H. B. 195 - Texas Open Carry

[TheDoubleDeuce]

You can read it for yourself here:

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs...l/HB00195I.htm

What do you think is the likelihood of this being passed?

[R.Ph. 380]

Who is selected as the Speaker? That will determine once again what bills die and which ones get sent on

[steve4102]

Straus.

Looks like any OC bill will be dead in the water, again!

[CowTowner]

Straus.

Looks like any OC bill will be dead in the water, again!

There's more pressure this year to do something with open carry. Even if it means following Oklahoma's lead and allowing CHL holders to open carry.
The new Governor stated during the campaign that he supported the idea.
Contact your State Senator and Representative and let them know where you stand on the subject.

[zincwarrior]

The bill is dead now that this has occurred.

youtube video of episode imbedded in article
http://www.texastribune.org/2015/01/...texas-capitol/

A tidbit:

State Rep. Poncho Nevárez, D-Eagle Pass, told The Texas Tribune he had to ask a group of open-carry advocates to leave his office after they grew increasingly confrontational when he said he was not supporting the bill.

"I’m loath to throw somebody out. I’ve never had to do that, ever, and I hope I never have to do that again," he said. “It’s not a good way to talk about things; it’s not my way. I feel sorry for those folks who truly believe in the issue and don’t run around calling people names. I feel sorry for them because their cause is hurt."

[TheDoubleDeuce]

This kind of ignorance is exactly what we don't need. Makes me ashamed to know that I'll be associated with those boneheads by proxy, because we share similar beliefs.

The more I watch it, the more it upsets me. I wish they understood that rational discourse will get further than mindless bullying. Troglodytes.

[Tom Servo]

Makes me ashamed to know that I'll be associated with those boneheads by proxy, because we share similar beliefs.

For what it's worth, he's being disavowed by OCT proper, but his antics still end up getting the bulk of the publicity.

It appears there are three separate bills pending, two for licensed open carry and one for unlicensed open carry. Abbott has said he'll sign one of them, but it's unclear which (if any) will reach his desk.

[Dragonflydf]

Texas should take a hint from AZ, we have always had no permit open carry, but concealed required a permit until 3 years ago when someone finally got it thru their head that you could be charged with a FELONY for putting a coat when it is cold. AZ is now one of 4 states that has Constitutional Carry, no permit needed for open or concealed carry.
These people do great work
http://www.azcdl.org/

[TheDoubleDeuce]

Glad I'm moving back to AZ soon and won't have to deal with it anymore.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

We have been down this road before:

1. What a governor says is worth nothing until he and Lt. Gov. take positive action. Saying that the gov. will sign the bill when it gets to him is worth as much as George Bush saying he will sign the AWB renewal when it gets to him.

2. We have debated the pros and cons of OC as a deterrent, tactical choice, etc. into the ground. Nothing new here.

3. OC antics have probably killed the very small possibility of getting campus carry which is much, much more useful in saving lives.

Why don't we wait until we see if the Legislature actually does anything - then we can get all excited again.

That's a hint!! Unless we have anything more to say that is actually NEW info - let this be for the time.

[carguychris]

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

Unless we have anything more to say that is actually NEW info - let this be for the time.

Generally agreed, but I have one question that I think is pertinent...

Originally Posted by zincwarrior

The bill is dead now that this [rude OC advocates harass Rep. Poncho Nevárez] has occurred.

Does anyone know if Mr. Nevárez holds an influential position on any committee that will have to vet these bills?

[Explanatory note to those unfamiliar with the TX legislative process... TX's short biennial legislative sessions tend to give committees an exaggerated influence because procedural delays within the committees often prevent bills from reaching the floor before the session ends. Thus, many TX bills die without a floor vote, and influential committee members often use this to their advantage because they can kill a bill without publicly advertising that they've done so.]

[CowTowner]

Does anyone know if Mr. Nevárez holds an influential position on any committee that will have to vet these bills?

According to http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/Commi...embership.aspx
Mr. Nevárez holds no committee membership at this time.
Of course, the session is young.

[steve4102]

For what it's worth, he's being disavowed by OCT proper, but his antics still end up getting the bulk of the publicity.

Grisham and OCT were at this rally to show their support.

[seeker_two]

The biggest hinderance to OC is the press coverage of the idiots like OCTC....while ignoring groups that are doing it right like Texas Carry. We, as gun owners, need to stop talking about the idiots and spread positive news. That would improve things for Texas gun owners.

http://texascarry.org/about-us.html?m

[CowTowner]

The biggest hindrance to OC is the press coverage of the idiots like OCTC

I couldn't agree more. However, it's getting the press to ignore OCTC that will be hard work. They do seem to draw a crowd and make media targets of themselves every chance they get.

[Kosh75287]

I wish the NON-LUNATICS supporting open carry would write an open letter of apology to State Rep. Poncho Nevárez, D-Eagle Pass, apologizing for and disavowing the ANTICS of KORY WATKINS. It should be very clear on the point that while open carry advocates have significant philosophical differences with State Rep. Nevarez, they agree with him that OCTC's confrontation of him in his office serves only to hurt the open-carry cause.

[steve4102]

Looks like Open Carry in Texas may once again be derailed.

LT Governor Patrick says there is not enough support to get a Bill to the governor's desk.

Wonder if OCT and OCTC had anything to do with this lack of support? My guess is, yes.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/01/27/p...-top-priority/

https://www.texasfirearmscoalition.c...cue-open-carry

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.c...ter-what.html/

[JohnKSa]

Wonder if OCT and OCTC had anything to do with this lack of support? My guess is, yes.

Your guess matches mine.

Frankly, after all the buffoonery, disguised as protests and demonstrations, I don't even like to say the words: "Open Carry" in front of witnesses lest someone assume I'm in favor of carrying unslung ARs in stores and restaurants before I can explain otherwise.

I imagine that the more successful (and respectable) gun rights advocates and advocacy groups would like to protect their reputations by waiting to push OC until the recent shenanigans fade from the collective memory of the media and the public.

State Rep. Poncho Nevárez, D-Eagle Pass, told The Texas Tribune he had to ask a group of open-carry advocates to leave his office after they grew increasingly confrontational when he said he was not supporting the bill.

I watched a pack of OC fruitcakes ambush Charles Cotton (unofficial volunteer legal counsel for TSRA) at a legal seminar and explain to him at length and at full volume how the law and the legislative process worked. They would not let him exit gracefully and he finally had to be rude to get away. It was embarrassing to watch...

[Tom Servo]

Cotton wrote about his experience with that here.

[steve4102]

Former Land Commissioner Patterson pretty much put the blame on this failure on Kory Watkins and OCTC.

http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local...ires/22455469/

[maestro pistolero]

There are those who take literally the Heller admonition that laws banning concealed carry might be presumptively constitutional despite other conflicting references in the text, both implied and direct, showing that concealed carry . . ."in the clothing or in a pocket" carry is encompassed within that meaning of bear arms.

In any case, it will be interesting to see how the high court will balance the Texas approach of concealed only, and how it might be resolved with the language of Heller which indicates, absent the conflicting language, that open carry is the historical form of the right.

The Peruta approach (9th Circuit, San Diego case), of course, says the that states may choose which form of bear it will allow to satisfy the exercise of the right.

Thoughts?

[carguychris]

Originally Posted by maestro pistolero

In any case, it will be interesting to see how the high court will balance the Texas approach of concealed only, and how it might be resolved with the language of Heller which indicates, absent the conflicting language, that open carry is the historical form of the right.

The main problem with this approach is that OC is NOT the historical form of the right in TX; it has been unlawful since at least 1871, according to the notes in the margins of the 1879 Texas Penal Code, which can be downloaded HERE if you're interested.

My emphasis underlined:

CHAPTER FOUR.
UNLAWFULLY CARRYING ARMS.

ARTICLE 318. If any person in this state shall carry on or about his person, saddle, or in his saddle-bags, any pistol, dirk, dagger, slung-shot, sword-cane, spear, brass-knuckles, bowie-knife, or any other kind of knife manufactured or sold for purposes of offense or defense, he shall be punished by fine of not less than twenty-five nor more than one hundred dollars; and, in addition thereto, shall forfeit to the county in which he is convicted, the weapon or weapons so carried.

ART. 319. The preceding article shall not apply to a person in actual service as a militiaman, nor to a peace officer or policeman, or person summoned to his aid, nor to a revenue or other civil officer engaged in the discharge of official duty, nor to the carrying of arms on one's own premises or place of business, nor to persons traveling, nor to one who has reasonable ground for fearing an unlawful attack upon his person, and the danger is so imminent and threatening as not to admit of the arrest of the party about to make such attack, upon legal process.

The law exempted OC on private property and while "traveling", whatever that meant (likely "traveling while Caucasian" in the historical Southern context ). It also exempted OC if the person has "reasonable ground for fearing an unlawful attack upon his person", but ONLY when "the danger is so imminent and threatening as not to admit of the arrest of the party about to make such attack"- i.e. when circumstances dictate that promptly summoning law enforcement is not feasible.

Another major problem is that the TX Constitution explicitly gives the Legislature the power to regulate the carrying of arms.

From Article I, Section 23, my emphasis underlined:

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS. Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.

[tyme]

That underlined section means precisely nothing.

You can regulate open carry, but what effect does that have on crime? When open carry is outlawed, criminals will carry concealed (as most people, criminal and otherwise, do anyway). They have the advantage of surprise so increased reaction time is not a factor for them.

You can't regulate concealed carry of firearms very well because concealed means concealed most of the time, and you can't stop and search everyone. (The government might want to, though, with roving x-ray vans.)

I might quibble over the wisdom of open carry, but saying regulating it prevents crime is ridiculous (which is what a reading of that underlined passage in the context of the current laws—that concealed-carry is ok with a permit, but open-carry is completely banned—would suggest). If the current disparity between open and concealed carry was not done with a view to prevent crime, then what is the justification for the disparity?

[steve4102]

Lt Governor Patrick "backtrack"?

Some say the LT Governor's comments on Wed were a positive step forward for Open Carry in Texas. Others are not as confident.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news...witter-premium

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by maestro pistolero

There are those who take literally the Heller admonition that laws banning concealed carry might be presumptively constitutional...

I see nowhere in Heller where the Supreme Court said that laws banning concealed carry were presumptively constitutional. What the Court did say was (slip op. at 54 - 55, emphasis added):

...Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.²⁶....
_________

[fn]26. We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive

In context, the Court's citation of Chandler and Nunn, two 19th Century state court cases in which regulation of the concealed carry of arms was upheld, was merely for the purpose of illustrating that the rights protected by the Second Amendment have been subject historically to some regulation.

That view is supported when we look at the full text of an earlier citation of Nunn and Chandler from the majority opinion in Heller (slip op. at 38 - 40, emphasis added, footnoted omitted):

...Many early 19th-century state cases indicated that the Second Amendment right to bear arms was an individual right unconnected to militia service, though subject to certain restrictions. A Virginia case in 1824 holding that the Constitution did not extend to free blacks explained that “numerous restrictions imposed on [blacks] in our Statute Book, many of which are inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, both of this State and of the United States as respects the free whites, demonstrate, that, here, those instruments have not been considered to extend equally to both classes of our population. We will only instance the restriction upon the migration of free blacks into this State, and upon their right to bear arms.” Aldridge v. Commonwealth, 2 Va. Cas. 447, 449 (Gen. Ct.). The claim was obviously not that blacks were prevented from carrying guns in the militia....See also Waters v. State, 1 Gill 302, 309 (Md. 1843) (because free blacks were treated as a “dangerous population,” “laws have been passed to prevent their migration into this State; to make it unlawful for them to bear arms; to guard even their religious assemblages with peculiar watchfulness”). An 1829 decision by the Supreme Court of Michigan said: “The constitution of the United States also grants to the citizen the right to keep and bear arms. But the grant of this privilege cannot be construed into the right in him who keeps a gun to destroy his neighbor. No rights are intended to be granted by the constitution for an unlawful or unjustifiable purpose.” United States v. Sheldon, in 5 Transactions of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Michigan 337, 346 (W. Blume ed. 1940) (hereinafter Blume). It is not possible to read this as discussing anything other than an individual right unconnected to militia service. If it did have to do with militia service, the limitation upon it would not be any “unlawful or unjustifiable purpose,” but any nonmilitary purpose whatsoever.

In Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243, 251 (1846), the Georgia Supreme Court construed the Second Amendment as protecting the “natural right of self-defence” and therefore struck down a ban on carrying pistols openly. Its opinion perfectly captured the way in which the operative clause of the Second Amendment furthers the purpose announced in the prefatory clause, in continuity with the English right:

“The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, re-established by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta!”

Likewise, in State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann. 489, 490 (1850), the Louisiana Supreme Court held that citizens had a right to carry arms openly: “This is the right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, and which is calculated to incite men to a manly and noble defence of themselves, if necessary, and of their country, without any tendency to secret advantages and unmanly assassinations.”...

Note also in the foregoing that the Court cites a Virginia case, Aldridge v. Commonwealth, and a Maryland case, Waters v. State, each of which (1) holds that the Second Amendment describes an individual right; and (2) sustains law barring Black from possession firearms. Is the Court citing those case to suggest that such a limitation would be acceptable today? Is the Court suggesting that those restrictions on the rights protected by the Second Amendment "presumptively constitutional"?

Of course not. The Court said, explicitly, that all those cases, including Nunn and Chandler, were cited to show that (slip op. at 38):

...Many early 19th-century state cases indicated that the Second Amendment right to bear arms was an individual right unconnected to militia service, though subject to certain restrictions....