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The biggest problem with unlicensed carry is that the well is poisoned right now with legislators. Many would support it, just as many would fight it. In the end you have to get the ones on the fence onboard to advance your goals and unfortunately you will see three major forces at work trying to sway those on the fence to vote one way or the other. The NRA and TSRA will not fight it, they might go so far as to give it their blessing and offer amendments to improve the bill, but going to bat for it is different horse. You will see Law enforcement, Bloomberg's minions, and the NRA/TSRA on all gun bills. The NRA and TSRA will consider what their members want to see passed, they will then evaluate those priorities to see what can be done, and what can not be done with the political capital they have. They will then decide to support the legislation that will get them the most political capital and goodwill for the next session so they can drive membership up and show that they got results on issues their members wanted passed. When this session starts I suspect they will already be looking to see what they can do NEXT session, and will in fact be working on it while trying to push legislation this session .

nlyric wrote:There is absolutely no reason unlicensed carry can't pass in 2017.. Unless of course the NRA doesn't fully support it... Then it doesn't have much of a chance.

This is completely untrue. The reasons unlicensed carry didn't pass all had names. I will share two: Stickland, and Watkins. The actions of a very vocal minority doomed unlicensed carry from the start and almost killed open carry. If we see thw same behaviour again more political capital will be spent trying to prevent or undo damage rather making real progress.

Lambda Force wrote:I wish people would say unlicensed carry if that's what they mean.

The US Consitition says our right to carry weapons "shall not be infringed" which means no license and no prohibited places.

I dislike the term Constitutional Carry because it implies that the Constitution gives us this right, I do not agree with that idea. I feel that the right to keep and bear arms predates the Constitution and that the Constitution does NOTHING other than enshrine legal protection for this right. If people we support the concept that Constitutional Carry is a right granted by the constitution then simply amending the Constitution is a just means of ending that right. By acknowledging that the right predates and supercedes the constitution we are making it more difficult to strip this right away from a moral and educational point of view.

I think we can strengthen pre-emption by using the property rights angle. We have state agencies that require businesses to post, two I know of are the Department of Family and Protectives Services along with the Department of Ageing and Disability Services. These are often private facilities that are required to prohibit firearms in order to be licensed by the state, even if the property owner doesn't wish to, and they are required because of rules made by a state agency rather than a law passed by the legislature. DFPS requires day care providers to prohibit firearms unless the day care is prohibited by the fines for signs law (I believe I still have this from them via email). DADS requires nursing facilities to prohibit concealed carry.

We have to consider the following. Limited time in session means that everyone is fighting to get time for their bills, and this is where political capital comes into play. The more political capital you have the more time you can get your bill and the further you can advance it. Unlicensed Carry is dead for 2017 because of specific people and specific groups including the "author" of the house version of the bill. Don't believe me? Then listen to this: http://traffic.libsyn.com/opencarryrepo ... kland1.mp3 (MP3 format) or go here http://gunrightsintexas.com/055a/ (Blog post with embedded player). This is a clip of Phillips and Stickland that I made available some time back.