TexasCHLforum.com

Excaliber wrote:

TexasCajun wrote:

victory wrote:I don't doubt this was requested by a show. Look how many post 30.06 signs.

Not likely. The new provisions would cripple the gun shows. It's more likely that a gun club requested the change but didn't realize what the ramifications would be.

I'm not buying the whole premise of a gun club requesting this.

First of all, who but a full blown alcoholic would think it's a good idea in the first place, let alone one good enough to request TABC action on it?

Secondly, to see TABC move raipidly on a single "gun club request" that has no support from the rest of the state is itself cause for suspicion. Government agencies don't move rapidly at all, even on legitimate and urgent matters. Seeing this move forward is not business as usual.

The way they propose to go about implementing it is far from innocent - it is right out of the antis playbook as a way to kill gun shows by making them unprofitable for dealers and unattractive to attendees.

I think this merits further investigation - like a FOIA request to see the original request that supposedly got this started. A look into the identity of the originator of that request, if it exists, would be illuminating.

If it's a conspiracy, it's a conspiracy of about three people (e.g., some city council member called up his buddy at TABC and said, "Bill, we're having a heck of a time finding a loophole that'll let us shut down this local gun show, but it occurs to me that all of the local venues have beverage licenses, and I was thinking that maybe y'all could help us put a little pressure on them"). The type of massive conspiracy that everyone likes to opine about is almost non-existent in the real world--it's too easy for such plots to unravel and come back to bite the person who started them (loose lips and all that). And there is DEFINITELY not a widespread conspiracy in the executive branch of the Texas government to shut down gun shows (talk about political suicide). Both sides of the issue are getting a lot of mileage out of this thing, but it's just as likely typical government stupidity/incompetence as anything else. If it is a plot against gun shows, it's a very small one.