TexasCHLforum.com

austinrealtor wrote: There is simply no way you can legitimately compare some supposed "right" to get drunk and do stupid things (like driving and carry a gun) with the well established right to keep and bear arms.

I think the point is being missed altogether but that's because when it comes to drinking, for most of us it becomes an emotional argument that has little to do with logic.

People have every right to do stupid things, including getting drunk and doing stupid things, as long as those stupid things don't wind up harming another person.

BUT THE PROBLEM with drunk driving laws and the assault on carrying a gun while drinking is that you are not prosecuting someone for actually harming another person, but you are prosecuting them because you have identified that they are in a state wherein they may potentially harm someone else. But folks, every person on earth may potentially harm someone else. Being drunk doesn't guarantee you are going to hurt somebody.

This is asinine that we prosecute people for their potential crimes. Haven't we seen "Minority Report"?

frazzled wrote: Cut the garbage. Guns and booze don't miz just as cars and booze don't mix. If you think you should be able to drink while caryring you need to stay home and not endanger the rest of our families-just your own.

I can say the same thing about "booze" mixing with all kinds of other of your rights, those protected by the Constitution as well as those you might hold dear that are not protected by the Constitution, and the argument will be just as valid.

Let's have a sobriety checkpoint at the entrance of a polling place.

Howabout you cannot exercise your freedom of speech after you have had a drink.

Or maybe you cannot be free to choose your own religion while you have been drinking.

Maybe your right to a fair trial only applies if you do not drink. Or maybe your right to raise your own children ends where your right to drink alcohol begins. Maybe even your very right to reproduce should be restricted to only those who don't drink.

This is a ridiculous argument. Drinking and driving, as an issue, has enjoyed some special status of broad and sweeping rights infringement in this country for decades. You can do anything to bend the Constitution into a complete spiral and ignore the rule of law as long as it has the intent of reducing "drunk driving". We are spreading this idealism of special-status infringement to other things as well, such as hate crimes and now even those who claim to support our right to keep and bear arms are supporting this infringement when it comes to carrying a gun. Why don't we just outlaw drinking instead? Of course, if we criminalize alcohol, then only the criminals will have alcohol.

Point is that rights infringement, overreaching government efforts to control behavior and special-class laws do not work, period. Drunk driving laws are not stopping drunk driving. Banning alcohol didn't stop the sale of alcohol. Banning carrying and drinking is not going to stop the practice. If you've ever known an alcoholic, you know good and well that stopping them from drinking from some external influence is impossible, and they are going to drink first and then add on every other thing they do in their lives. Drinking and anything doesn't really mix. But if drinking and <insert anything here> can mix, then you dang well better be able to drink and do the things that you have a Constitutionally-protected right to do. Drinking does not require one to waive their rights before they can take a drink.

austinrealtor wrote:And if I have to give a little bit (lose the battle) to gain a lot (win the war), I'm willing to do so up to a point.

The problem is, we have already conceded the war, and we are now content to forget the irresistible irony: the very right which we have willingly given up is the one that was put in place to prevent the government from disregarding our other rights.

If I can regain the rights that are important to me, and all I have to do is pay some money for a license, shoot 50 rounds to prove my proficiency, and conceal my firearm while I carry, I'm OK with that for now. The world moves best incrementally. IMHO YMMV

This is like a wrongly-convicted man serving a life sentence in prison, saying "I am giving up on my appeal and restoration of my freedom, because at least I can get a second helping of dessert every once in a while".

It's institutional sleight of hand. They caress you with the hand you can see while they are stabbing you with the one you can't see. This is how we got here.

There was a day when you could walk into any hardware store or department store and buy a gun equivalent to modern (for the day) military arms straight across the counter with no paperwork and no government interference. There was a time in this country when corrupt politicians would fully expect that they would face a brutal, ferocious armed uprising if they tried to confiscate guns of free men. But now we are happily attached to the government's leash, jumping through hoops like a trick pony. We can engage in the theater of gun ownership, so politicians can pretend like they support rights because, see, look how many people have guns, and how great and legal and organized and documented and under the government's heel the whole operation is. This is not freedom. It is not freedom when they expect to force you to buy health insurance or face fines or jail time and we don't arm up and march in the streets demanding the heads of these tyrants. This is not the country whose forefathers drafted the Bill of Rights. Our rulers do not regard our rights as anything sacred, but only a nostalgic relic of a bygone era. This is not the country that patriots gave their lives and risked everything for 200-some years ago. This is a lot more like the countries we pat ourselves on the back for "liberating", but it's just transferring from a foolish and obvious tyranny to a new, modernized, easy to swallow tyranny that Americans who think they believe in freedom will support.

The funny thing is that we, Texans, think that we are somehow different. Even our governor makes veiled references to that-which-cannot-be-spoken. We have hyped up heroes who fought for Texas independence and were "king(s) of the wild frontier". This is no wild frontier and these heroes along with American patriots of the American Revolution have transcended from history to mythology, because we can no longer even imagine anyone who would be willing to die to preserve these freedoms. Yeah, we talk about how our men and women are going overseas to fight for "freedom" but the enemies who are successfully assaulting America are not in Iraq or Afghanistan. That's just the distraction. The enemies of American freedom have their names listed on the ballot and the rest are casting the votes. We are so anesthetized by our "security" that we cannot recognize freedom anymore, and we couldn't cope with it if we had it.

We won't fight for our freedoms because we are too afraid we are going to lose one of the floating ashes of our former liberty that we won't dare challenge and demand that our rights be recognized. This is not about restoring our rights. We have these rights, whether they are recognized or not.

If they come to confiscate your guns, are you going to risk your life to defend your right to keep them? Or are you going to hand them over? I think most of us are going to hand them over. And they know it. So we have already given up. They are taking their victory lap over and over, and we are begging to ride along.

They don't make an emoticon for the way I feel about this.

C-dub wrote: BTW 300,000 CHL's at $140 comes out to $42M

You are onto something there.

They will never repeal it because that's $42M in taxpayer money that will not go to the state any longer.

what's with all of the "trade one infringement for another" or "make this infringement worse while making this other one less".

The powers of government are conferred from the people. That means whatever power the government has, the people have. There is no power the government has which is higher than that of the people. This is a basic principle upon which this country is founded. So a police officer having the power to open-carry a gun anywhere is a power conferred by the people, and implicitly is a power which is held also by the people. A soldier having the power to carry a select-fire M16 is a power granted by the people, without the exclusion of the people who grant it. All of these CHL laws and the entire concept of having to get a license to do something for which we have a natural right, infringement of which is prohibited by the 2nd Amendment, is all 100% infringement.

There is no age restriction in the 2A. There is no range qualification. None of that. The whole set of CHL laws needs to be completely repealed and we need to amend the TX Constitution. This whole debate about intensifying or rearranging the state of infringement is just getting sort-of in bed with the antis, disarming ourselves willfully of our resolve, which will be followed by our willful disarmament of our arms.

interesting that out of 10 or 12 responses so far, 90% or more are in favor of stricter gun control in TX rather than returning to Constitutional principles... that on a CHL forum.

Repeal the whole thing, as well as changing section 23 of the TX Constitution to omit: "but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime."

Such a statement is at odds with the US Constitution's 2nd Amendment and also with section 2 of the Texas Constitution.