It’s not just because Abortion Barbie has come out in favor of it. She’s just matching AG Greg Abbott’s support for it in their campaigns for governor.
I think they’re both wrong, but especially Abbott, the only one of the two who has a prayer of being elected. Maybe he’ll wise up after he’s safely in the governor’s mansion. He’d have to convince the Legislature and they don’t meet again until 2015. They had an opportunity to do it in 2013 and didn’t take it.
The Texas Firearms Coalition favors it, but with a measure of concern:
“If open-carry does pass, it is incumbent upon those Texans exercising this option to be extraordinarily polite and courteous so as to allay the fears of those who, for the first time in their lives, will see people [other than police] openly carrying handguns.
“For sixteen years, our fellow Texans have been walking with, sitting next to, and eating among, hundreds of thousands of armed, law-abiding CHL’s [Concealed Handgun Licensees]. Those choosing to openly carry a handgun should view themselves as ambassadors for those Texans who chose to continue to conceal their self-defense handguns.”
The trouble is that not everyone displaying a pistol will be polite. Concealed carry doesn’t intimidate anyone. Open carry is automatically intimidating and that intimidation will cause trouble. Most likely a shootout on the street between two open-carry people who don’t like each other and seeing each other openly-armed will encourage them to get it all out in the open.
Late 19th century city marshals and police chiefs in Texas routinely required people (usually men) packing revolvers to leave them in their saddlebags or check them at the police office until they were ready to leave town. It saved a lot of problems, specifically deadly shootings.
I support concealed carry, which makes a lot of sense to me and apparently to many thousands of other Texans. Displaying handguns on the hip or in a shoulder holster on the street is a big difference and not a good one.
Hopefully, the Legislature will recognize that and refuse to allow it.
UPDATE: Open carry draws a mixed response on the Texas CHL Forum, who say CHL is approaching 800,000 in Texas. They do seem to agree that carrying rifles into stores as some sort of 2nd Amendment demo is stupid.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 