Texas to allow unlicensed carrying of handguns
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
The article gave me the feeling on non-americans writing about america--they focus on what is unusual to them, without necessarily realizing that some of it is pretty common in the US, with our lax gun laws.
My dad first took me shooting around 6 or 7 years old. I shot my first 12 gauge shotgun at around 10 or 11 years old, and I kept a deer rifle in my room from age 15(I didn't have ammo). At 17, I bought an AK47 semi-automatic rifle, and got my first handgun at 19. I regularly conceal carry a 9mm pistol and I don't have a license, though I do have training from a very young age and plan to get a conceal carry permit just because. I plan to raise my daughter similarly.
I live in rural Missouri. Most kids and young adults don't get an AK47, but otherwise my story isn't unusual around here.
Come to think of it, the only friends I had growing up that were into hunting/ angling/ bushcraft were the ones I met through the Boy Scouts.
https://opencarry.org/maps/map-open-carry-of-a-properly-hols...
and here's the Wiki article for concealed carry in each state
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry_in_the_United_...
and a useful guide for state by state reciprocity of concealed carry permits.
https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/resources/ccw_reciprocity_m...
> I didn't know it was legal anywhere in the country to carry any kind of gun without a license.
Have you heard of hunting? There are millions of people carrying their firearms around in the wilderness every year.
And IIRC there's more states that have enacted CC in 2021 before Texas, bringing the total to ~23.
The police in their HQ right across the street didn't seem bothered by it so I assumed it must be legal.
A concealed carry permit in New Mexico may be easier (or just possible) to get than in other states, but it still took me about 4 hours of driving, 6 hours of class time and maybe 8 hours of managing extensive paperwork. Then it expired in a year and I was faced with doing most of that over again, so didn't bother. In Arizona the only reason to get a permit is to have reciprocal rights in some other states. I just wanted one to make it legal to carry a loaded gun in my pack on hikes, mostly to defend my dog from coyotes.
It really is simple; Texas generally fears a tyrannical government more than they fear a random shooting. So they give freedom to guns to spread out power. While certainly not risk-free, I think it's a legitimate stance.
“Texas Governor Abbott says he will sign a bill that prevents cities from defunding police”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-defund-police-bill-abbott...
“Gov. Greg Abbott signs 'fetal heartbeat' bill banning most abortions in Texas”
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2021/05/...
Freedom lists like this could go on for pages.
When Texas Governor Abbott prohibited local counties, cities, towns, districts and public health agencies from making their own decisions about face masks, how is that "spreading out power" to avoid the dangers of centralized "tyrannical government"?
https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-issues-execu...
When the centralized state government forces cities and counties to remove voting locations, that's not "spreading out power".
https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-houston-greg-abbott...
Thus there is no hypocrisy in a state governor wanting less local power and more state power. In this framework, The State is after all the atomic point where no further decentralization is possible.
In this situation, the gun is power, and thus the gun is abused.
You could definitely say this about their self contained power grid.
If Texas was so interested in spreading out power, then surely they would be more willing to trust their elected, representational Federal government instead of having a Texas specific version of everything?
> Texas generally fears a tyrannical government more than they fear a random shooting
Why do you think this is the case?
Texas is actually not one of the more permissive states when it comes to firearm laws. Everyone just thinks it is because of the "don't mess with texas," "wild west" image they like to maintain.
If you are considering carrying in a state with constitutional carry, please research the following. Civil liability in a situation where firearms are used, for instance if you discharge your weapon and damage a car, you are probably on the hook for that. There is no situation ever where your weapon should not be concealed and you aren't shooting someone directly. You should only fire your weapon if you can argue before court that your firing of that weapon was necessary to prevent you or someone else being killed or gravely injured. Don't be an idiot, avoid creating dangerous situations, even if you survive and stay out of prison they'll ruin your life. You pay your own legal fees regardless of if you were in the right.
No warning shots or fancy attempts to hit somebody in the legs rather than the center of mass, those could hit bystanders instead or result in a jam. Brandishing a weapon means someone else (including police) could assume you are an active shooter and shoot you. Ever showing your weapon or signalling you have a weapon means that should a bad situation arise, an active shooter would shoot you first likely before you could respond. Do not ever display you have a firearm in the form of bumper stickers on your car, your car will get robbed and now criminals have your guns. The same goes for your house.
In summary, keep the gun in your pants. Only remove it while firing into someone else's chest if there is no other option to prevent someone from dying or getting killed.
With all that said, while I theoretically agree with the idea of "constitutional carry", I'm not sure if I would have learned all of this if my state had this.
https://www.chron.com/politics/texas/article/In-Texas-even-p...
"If I sit down at a restaurant with a gentleman or a woman who has a holster on their side and a gun in it, I want to know that person is well-trained in the use of that gun"
Europeans won't sit down at restaurant with people with guns. No matter how trained they are.
Part of why this is such a contentious issue is because the needs of different parts of the country vary so drastically. (Ignoring cultural differences for now) Rural America is vastly different from urban America, Texas is different from NY or CA. We need to have the capacity to acknowledge and accept these differences and stop trying to force the other side into a box that works for your area, because it might not.
And state law is about that change to allow the locality to make it easier to toss you in jail.
I've noticed that the homeless population in Texas is much less aggressive than in Chicago and San Francisco and New York. My pet theory is that when any citizen might be armed, it promotes a type of herd immunity against assault. I don't carry, personally, but as far as the aggressive homeless man is concerned, or the road rager is, I might be armed.
I like that, and I like this law.
Are you able to imagine the reverse? where instead of some insane person losing it and addressing some ugly words at you he will just kill you, your family will probably won't like the it anymore.
But if the citizens decided this is what they want I am not arguing against that. Just feels weird to hear someone say : "beggars will be nicer since they know I might have a gun" but not also consider the reverse "me, my family will have to be more cautios since anyone could have a gun".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr...
Gun crimes are way higher in Texas. Over 50% higher than California. Aren't all those guns supposed to cow the criminals?
What's clear from the statistics is, restricting firearms did not make a statistical difference for violent crime in CA.
And there are loads more of them in Texas than California. Is it because "CA restricts firearms", then you're countering the guy above who claimed that Texas is a more peaceful society because of all of those guns.
For that matter, Texas has more murders per capita than California. For all you hear about the wild streets of San Francisco, the crazy gangs of LA, etc... more murders in Texas.
For that matter, NYC violence "exploded" over the past year. New York state still has less murders per capita than Texas despite a catastrophically bad year.
Ouch. Guess those guns aren't keeping everyone safe. In reality they end up getting used to murder people.
As a constructive thing, I suggest we figure out why the gun crime stats from 2 different states or from same state but different time are wrong or partially wrong.
Not sure how they're two "random" states when they're specifically the states the person I replied to used as their example. Though generally, the more gun permissive a state is, the worse their murder rate is.
Though I'm not sure Texans should feel great about your belief that we should lump Texas in with Brazil more than California. I mean, both are states in a rich, first world nation, and many on here are claiming Texas is a utopia compared to California. Instead we need to grade it on a curve where it's actually Brazil. "Ouch."
As the original comment poster mentioned cars are lethal weapons as well, and you don’t see many intentional hit and runs. Guns are very loud and you’re not likely to go unnoticed committing gun violence.
Personally I don’t know that it is a good thing to have everybody armed, but it really is on nobody but yourself to protect yourself and your dependents. To this end, I carry (and recommend others carry) pepper spray, which is very effective in non-lethally disabling an agitator in self defense without the mental or legal burdens and pains of injuring or killing another human being.
(Disclosure: I used to work in EMS, violence is everywhere in different forms. Additionally I own a shotgun for the sole purpose of hunting food, and I think the idea of “keeping it handy for self defense” is the dumbest home protection idea I’ve ever heard; you’re more likely inflict accidental self harm keeping a weapon handy in the house or carrying it than safely locked up)
From what I seen in US you can kill anyone if you then can argue that "I was afraid for my life" and you are white and have some money.
I am not sure how exceptional this cases are though. But if this laws are what the citizens want then I am not against it, just the argument I responded felt wrong.
All hit and runs are intentional, but the only intent required is foe the “and run” part. Because intent for the “hit” isn’t part of the crime, and its already a serious felony where injuries occur, its rarely worth the effort to try to ascertain or prove intent for the “hit” case.
OTOH, its worth noting that thr same political faction behind loosening gun carry restrictions has also been actively working to loosen restrictions on intentionally hitting people with cars, in direct response to people committing criminal homicide that way.
(Weirdly, its also the faction that likes to pretend to be “pro-life”.)
There are plenty of other ways to harm or kill people out there. More terrifying are those in which the victim lives but is intended to be permanently injured (such as vitriol or poisoning).
People are much more civil, social and considerate in virtually every other Western nation than in the gun crazed United States. The people who want to carry a gun are overwhelmingly the problem, and now you've armed them.
Is there ever going to be a point where people stop believing the nonsense?
There is a bit of a paradox that the people who eschewed masks, think COVID is a hoax or overblown/no risk, etc, are the ones sure they need to carry a gun at all times lest some sort of movie scenario erupt in front of them. It is fundamentally broken logic.
Stop using anecdotes as data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...
however it did seemingly fall in rank if not numbers from 2010
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_death_rates_in_the_Uni...
[1] puts CA as 3.4 gun homicides per 100,000 people per year, and TX at 3.2. Top of the list is DC at 16.5 (and then LA at 7.7), bottom of the list is VT at 0.3.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_death_rates_in_the_Uni...
It is my understanding you already can walk around with a firearm anywhere in most US states that don't ban firearms as long as is not hidden from view, all this law changes is the requirement to get a license if you intend to walk around with a firearm concealed.
But then I watched a video by a police officer talking about how on stops, officers would draw weapons on cars they pulled over registered to CCP owners and I kind of understood why they want to get rid of it. Can you imagine, every time you get pulled over you get guns pointed at you...
This feels so backwards to me. The law abiding citizens that made the effort to comply with the law are subject to more scrutiny and harsher treatment than not.
There is a sizable percentage of people in this country who already live this reality.
I don't know about drawn weapons though. The only time anyone I know was pulled over at gunpoint (Felony stop) was my Dad because his White Toyota "Matched the description" of another vehicle. (And like 100,000 others) I don't know what it is like in the cities.
`A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.`
Your interpretation above, of an individual right to bear arms, derives from DC vs Heller ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller) which is relatively new: 2008.
It also doesn't comport with the contemporary writings of the framers, nor the fact that the term "militia" in the constitution refers to the National Guard, which was at the time imagined as a body made up of all able bodied men between 18 and 45 years old. Additionally, at the time, only men were considered "the people".
Last I checked, they still hadn't caught him. This is not a state where more guns us going to make things better. It's a state that very clearly represents the temperature of the country: financially strong liberal strongholds arm wrestling with the government around them. (Abbott and Patrick don't hold back on how much they hate Austin.) We're just going to shoot at each more and scream Castle Doctrine about it.
"But the guy didn't kill anyone, he deserves a second chance" -- right. And the rest of us deserve some safety from people like him.
You can't ban your way to more safety if you can't reasonably control the thing that you're banning. The US government can't reasonably control who has a gun in this country, that's just a fact and it will not change as long as the second amendment is a thing.
What you can do is adjust sentencing standards so that the people who are at highest risk of re-offending in a violent way are locked up.
What is bizarre? Freedom, personal responsibility, and the right to defend oneself are not mutually exclusive. Your freedom is yours to lose, and that happens when you infringe on other peoples' right to freedom.
> because they are supposedly a threat to public safety.
Strawman. You take away someone's freedom because they committed a crime of some kind and are likely to be a violent re-offender. Most likely that means they committed a violent crime in the first place, and were just lucky to not have killed someone. That sort of determination requires looking at the totality of circumstances, too, not just checking a couple boxes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_death_rates_in_the_U...
If you look at this data
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_death_rates_in_the_Uni...
it seems that murder rates do not corelate with the total firearm death rate.
States that do not allow unlicensed carry of handguns have lower per capita gun death.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-deaths-...
A gun is far more likely to kill a member of your own family than it is to protect a member of your family in a violent altercation.
Furthermore, evidence from the lowest crime and gun death countries around the world seem to indicate the gun ownership is strongly negatively correlated with gun crimes and gun death, unsurprisingly.
It's strange that folks epistemic horizon ends at the border.
Indeed. The fact that we have to pass State laws to reaffirm rights that are explicitly outlined in the Constitution is truly ridiculous.
The full wording of the 2nd amendment is:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The phrase "well regulated" means "well supplied", as in lots of guns and ammo, i.e. ready for battle, It does not mean "lots of government regulations" to restrict the rights of individuals to bear arms. The mention of the militia is an additional reason for the people to bear arms beyond their intrinsic individual right.
> Finally, the adjective “well-regulated” implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training. See Johnson 1619 (“Regulate”: “To adjust by rule or method”); Rawle 121–122; cf. Va. Declaration of Rights§13 (1776), in 7 Thorpe 3812, 3814 (referring to “a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms”).
It doesn't seem like they agree with you?
I'd be much more comfortable with gun ownership requiring "proper discipline and training".
That's neither relevant nor true.
The case, D.C. v. Heller[1], was decided 5-4 with Scalia, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, representing the majority.
Scalia (1986) and Kennedy (1987) were nominated by President Reagan who had won the 1984 election with 58.8% of the vote (v.s. 40.6% for Mondale).
Thomas (1991) was nominated by President Bush who had won the 1988 election with 53.4% of the vote (vs. 45.6% for Dukakis).
Roberts (2005) and Alito (2005) were nominated by President Bush who had won the 2004 election with 50.7% of the vote (v.s. 48.3% for Kerry).
Not some, __all__, of the justices that decided that case were appointed by Presidents who had won both the popular vote and the electoral college.
Not that it matters though. A justice appointed by a President who only wins the electoral college is just as much as a justice.
A militia is made up of ordinary citizens. It’s armaments are those of its members. It’s not a separate body. For it to be in working order, the populace are the ones that need to be armed and their right to bear those arms must not be infringed.
Note that the militia angle is merely an additional reasoning for why those rights exist. It’s an example, not a precondition.
But then, one of the tragedies of modern America is that the Supreme Court seems to have become as much a political entity as a judicial one.
The constitutional amendment is about a “well-regulated militia”. The purpose was common defense against military invasion, not citizens having intramural shoot-outs.
DC vs Heller disagrees
Take the Pennsylvania constitution, written also in 1776 (by many of the same authors, as we know, as the federal constitution). They also have a "2a" clause. Below:
"That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state"
There is simply no other way to interpret it -- the 2a was meant as an individual right to own common-use firearms.
Anyone who says otherwise, and is educated on the matter, is lying.
The First Amendment has similarly strong wording, but we permit government consequences for certain forms of speech/expression like libel, fraud, screaming in front of someone's house at 3am, etc.
This is a strawman, mentally ill individuals who have been diagnosed as such are already barred from possessing firearms.
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/identify-prohibited-persons
edit: To the downvoters, can you explain why?
So, shall be infringed in certain scenarios?
I think the concealed handgun license (CHL) is the backbone of Texas gun-culture. Where someone goes from “regular citizen” to very adept at handing firearms and additionally having an understanding of the laws and regulations for those firearms.
CHL holders are a very real force in Texas. This feels like 2 steps backwards; it even feels like it caricatures the “John Wayne Texas” that so many imagine. Perhaps Texas feels like the “crazy drunken uncle Yosemite Sam” for some states. But hopefully anyone who has been to SXSW or the Super Bowl a few years back, or to Houston for business...hopefully you have seen that beyond the boots and funny accent most of Texas is not that different from other states.
So even though it’s legal, living in urban Dallas, TX - I have never seen a long barrel weapon held by non-law-enforcement in public. This is a very good thing in my personal opinion.
Plenty have brought up the Joe Rogan quote of “people in Texas are nice because you never know who is carrying [a gun]”. In my opinion this observation suffers from “correlation is not causation.”
Texas culture transcends my fear of being shot - which I almost never dwell on. Texas people are fierce practitioners of rugged individualism. With that, comes a bit of “don’t tell me what to do”, and as the belt-buckle of the Bible-belt there is a real culture of Protestantism that permeates more than meets the eye.
TLDR; Texas legislature tries to out Texas the rest of Texas.
Its truly amazing the number of states going constitutional carry, and I look forward to it being nation wide.
Congrats
I hope those people don't turn Texas into the state that they left, which they left for a reason.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/yall-norwegians-...
My main point is that although the linked article describes the phrase more or less accurately, I can't tell you how many times I've come across articles (typically written by Americans, not uncommonly writers based in Austin) that assume that the phrase's entire origin is contemporary political commentary on modern Texas (despite the phrase predating e.g. George W. Bush's administration -- the first time I saw a wave of these articles -- by decades). In truth the average Norwegian (unless they're in the oil business and have made frequent trips to Houston) doesn't know a whole lot about Texas, just as the average American doesn't know a whole lot about Norway.
RE: Gun control laws themselves, Norway is an interesting place. The laws themselves are strict compared to the USA, and in particular Texas, but there's also a LOT of what we would call "Gun Nuts" (such as my cousin, who is a speed-shooter). I would say Norway -- at least among my more rural relatives -- has a pretty big "Gun Culture", but it manifests pretty differently from how it plays out in the USA.
Useful map of regulations in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation...
This is misleading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation...
"Gun ownership in Poland is regulated and requires a permit to own or possess firearms. Permits are granted for specific purposes, such as self-defense, sports, hunting, collecting etc. and shall issue except the ones for self-defense, which may issue."
Very, very different than Texas.
The objective here is not to mislead, however as neither a lawyer, nor a member of any of those nations, I will get it wrong in some spots.
I think a lot of people would prefer safety over freedom but that's not really what America is about.
And to be fair that's kind of why govt exists.
The problem comes in when someone's viewpoints are overridden by another group. How do people respond?
Do we accept that government sometimes works in other people's favor but they're still our countrymen and have good intentions even if they disagree with ours?
Or do we demonize the opposition?
Nowadays people tend to demonize.
If you are a police officer in a dangerous situation now you just shoot even more often as you have no idea who is good or bad. If you are intent on robbing someone, now you know who to shoot first. Now if you are angry you just whip it out and blast away. The idea that if everyone has a gun no one will shoot you is ignoring human ability to not think. I also wonder how many will wind up being shot by their own firearm or shoot themselves by accident since many will have zero clue how to properly care for and handle it.