Comments welcome - here's what I'm thinking of sending:
On guns and tinfoil hats
Open carry, legal permission to carry a handgun in plain view, is coming to Texas, and with it are coming many misunderstandings.
One misconception is that after January 1st, everyone can pack a sixgun. That’s categorically not true. Only those few with state handgun licenses will be allowed to carry a pistol in public. These are the same people who have been lawfully and respectfully carrying concealed handguns for the last 20 years.
Another misconception is that proper signage to prohibit open, concealed, or any form of lawful carry serves to prohibit handguns on the premises.
The signs don’t really do that.
In fact, “no guns” signs almost don’t ban any guns at all.
Mostly, the job of banning guns is already done whether or not the signs are there. Ninety-seven percent of us are already prohibited from carrying handguns. The signs don’t apply to the vast bulk of the population, they only apply to handgun license holders.
For most of us, the signs are redundant and make no difference.
Another thankfully small percentage don’t need no stinkin’ signs. They are criminals, who, if they aren’t too dim-witted to notice, may recognize gun free zones more as free fire zones than child-safe areas.
The last segment, about three percent of the population, have Texas handgun licenses.
They are the only people affected by signs blocking guns under threat of State penal code 30.06 and 30.07, the laws that let property owners discriminate against license holders.
Those few the state allows to carry handguns are a pretty tame bunch. They aren’t the problem.
In fact, if we could get the rest of us to behave as well as those with handgun licenses, we would resurrect Andy Griffith’s crime-free Mayberry.
According to DPS crime statistics, freely available on their web site, handgun license holders are about 15 times less likely to be convicted of any crime than the general population, and in categories of violent crime, Texas license holders keep remarkably clean noses. Apparently the State licensing system works.
Those 3% who have licenses are people who stood up, put their names on a government list, got fingerprinted, attended a class in non-violent conflict resolution, safe gun handling and storage, use of deadly force and handgun law, demonstrated proficiency and safe handling at a gun range, passed a thorough FBI background check, passed a State background check that includes juvenile records not generally available, passed a local background check, paid a fee, and have a documented history of clean living.
Just being charged with a Class A or B misdemeanor will trigger suspension of a license for as long as it takes to clear the charges. A conviction of those misdemeanors is an automatic five year suspension, plus two years of good behavior before a license holder can reapply.
Serious misconduct invokes a lifetime disqualification.
All of this has worked to grant licenses to only the most law abiding citizens in Texas. Unfortunately, one of the byproducts of upcoming open carry rights is an increase in businesses banning both open and concealed carry.
Ban open carry if you feel the need, but please don’t ban concealed carry.
When a business posts no guns signs in the name of some kind of comfort, they are mostly doing nothing. The only guns they will block are the ones that would have been carried quietly, discreetly, and peacefully. The same guns that have been invisibly in your company for the past 20 years of Texas handgun licensing. You didn’t know they were there. They never caused a problem.
That’s why a sign banning guns is a protective measure that does nothing.
A tinfoil hat. Worse, it singles out our most honest, law abiding citizens and gives them a reason to feel unwelcome without presenting any real barrier to the criminal element.
In fact, a “no guns” sign may be a little like a dinner bell for some predators.
Gun advocate John Lott concluded in National Review only two mass shootings have occurred in places where the general public has been allowed to carry - since 1950!
It’s a statistic that sounds like impossible pro-gun propaganda, but on the other hand, how many places can you list where mass shootings occurred where the general public can go about their affairs while lawfully armed?
Maybe Umqua College, site of a mass shooting in October, if you squint a little. College policy banned weapons but Oregon State law made the policy unenforceable. The policy and the anti-guns signs were there, though. Good law abiding gun carriers respected the intent. Nobody was armed except the murderer.
Historic Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, where Dylann Roof acted out his murderous insanity, was gun free. South Carolina law prohibits guns in houses of worship, and if it’s a misguided law it sounds right. Who would want to soil the Lord’s house with a weapon? On the other hand, the Sermon on the Mount was delivered to a crowd armed with staves and knives, the defensive gear of the day. Perhaps murderers in church defile holy ground to a greater degree than cowboy worshipers, heads respectfully bowed, iron quietly in the leather and standing silent vigil against mayhem.
Isla Vista, California? The whole State of California is freedom free.
Fort Hood? The Washington Navy Yard? Santa Monica College? Sandy Hook Elementary? The Century 16 theater in Aurora?
All gun free zones, all killing fields.
Schools are all protected, sort of, by the Federal Gun Free School Zones Act, yet schools are continually targeted by violent criminals. Anti-gun law is not preventitive.
But would gun-friendly policies make any difference? It’s unknowable, but the preponderence of horrific shootings take place where guns are prohibited. In contrast, there are cases where freedom seems to have helped.
Take the case of Chappel Hill Bank, near Brenham. After their terrifying fifth armed robbery, bank President Edward Smith took down his no-guns sign and replaced it with the image of a handgun in an open circle.
Under the handgun, right there on the bank’s main entrance, is the wording, “Lawful concealed carry permitted on these premises. Management recognizes the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as an unalieanble right of all citizens. We therefore support and encourage the carrying of licensed concealed weapons.”
That was done in 2010, after five armed robberies. They have had no further trouble. It’s a quiet, peaceful, happy place.
For Chappel Hill Bank, guns free to come and go is working well. They encourage that most law-abiding segment to do business with them. The bank is growing with an influx of new accounts from freedom enthusiasts, and they seem to have solved an armed robbery problem.
And gun rights did the trick without a shot being fired.
Doesn’t that make more sense than “no guns” signs that are no better than tinfoil hats?
