Yes you can. The question is whether such carry is "in a manner calculated to cause alarm" and therefore disorderly conduct. I don't normally say things along this line, but I would avoid taking a shotgun or AR to the mall. I would support a "long gun OC" picnic where a bunch of people get together, but one guy walking around with a rifle evokes images of situations Texas has not seen since Charles Whitman, and we do not want the people and/or Legislature to be reminded of these situations when we're trying to get some very historic bills passed.AWB09 wrote:You can open carry a rifle. I think The Iratollah said it best.iratollah wrote:The OC long gun will certainly offer you the same or better protection than a concealed handgun and you can start right away.
To answer the OP, OC of a handgun is generally illegal per TPC 46.02 when not on your own property, hunting, or a few other situations listed as exceptions in 46.15. However, your CAN carry in your car. You are safest in terms of legality when the handgun is concealed or "not in plain sight" as the statute specifically says; the situation is clearly defined and also quite clearly specifies that it is NOT a crime to do so. However, TPC 46.15 says that 46.02 does not apply, at all, to a person who "is travelling". This is a very old law that became known as the "travelling salesman law" due to its most common interpretation, implying long-distance travel. However, on paper, there is no statutory definition of the term; travelling could be as simple as putting one foot in front of the other down the street. The good news is that if a court would conclude you were travelling, it does not matter what or how you are carrying; the bad is that the court decides what "travelling" is on a case-by-case, jurisdictional, precedential basis. That's why we got the Motorist Protection Act in 2007; Houston DAs prosecuted anyone found with a gun in their vehicle even after a 2005 attempt by the Legislature to define the term statutorily. That ticked off the Legislature quite a bit, leading to a pretty crystal clear statute saying "in your car + concealed + no serious criminal activity = not a crime".