TexasCHLforum.com

Otto N. Sure wrote:Yep, anything is possible. I, personally, have NEVER heard of anyone ever federally charged with this offense.

People have been charge with carrying a weapon in a school zone, but only in combination with real crimes like assault or burglary.

The feds know that if it were appealed, the Fifth Circuit or Supreme Court would likely overturn it.

- Jim

boomerang wrote:So I have to wonder about the real motivation behind people opposed to relaxing the Texas training requirements, or want to deny the right to people who have licenses from states without a range test.

In the case of police officials, prosecutors, and some legislators, they are irrational.

They are the same people who resisted unlicensed car carry, which has led to what? nothing much.

- Jim

Michael Bellesiles's Arming America has been thoroughly debunked. The publisher withdrew the book from publication, and the author resigned his academic position after an investigation focused on errors and fabrications in the book.

This Wikipedia article is correct, as far as I know the facts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arming_Ame ... un_Culture" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You can follow the sources from the Wikipedia article if you don't believe it.

If you want an accurate picture of the prevalence of firearms and marksmanship in colonial America, please see Stephen Holbrook's The Founders' Second Amendment.

- Jim

There are two issues to keep in mind here:

• In colonial America, the majority of households had firearms (mostly muzzle-loading rifles) that were used frequently. Country people hunted and had to protect themselves and their livestock from predators. City people were members of militias and drilled frequently.
  
  In that environment, a young man (and many a young woman) would learn to shoot at an early age. That was the background in which the second amendment was written
  
  Obviously, this is no longer the case.
• Most CHL holders will carry for a short time if at all, then decide it is too inconvenient and uncomfortable. Of those who carry frequently, most will never have occasion to draw a firearm, and even fewer to actually shoot.
  
  Therefore, the chance that one of these poorly trained people is going to hurt anyone but a bad guy is vanishingly small. It rarely happens in the entire country, even in states with unlicensed carry.

- Jim

O6nop wrote:Then again, if having the Utah license rules stand, and violent crime is reduced, and no more crimes are evident than with Texas type rules, wouldn't it make sense to honor those permits?

I was with you right up until "make sense."

If the actions of the legislature made sense, they would look at the experience of states like Alaska, Vermont, and New Hampshire, which do not require licenses at all, and other states that allow open carry without a license.

Legislators generally want to control what people do. Some don't, but most do. That's why they run for the legislature. They also don't like to admit that they were or are wrong.

Texas has the most stringent requirements of the shall-issue states. If Texas residents are making an end-run around those requirements by getting non-resident licenses from other states, eventually it is going to rub some legislators the wrong way.

- Jim

marksiwel wrote:Heck I would almost be okay with them making the License requirments be the same as Texas in every state so that people could Carry in EVERY State just like they can drive in Every state. But I know that would trample "States Rights" but not anymore than those bull Supreme Court rulings and Laws passed based on "Inter-state commerce" tell me again how having a gun 1000 Feet near a school effects inter-state commerce?

The last time the U.S. Supreme considered that question, in U.S. v. Lopez, they ruled that the federal government does not have the power to regulate carrying firearms near schools.

I'm not aware of the current law having been appealed.

We have to be careful with this issue. If the U.S. government could dictate the conditions of concealed carry to the states, the feds could modify those conditions so that few people or no one could carry.

Anyway, no such bill is likely to pass into law in the next three years.

- Jim

Most of the states that issue concealed-weapon permits do not have the kind of course and test that we have. In fact, I don't know of one that does. Some, like Florida, require certification in some kind of safety course.

Ponder the fact that license holders in those states do not seem to be hazardous to themselves or the public.

- Jim

The change that Charles is referring to is Texas ceasing to honor non-resident licenses, the way that Colorado has done.

- Jim

It sounds to me like a Florida non-resident license.

You can apply for that without assistance, if you can read and write.

- Jim