TexasCHLforum.com

In TEXAS the LICENSED concealed carry of a handgun is NOT the exercise of a civil right. The unlicensed carry of a handgun (concealed or non-concealed) would constitute the exercise of the right - but ofcourse Texas law presently does not recognize the general carry/wearing of a handgun as a RIGHT. In Vermont or Alaska that might be the case. The exercise of a civil right is not subject to government license. The Texas legislature's constituted power to "REGULATE the WEARING of arms, with a view to prevent crime " is distinct from LICENSING the wearing of arms. A licensing provision may be considered to be the logical and reasonable extention of the power to regulate the exercise of a PRIVILEGE - but never the exercise of a RIGHT.

The prosecution of the Texas criminal offense of peacefully carrying a handgun on or about the person -thereby strangely defining the exercise of a civil right as conduct constituting a BREACH of the PEACE - was until recent decades historically confined to within large urban jurisdictions . The word CONCEALED has never been expressly included in the Texas law - probably due to the obvious CONCEALABILITY of the listed small arms combined with the Reconstruction mind-set in 1871 that all civil rights in Texas and the other Confederate states were subject to suspension. This is reason enough for the 82nd Legislature to finally address this 140 year travesty that translates to a nullity of Article I, section 23. This may very well require an express statutory definition that 46.02 only addresses the CONCEALED carry of the listed small arms, thereby clarifying the CHL as a license to carry CONCEALED - rather than a license to carry at all. Hopefully incorporation of the 2A will clarify that the "right of every person to keep and bear (small) arms" in Texas encompasses the keeping & bearing of a handgun "in case of confrontation" - which under the provisions of Article I, section 23 of the Texas constitution encompasses , subject only to reasonable restriction, all lawful social intercourse beyond the threshold of one's home.