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CWOOD wrote:I do feel that the accomplishments of this and the 79thLegislature were quite impressive regarding gun rights. Not all inclusive but pretty darn good.

CWOOD wrote: As far as waiting until the next session. we have no choice but to wait for legislation. The deadline has passed for filing bills in this session.

CWOOD wrote: However, I may have expressed myself poorly. I do not suggest waiting to take action for two more years. In regard to schools and universities, I suggest that we start looking for the proper venue NOW!!...so that we can be prepared for the next sesson of the Legislature.

CWOOD wrote: As I mentioned, the law NOW provides that individuals with CHL's can carry on school premisis if they have written permission. Our job is to use any influence we may have to locate and educate those courageous individuals in authority who can and will learn and will then take action to start this process.

As for pushing and losing a legislative/political battle, I have no problem fighting the good fight but if I am to be whooped I want it to count. It has been my observation that much of politics deals with momentum, timing, and perception in addition to courage and strategy. It takes all of these and more to win. Even a politician as Pro 2nd A as Rep. Hupp knew that you need to strike while the iron is hot and not before. If you lose due to poor timing or strategy, you can also lose mometum and perception of being a winner. It can harm you in the next fight, and it gets worse each time you lose I just don't want to lose for the sake of losing, when there are several winnable battles that need to be fought

I know that I am wording this poorly, so forgive my lack of skill at this. I want what you want. I just think it might be wise to find a location to demonstrate to the anti's (who won't believe it) and to the middle of the roaders (yuppies, soccer mom's and disadvantaged) who might be persuaded, that this thing can and has worked with no bad results.

I think we agree on concept but perhaps differ on strategy. Let's hope we both win.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

CWOOD wrote:At the beginning of the last legislative session (79th) I had the pleasure, along with 10-12 others I had met on packing.org (when that was really alive), of meeting with Rep. Suzanna Hupp. We had a wish list of nearly 20 items to discuss with her regarding the possibility of them ever being enacted into law and when. If you think about your wishlist, I will bet the items were on there.

CWOOD wrote: As you can see by the progress made in this session and the last, things are changing for the better. Really, dramatically so in come cases. One of the things she said was NOT do-able at that time was 'school carry'. Primarily because the "politics" of it were so volatile. The propaganda potential for the 'antis' would be so strong and it would take SO MUCH education of the public that it would not make sense, and would actually harm progress on so many other items we wanted to accomplish. She did say that 'university carry' MIGHT be an area where progress could be made, but that there were other, more pressing, goals which should be accomplished before that should be tried.

I basically agreed with her logic. My personal top-of-the-list items were liability reform for defensive use of a firearm and some undefined version of what is now called 'castle doctrine'. Thank God those appear to be advancing nicely.

CWOOD wrote:
Rep. Hupp had a clever idea. It is one which could be tried and demonstrated with existing law and could serve as a guiding light if we could find the right venue for it. If you read the law , PC 46.03 (1) it states in summary that possession on the premisis of a school is prohibited...."UNLESS PURSUANT TO WRITTEN REGULATIONS OR WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION OF THE INSTITUTION"...

Read this section carefully. If we could find just ONE school district in the State with the political 'juevos' and a secure enough hold on their office to give written authorization to a few select, trained volunteer teachers (maybe ex LEO or ex-Military to start) it could be a shining example to the rest of the State and to the Legislature of how this can really work.

I challenge all of us on this forum to scour the State and try to find this brave school board. It would probably be a small rural community, but it could also be someplace like Texas City which is supposed to have one of the highest per capita CHL populations in the State and a generally accepting attitude in regard to CHL holders.

Maybe this could be a work in progress to prepare for the 81st or 82nd legislature...

I hope this helps to answer some of your concerns from at least one perspective. I still have kids in college but no longer have any in K-12. I always wanted it too.

Let's go find that one special school.