nightmare69 wrote:This could be interesting. TABC can legally keep long guns from entering but since black powder handguns are not considered firearms under penal code then I don't see them being able to legally stop OCT from entering.
Well among other things if the DA wants they can give a weapons charge and make a defendant prove the gun is a qualifying replica or made before 1889. It isn't any BP handgun but exact copies of weapons made before 1889. If they have the wrong barrel or finish they may not qualify thus police can not be required to know every possible qualifying firearm. Then there is the fact that the exemption was for the purposes of collecting and specifically historical recreations so the intent was not to allow unlicensed open carry of deadly weapons. If they are in public with these guns and not dressed in historical outfits then how is the public supposed to react on seeing what appears to be illegal action, open carry of a firearm and so you have the disturbing the peace fall back.
And by the way while it is a stretch to arrest and charge someone for weapon offences just for possession of a BP firearm there is precedent for doing so. If you commit any crime that allows a firearm enhancement you will get it if you carry a BP gun. The C&R exemption, if you'll forgive my naming it as such, only applies when treating the gun as antiques, not to using them as weapons. When carried and treated as weapons by the possessors the courts tend to hold that there is no exemption. A activist DA could certainly try and push this to cover OC advocates and they would have more than enough basis to do so. Now before people start yelling at me how wrong I am I'm just repeating how the courts have ruled.