrier a target should criminals enter an estabolishment and spot the firearm.
This could give the criminal another weapon or get someone shot.

While I like the idea of open carry, I don't think I would.
I do not like Texas being one of six states not allowing open carry.
I know, it's a conflicted thought.

[TScottTX]

Beieve it or not I am unsure how I feel about this.
I have a license to carry a concealed handgun.
Right now I go most anywhere I want and no one knows I have a gun.
I also have no legal obligation to act if I see a crime with a weapon against another. (though I probably would)
I can choose to defend someone else or just protect myself and my family.
Any business can post a 30.06 sign and i cannot enter with my hundgun.

Should people in Texas start carrying openly (we are one of only 6 states in America where you cannot) then more business owners may put up that sign due to complaints from liberals and the uneducated. Then there is actually more restrictions rather than less.
It could also make a carrier a target should criminals enter an estabolishment and spot the firearm.
This could give the criminal another weapon or get someone shot.

While I like the idea of open carry, I don't think I would.
I do not like Texas being one of six states not allowing open carry.
I know, it's a conflicted thought.

with the potential negative points you brought out and for one, don't see a whole lot of positive aspects to outweigh them.

[magillapd]

If open carry passes....more 30.06 signs will go up. So I'm against open carry.

[baldeagle]

If open carry passes....more 30.06 signs will go up. So I'm against open carry.

Of course no one knows this for a fact.....

[SewTexas]

If open carry passes....more 30.06 signs will go up. So I'm against open carry.

this was not the case in CO. I've not heard of this happening in OK. Besides the fact that 30.06 is strictly for cc

[AEA]

Beieve it or not I am unsure how I feel about this.
I have a license to carry a concealed handgun.
Right now I go most anywhere I want and no one knows I have a gun.
I also have no legal obligation to act if I see a crime with a weapon against another. (though I probably would)
I can choose to defend someone else or just protect myself and my family.
Any business can post a 30.06 sign and i cannot enter with my hundgun.

Should people in Texas start carrying openly (we are one of only 6 states in America where you cannot) then more business owners may put up that sign due to complaints from liberals and the uneducated. Then there is actually more restrictions rather than less.
It could also make a carrier a target should criminals enter an estabolishment and spot the firearm.
This could give the criminal another weapon or get someone shot.

While I like the idea of open carry, I don't think I would.
I do not like Texas being one of six states not allowing open carry.
I know, it's a conflicted thought.

with the potential negative points you brought out and for one, don't see a whole lot of positive aspects to outweigh them.

What about the aspect of "Shall NOT be infringed"?

[recaffeination]

Some people keep their religious beliefs private. Concealed. Other people are very open about their religious beliefs in spoken word or display. For example, wearing a crucifix, a yamulke, or a burqa. Or having a manger that's visible to the public. Or the adjascent table in a restaurant being able to see or hear you saying grace.

I think open or concealed carry should be a personal choice, like concealing or openly displaying your religious beliefs. And for fundamentally similar reasons.

[tacticool]

The Dallas Morning News ran a piece in the Metro section today concerning the upcoming open carry legislation.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics ... ndguns.ece

It noted that the concealed carry law has worked out but that CLEAT has mixed concerns with regard to how the general public might respond to open carry, that officers would need to respond to every call/complaint of some bad guy with a gun, and that there aren't enough cops in Texas to respond to the complaints. Really???

For bigots and idiots, it probably makes sense. They sound like the kind of people who think it's a good idea to ban turbans and keffiyeh in public, because the public is going to panic and call the police to report terrorists, and there aren't enough cops in Texas to respond to the complaints.

If handgun carry reform falls short again in Texas, maybe in late 2013 some community organizers should organize their people to call in MWAG whenever they see an armed security guard or a cop openly carrying. It's not a false police report if it's true.

[RPB]

1) What if in that same sandwich shop, a customer walks in wearing an openly carried knife on their belt ...
2) suppose they call police
3) police arrive to be sure the customer has the knife legally...

Interesting article.

[The Annoyed Man]

If open carry passes....more 30.06 signs will go up. So I'm against open carry.

this was not the case in CO. I've not heard of this happening in OK. Besides the fact that 30.06 is strictly for cc

But in Texas, if OC passes, 30.06 language will be modified to include OC, not just CC. According to Charles, that's the only way OC will pass—with the 30.06 changes so that it will apply to both CC and OC. Whether that will result in a lot of new signs sprouting up or not remains to be seen, but my gut feeling is that there will be some reaction that way on the part of business owners. You can't realistically say that ALL business owners will learn to post 30.06, but neither can you realistically state that none or few will post new 30.06 signs. This is NOT Oklahoma, with Oklahoma's signage requirements (which are very different than our 30.06 requirements), so you can't really draw an accurate comparison to predict what will happend here in Texas based on what happens in Oklahoma.

For me, it begs a few questions.... Will OC still require a class and permit with a background check the way CHL does? If so, what percentage of CHLs—the largest part of whom apparently don't carry concealed regularly or ever anyway—will bother to OC? Probably a very small percentage. What percentage of people who currently don't have a CHL would bother to get a permit just so they can OC? ALSO probably a pretty small percentage.

While I'm not opposed to O.C. as part of "Constitutional Carry," I do think that the negative impact of a modified 30.06 against all CHLs has to be balanced against the relatively small number of people who are going to either obtain a CHL just so they can OC, or current CHLs who will begin to OC if it passes in any other context than Constitutional Carry. Anything else is simply unrealistic thinking, not to mention irresponsible thinking, and it would probably negatively impact more CHLs by keeping them out of business they used to be able to frequent, than the number of people who want to OC who would be positively impacted. In short, the negatives most likely outweigh the positives for the largest part of CHL holders, and OC advocates need to be sensitive to that. If they refuse to be sensitive to that, then they cannot realistically expect the support of people for whom that is a concern.

Since the most vocal OC proponents are likely far outnumbered within the firearms carrying community by those who are far more ambivalent, if they're not willing to compromise and be sensitive to the concerns of the rest, then they are not very likely to get even a part of what they want.....

.....and that, my friends, is politics.

[tacticool]

If open carry passes....more 30.06 signs will go up. So I'm against open carry.

this was not the case in CO. I've not heard of this happening in OK. Besides the fact that 30.06 is strictly for cc

But in Texas, if OC passes, 30.06 language will be modified to include OC, not just CC.

You know this as a fact, how? Off the top of my head, I can see several ways OC could be decriminalized without touching the 30.06 language at all. The most straightforward would be to strike 46.035(a) from the Texas Penal Code. Maybe too straightforward, so it probably has no chance of passing in a body overrun with lawyers.
A slightly more convoluted way is to amend 46.035 like so:

45.035 (i) Subsections (a), (b)(4), (b)(5), (b)(6), and (c) do not apply if the actor was not given effective notice under Section 30.06.

Ideally 46.035 should be repealed in its entirety (well, most of 46 actually, while we're dreaming) but that would require the majority of both the Texas House and Senate to be pro gun and pro CHL, which the 2011 session showed not to be true. There's too many Texas legislators (who really deserved a C grade from the NRA, but that's a debate for another thread) who are neither significantly anti gun nor pro gun.

[C-dub]

I thought Charles said that he and others would not allow OC to pass if changes to 30.06 were going to be required. I don't think that OC will pas this upcoming session, but it might in two more years after Oklahoma has gone fora couple of years without any or too many problems. If they can get through a couple of years I think Texas might use some of the good things in Oklahoma's law here.

Also, I understand the "shall not be infringed" thing, but we are so far past being infringed due to courts allowing it to be "regulated." Like most things, however, it is over regulated and that's all we can fight against now.

[mamabearCali]

Well, we have open carry in Va. If you can own it you can carry it openly. There are a few places with the no gun signs, but most of the time it is not that big of a deal. I OC from time to time. I have a CHL for the times discretion is desirable. We don't usually have problems with LEOs as they know the drill. We don't have problems in our community because if they call in a MWAG the operators are trained to handle it on the phone and not involve the LEO if is just an OC.