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All of this is going to be very interesting in my church. Our membership now is around 1,000 members actually registered as members, and average weekly attendance is on the order of 1,500. To date, the church has been very CHL friendly. I am not the only person on the worship team who has their CHL, although I am probably the only one who carries at all times. The others are younger than me and wear those "skinny clothes" and are less inclined to make fashion compromises to accommodate their choices of pistol. They're young, and they'll learn in time.

I don't know for a fact and I've never broached the question with him, but I suspect that my pastor carries, based on how he dresses. Actually, he dresses like a LOT of men with CHLs.......so that you'd never know he's armed, but if you were looking for that sort of thing, you can tell that he's dressed for it IF he does. He is an outgoing man at church, but I know that he is very discreet and private in his private life, so I respect that. And I do know that he is also friendly to CHL for others, because one of our members here on the forum used to go to my church, and he had a face to face talk with our pastor about the topic, and he was favorably disposed.

I also know that there are a number of off-duty LEOs who carry and who serve as members of the church's security team. One of them almost always sits directly across the aisle from where I sit. He knows I carry, and we talk guns and hunting all the time. Two of the others also know I carry. All of them are fine with it, and one of them who works for Dallas PD is an occasional range buddy of mine.

Ours is a generally conservative church. It presents itself as a modern non-denominational evangelical church, but it does have an affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention, and I know that my pastor thinks of himself as a baptist. (Personally, I'm not denominationally oriented. I am more concerned with sound theology than what the denomination is named.....but that's just me. Some of the most amazing Christians I've ever had the honor to call friend are either members of other Protestant denominations from my own, or are very involved Catholics. I think the saved are all in this together, regardless of what building they hang their hats in. But that is irrelevant to this conversation.) Anyway, all of that is to say that my church is generally gun-friendly..............but...........it is far more interested in obedience to Christ, and sharing his good news with others, than it is with making any kind of 2nd Amendment statement. We are NOT a seeker-driven church per se, but we DO go out of our way to be graciously welcoming to people who don't know Jesus, and to make them feel at home and appreciated for being there. If they are going to come to faith, the Spirit will make that happen, but it's not going to happen at our church if we drive people away. And that is where 30.07 comes in.

I don't know of any relevant ongoing discussions among my church's leadership on the topic, but they are generally on top of developments. It would not surprise me in the least if they started posting 30.07 signs at some point. I suspect that it would happen in response to people beginning to OC, rather than posting them preemptively. They are not at all anti-gun, but they are on a higher purpose than gun politics. My church is in a transition period. The lease on our building is up in 2016 and the owners are not interested in our renewing it. Consequently, we have made an offer on 7.25 acres on TX-26, just north of the GCISD football stadium and the offer has been accepted so we are now under contract for that land. We've gotten the city council's go-ahead, and we've raised the necessary money to secure the bank loan to begin construction (as well as having, to date, already secured nearly 75% of the amount needed to cover the total land/construction costs) and we will begin construction on our new church campus soon. The reason this is important is that we are deliberately placing ourselves in an area representing the most disadvantaged residents of our city, so that we can better serve that area. Many of those residents are immigrants, and many of them are probably - because of where they came from and the political histories of their nations of origins - afraid of men with guns. Where they come from, a man with a gun is either a bully with a badge, or a cartel member. One doesn't have to be a genius to predict that openly carried guns on our campus might discourage some of those people from coming forward to take advantage of the services we will be offering to the community. Among those services will be a preschool, and that presents its own set of issues.

Beyond that, we are a suburban church, not a rural one. A small rural church with a homogenous congregation, all of whom are familiar with firearms, is a far different one from a larger suburban church with people from varying backgrounds, some of who are not necessarily 2nd Amendment supporters. For reasons like this, I don't think you can rationally make a blanket statement about whether or not a church should or should not post a 30.07 sign - particularly when the church might still be concealed carry friendly.

So there are a number of factors going into this that really don't have a thing to do with how either our leadership or most of the members feel about guns, and I suspect that we're going to end up posting 30.07 signs as a result of those higher considerations.

skychief12 wrote:I'm wondering how the new open carry (assuming final passage) could effect conceal carry rules. For example, I thinking about an optional switch from an officer size 1911 to a full size government model if it becomes final. That leads me to thinking about issues around peeking that I don't have now with the shorter gripped officer and IWB holster. Using the IWB and government the bottom of the longer grip will bulge out the back of my untucker T-shirt when sitting. If I went with an OWB the tip of the barrel will peek out below the untucker t-shirt in some situations.

If the end result is that the law states clearly "fully exposed" or "fully concealed", I'm sure some will dance in the above mentioned gray areas (as they do today). But that would clear it up for me and I'd just stay with my officer rig.

Thought?

FWIW, I'd choose to still carry the smaller gun if that's what you had, and I wouldn't spent the money for a 5", unless you just had to have one. In that case, by all means......

A well-made 1911, even a 3" or 4" barreled model, is plenty enough gun. I've nothing against 5" 1911s, and I own two of them with steel frames, but I've also owned an alloy-framed 3" Kimber, and that was my carry gun while the 5" guns stayed at home. It was purely a matter of all day comfort and weight........and I have carried OWB almost from the beginning, so it would be the same whether it was CC'd or OC'd. So unless you're in a barrel-measuring contest......

Just my 2¢.