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anygunanywhere wrote: The OC of long arms is significantly more intimidating then OC of handguns. Ask those who recall Quannell the tenth doing it once in Houston.

Mr. Anygun,

That is an interesting point, in light of the fact that it is legal to OC long guns but not handguns in TX. This is a good illustration of how the law does not have the intended effect. What is the intended effect anyway? Why do we have a general prohibition against carrying handguns without a license, and a complete prohibition of carrying handguns openly by regular citizens, while carrying of long guns in open is perfectly legal?

I think it probably is the other way around. In fact the discussion about OC of handguns and the relationship to the civil rights movement may have a lot more in common than we are letting on. We fail to recall history if we believe that the prohibition on carrying handguns openly in TX was intended to apply equally to whites as blacks in the 1870s. I would like to see a reasoned, accurate accounting of this gun law history in Texas. Remember this was well over 200 years ago!

I wonder if the prohibition against OC of handguns was not because they could be concealed, while you would know immediately if someone was carrying a long gun. If that is the case then the current law making concealed carry legal while OC is not makes absolutely no sense.

But whomever made the suggestion that it is the TX Constitution that needs changing and not the Penal Code is spot on.

NcongruNt wrote: Intent is difficult to prove unless one openly admits to intentionally failing to conceal, or makes an overt effort to display the gun. I don't see how the law can be less clear here.

It could be more clear if it said something more like "intentionally exposes a handgun in a threatening manner" or something to that effect.

Somehow a large number of CHL holders attend a 10 hour class and still worry about failing to conceal, so obviously something is not clear enough about the way the statute is written.

I could come up with a dozen examples of why the law doesn't work very well as it is but we all know them too well. OC would allow for us to not worry about failing to conceal, whether it is intentional or not, but so would an incremental change to the law. There used to be a time when people had to actually commit a crime before they were presumed guilty. Just because you can see my gun doesn't mean I am holding you up or threatening you. So I say, prosecute CHL holders for the effect of their intentional failure to conceal, but not for the failure. If I am in the middle of the West Texas no-man's-land on my way to New Mexico and I get a flat, I should not have to worry about finding a way to disarm out of open view before removing my overshirt to change a tire. See that's intentional failure to conceal, and it has no ill effect if I just do that. Odds of someone driving by are almost zero, but if it's a DPS officer then I may be caught committing the crime of "intentionally failing to conceal". This is just one example.

HGWC wrote:Just how far can I lean forward before I unintentionally let the grip print through enough for an ordinary person to recognize the bump as a gun? Just how big of a bump would be considered intentional failure to conceal with a Class A misdemeanor, up to a $4000 fine and up to one year in jail as the consequence. I'll worry just enough to at least let my representatives know that I support the provision in this bill that would eliminate that infringement of my rights.

I think this issue is completely different from the OC issue.

OC is the nuclear bomb method of fixing the current issues, and of course it has virtually zero chances of passing right now as we have discussed for 10 pages on this very thread.

However, I think there is absolutely merit to a change in the law which de-criminalizes unintentional failure to conceal, and makes it absolutely crystal clear what constitutes a failure to conceal, so we are not all so concerned about it. This seems to be the most common reason people cite for their desire to see open-carry passed in TX... kind of goes like this, "it would be nice if I didn't have to worry about unintentionally failing to conceal, but I wouldn't open-carry and don't really support the idea of unlicensed (i.e. legitimate) open-carry". Really what many of these people seem to be saying is, we support less penalty on failure to conceal.

MBGuy wrote: Or am I missing something legislative that makes this more complicated than that?

There's no way to know unless the new statutes were written and passed.

Most likely it would be far more complicated than that.

Well said, Liko.

You are 100% right (imho), but unfortunately that position is 99% impractical at this time in TX, as I am sure you are aware. To take a quote from your post: "The wise general will not engage in battle unless and until the battle is already won". Therein lies the problem with fighting for OC right now in TX.

So, you are saying that an increase in the number of guns gun-fobic people see will increase their acceptance of guns?

Well, no not exactly.

What I am saying is that right now, if someone walks into a Target store with a gun being carried openly, they are either a cop, or they are committing a crime. So the natural response of most people, including CHL holders, when you see someone carrying a gun openly is "whoah, that guy must be about to commit a crime!!". I think this fosters the general opinion that if you have a gun, either you are a cop or you are a criminal/nutcase. However, if it becomes rather routine for there to be people around that are obviously regular folks and carrying guns, after some short time certainly people will stop over-reacting and thinking that everyone carrying openly MUST be a bad guy.

For example, take my church. There are probably 20+ people carrying in church in every service. There may be two or three of us up on the stage! Obviously, everyone there knows we are not criminals. So if all of the sudden we all started to carry openly at church, then over the course of a week some 5,000+ people would find themselves amongst open-carrying people who they already know and trust. You can't exactly rationally freak out and scream "NUTCASE WITH GUN!!" when it's a member of the choir up on stage, or an usher who you've known for 5 years, can you?

Anyway, that's the theory. I am not sure it will work. It's risky, but the payoff may be worth the risk. Who knows. But as I see it, the law is so screwed up as it is, the odds of any clean open-carry legislation passing in TX are virtually zero. Either it won't pass, or it will be swiss cheese by the time it passes.

ralewis wrote: fear that as folks (even in small numbers) begin to carry openly, places like Target, Best Buy, Applebees will respond to 'panicked' patrons by posting a lawful 30.06 sign.

Well, OTOH, this is partly the argument in favor of OC. I think the theory is that since guns being carried by regular citizens are hidden, then many people are oversensitized to the presence of guns, thus helping to perpetuate the idea among many people that only nuts and criminals are carrying guns. Now, if a large number of people do in fact think that only nuts and criminals are carrying guns, then suddenly they begin to see people carrying openly then they will naturally respond by thinking these must be nuts or criminals. However after some time, it is likely that society at large would become desensitized to the presence of guns in plain view and would not immediately assume that anyone openly carrying a handgun is either a criminal or a nut.

Of course, during the transition time, it very well may result in more lawful 30.06 signs. Assuming this theory holds true, and that eventually society will gain acceptance of guns carried in the open, then eventually these signs would likely be taken down as more people carry openly and it becomes clear that merchants are losing business due to their policies.

I am not necessarily endorsing this theory, just pointing out that there are two sides to the coin. I think that we'd all be better off if it was routine for people to see law-abiding citizens carrying guns without irrational reactions, but in the short term it would be foolish to expect this to happen instantly.

The current law is so convoluted and screwed up, it is very difficult to identify any sensible or useful new law that will do more than incremental good.

So incremental good is about all we can expect. It's kind of like trying to rebuild a transmission with only a pocket knife. The job is not going to get done because it is far and away too complex for the tools at hand, and very little progress can actually be made at all with such a tool. So either you just let it die, you change the tools, or you live with very little progress. It seems clear that we cannot change the tools and we are unwilling to let the current system die, so we are going to live with very little progress. Note very little progress is more than no progress.

So parking lot carry, school carry, are probably the most we can hope for.

Sure, nobody would tolerate it if our first amendment rights were treated exactly this way, but we, in Texas, have a long and rich legacy of tolerating the abuse of our second amendment rights this way, along with almost every other state in the country. However, our first amendment rights are also abused regularly by the state government. The only Amendment that does not get routinely trampled is the third.