So far I see everyone being just about as easy as you deserve. You are welcome to your own opinions, but your lack of logic sounds just like the anti-rights nuts.DUST FOOT wrote:I really hope the TSRA gets behind one of these open carry bills and for the reasons of making it easier for law makers to get on board, taking the wind out of the OC show boaters sails, and common sense I would like to see any open carry bill have these amendments.
1: no openly carried firearm larger than .45 cal unless on your own property, hunting, or any other shooting activity. There is just no need to walk around with a S&W 500 hand cannon strapped to your leg for self defense.
2: no more than one openly carried handgun at a time on your person. We don't need people walking around likeHoot Gibson with 2 six shooters on their hips.
3:can carry no more than one extra clip or speed loader on your person while open carrying in the general public. we don't need people walking around with bullet belts across their chest just trying to show off or looking like the Lone Ranger
I would even be OK with having to openly display your state issued handgun license if you open carry a handgun ( on a lanyard around your neck, clipped on your pocket, or someway like that ) so that any person or LEO can see that you have passed a state and federal background check, been finger printed, and have met all other state requirements.
I know that I will get hammered on pretty hard about this, but I am not against anybody's freedoms it is just that open carry is my biggest wish from law makers in 2015 and I feel that these amendments could make it an easier pill to swallow for the ones that are still on the fence about open carry. We can always tweek the law later let's just get open carry passed first. This is the first time I have ever posted my opinion on this forum so please go easy but let the hammering begin.
Robert M.
You dictate "no one needs" terms that draw lines where they don't need to be drawn and exemplify your choice by swinging into the sublime. I can just see the amendment that Wendy Davis would submit to such a bill:
1: Openly carried firearms larger than .22 rimfire will not be allowed because anything larger will scare people.
2: Because people don't need to walk around like Hoot Gibson (who actually only wore one gun most of the time, another poor choice of example) the only allowable open carry will be like that idiot on "Criminal Minds" who favors "Cross Crotch Carry".
3: In order to make the public more comfortable with open carry, all spare ammo will be retained in its original factory boxes.
I, and many others I am sure, agree that a .500 S&W is probably not the best choice for a carry gun, but there are people out there who feel the same way about any gun, .45 or smaller.
I also can't imagine too many people carrying more than one gun openly, but I know lots of people, including myself, who see no reason to limit themselves to just one concealed.
I have a real hard time imagining any logical reason for your number 3 except if you really expect people to go around with bandoliers of ammo strapped across their chests. Do you know how uncomfortable and inconvenient that is?
As far as open display of ID cards. why not just go to badges? Seriously, that is putting such ID at a high risk of being lost or stolen, better we should go back to the old precept of "innocent until proven guilty" and assume that anyone open carrying is doing so legally, and even limit the "stop and ask" powers of the police to those occasions when an illegal activity is observed.
And it also appears to me that you have no idea how the Texas legislature works. First of all, only meeting every two years makes "tweaking" laws impractical at best and nearly impossible most of the time.
Secondly, Texas laws are pretty much cast in stone, and once a law is passed it has a tendency to achieve a life of its own beyond the paper it is written on. I was talking to a LEO friend the other day, and he mentioned the time, recently, when his pastor asked him if he carried to church, and he stated that he had always disarmed before entering the church because that was the law. The PASTOR pointed out that the law had changed some years ago and actually asked him to go ahead and carry. My friend was truly unaware that the law had changed and even was surprised when I knew it had.
If you don't want to get hammered, don't walk around disguised as a nail.