BREAKING: Texas Governor Elect Greg Abbott Will Sign Open Carry Bill!

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First, we need to see if we get a new Speaker of the House.
Joe Strauss has prevented any number of pro-2A bills from seeing the light of day.

If and when we can complete that mission, things will start looking up. Contact your Texas State Representative and voice your opinion that he should support someone other than Strauss. There won't be many others putting their names in for consideration, so it won't be a complicated decision process.
 
Strauss may have his hands full dealing with Dan Patrick. If he doesn't give Patrick the bills he wants to see in the Senate, Patrick can pretty much kill anything that Strauss does send from the House. So if Strauss is Speaker and is problematic, we should also press Patrick to use his pressure in turn.

And it is important to get these guys on the record early in support of what we want. Abbott has said he will sign what the legislature sends him on OC. He didn't put any conditions on it, so it will be hard for him to go back on that, regardless of what lands on his desk, even if it is so restrictive as to be useless.
 
Campus carry is more important in terms of protecting large numbers of innocents than OC.

If there was a full court press on Greg to actually try to get a bill through the legislature - that should be the issue.
 
Yup, a bill has to get to his desk first. And I am personally not aware of any groundswell of support for OC in Texas, so such a bill will likely not see the light of day. Actually most I talk with specifically do not want OC. Most are perfectly happy with the CHL rules as updated last September, which make it not a crime to inadvertently reveal a concealed weapon. Additionally fees were reduced and training requirements were reduced.
 
Actually, the seeds were sown much earlier than Jim Crow.
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Not as far as I can tell. The online TX statutes have a historical section so it's easy to step back through the years to see when certain laws were passed.
I have Texas listed as banning open carry in 1871. "An Act to Regulate the Keeping and Bearing of Deadly Weapons".
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That is correct. It was passed after the Civil War to prevent freedmen from arming themselves with handguns in public. It was selectively enforced for many years until changing times made that impossible.
 
OCT thinks they have the support to get their bill introduced. What comes out of comittee, if anything does, is another matter.

I'm OK with the current situation, but being able to remove a concealing outer garment (such as a jacket) while eating out would be a nice option.
 
I have Texas listed as banning open carry in 1871. "An Act to Regulate the Keeping and Bearing of Deadly Weapons".

That is correct. It was passed after the Civil War to prevent freedmen from arming themselves with handguns in public. It was selectively enforced for many years until changing times made that impossible.
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Open carry was banned by executive order during Reconstruction. It generally applied to returning Confederate vets thought to be troublesome. And there were various local ordinances banning open carry with town limits. Those were the seeds. After the Reconstruction government was thrown out, the tables were in effect turned.
 
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Good luck to all of you in Texas, hope you get open carry. Here in Virginia we have had open carry for as long as I can remember and I'm 60. I don't open carry often but I did when I went to vote. About 20 people were there at the polling place and no one seemed to notice my S&W 1911.

If you don't use your rights you may just loose them.
 
Open carry was banned by executive order during Reconstruction. It generally applied to returning Confederate vets thought to be troublesome. And there were various local ordinances banning open carry with town limits. Those were the seeds. After the Reconstruction government was thrown out, the tables were in effect turned.
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I don't have information on the executive order.

It's understandably difficult to find hard evidence for what was going on in the minds of the legislators, but there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to make things clear. For one thing, the traveling exception that provides the ability to carry a handgun in TX while traveling is actually case law from a court case involving a freedman who was prosecuted for having a handgun while on a trip.

And while it's not common, occasionally you can come up with more damning evidence which provides insight into the mind of southerners during this timeframe. The following is a quote from a Florida judge.

http://www.gunlaws.com/NoGunsForNegroes.htm

"The original Act of 1893 was passed when there was a great influx of Negro laborers into the state... The Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the Negro laborers... The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population, and in practice has never been so applied.”​

However, that kind of candor is understandably rare.
 
JohnKSa, I'm not disputing that the current prohibition comes from the 1871 law, or the original purpose of that law. I'm just noting that it wasn't the first example of prohibition in Texas and suggesting that earlier prohibitions planted the seeds.
 
As I said, local ordinances, and executive orders some of what were probably orders by military authorities during Reconstruction. They would not be found in the history of statutes because they were not legislative statutes. And the local ordinances were of course not state laws.

If you are really interested in the history, I'll try to find some references. I have seen references to the prohibitions in family papers, but those papers re not in my possession. If you just want to dispute my observation, it's not that important and not worth my time to defend. it.
 
...executive orders some of what were probably orders by military authorities during Reconstruction...
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What sort of basis do you have for this assertion? I don't mean to be confrontational--I'm actually quite curious about the topic.

Is there a record of executive orders or orders by military authorities prohibiting the carry of firearms?

That aside, it's a stretch to believe that the citizens of TX, seeing how the military and the north treated them in the aftermath of the civil war, decided that they liked the idea of being restricted in similar manner after those prohibitions were lifted.
...local ordinances...
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I don't see why the state would suddenly decide that pre-existing local ordinances needed to be augmented by a state law.
Actually, the seeds were sown much earlier than Jim Crow.
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I must confess that I'm not completely following your line of argument.

I take it that you agree (or at least aren't disputing) that the 1871 law (the first TX state law that prohibited the carry of handguns) seems to be intended to suppress the freedmen and seems to have been intended to be selectively enforced.

The 1871 law was quite a significant departure from earlier TX penal code philosophy which doesn't appear to have prohibited weapons at all. It did sometimes state that the use of a weapon would add to the penalty of a particular crime, but there doesn't seem to be any move to prohibit possession or carry of weapons until after the civil war.

Clearly there was a significant change in philosophy around the timeframe of 1871 and it's not at all difficult to find a significant event to correspond with that timeframe that explains that change in philosophy.

I'm not arguing that weapons prohibitions (particularly at the municipal level, or perhaps in times of emergencies or during the imposition of martial law) were unheard of before the 1871 law, but I don't believe it's accurate to imply that the origins of statewide gun control in the south, in general, and in TX, in specific, were unconnected with Jim Crow laws or significantly predate them.
 
I must confess that I'm not completely following your line of argument.
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Perhaps because I'm not trying to argue anything.

I take it that you agree (or at least aren't disputing) that the 1871 law (the first TX state law that prohibited the carry of handguns) seems to be intended to suppress the freedmen and seems to have been intended to be selectively enforced.
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I am in complete agreement

The 1871 law was quite a significant departure from earlier TX penal code philosophy which doesn't appear to have prohibited weapons at all. It did sometimes state that the use of a weapon would add to the penalty of a particular crime, but there doesn't seem to be any move to prohibit possession or carry of weapons until after the civil war.
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I agree with this as well, in regards to the state penal code.

Clearly there was a significant change in philosophy around the timeframe of 1871 and it's not at all difficult to find a significant event to correspond with that timeframe that explains that change in philosophy.
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Yes, there was. And much of that change in philosophy can be traced to events that occurred during Reconstruction. Many Texans--like other southerners--refused to be reconstructed and resented the Reconstruction government and its policies and practices. In this resentment can be found the seeds for Jim Crow.

I'm not arguing that weapons prohibitions (particularly at the municipal level, or perhaps in times of emergencies or during the imposition of martial law) were unheard of before the 1871 law, but I don't believe it's accurate to imply that the origins of statewide gun control in the south, in general, and in TX, in specific, were unconnected with Jim Crow laws or significantly predate them.
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And I'm not saying those origins were unconnected with Jim Crow. But I am saying that prohibitions, local and statewide, imposed during Reconstruction were connected to Jim Crow. Jim Crow laws were passed for a reason. Reconstruction policies were a big part of that reason.

I have ancestors on both sides that go back in Texas to before the revolution. And others from across the south, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas who came to Texas after the war. I have seen or been told of papers, letters, diaries and journals which expressed resentment at whites not being permitted to carry weapons while blacks were allowed to go armed. And statements to the effect that things would be reversed when the carpet baggers and scallywags were driven out.

And that is the basis for my observation. Accept it for what it is or reject it as you well.
 
Ok, I think I have it although your initial objection still doesn't quite make sense to me.

You're agreeing that the south passed these laws as racist measures but arguing that they may have been/were likely motivated to do so by what they perceived as unfair treatment by the north during reconstruction.

That part makes sense, but if that's your position, it doesn't make sense to assert that "the seeds were sown much earlier than Jim Crow" given that it was essentially the same thing at about the same time which motivated both the gun control laws and the Jim Crow laws.
 
it doesn't make sense to assert that "the seeds were sown much earlier than Jim Crow" given that it was essentially the same thing at about the same time which motivated both the gun control laws and the Jim Crow laws.
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So all of this is about my use of the word "much"? I suspect when I wrote that I was thinking that Jim Crow was a reversal of Reconstruction and Reconstruction, in many ways, a reversal of Black Codes dating in some states from 1800 or so. Which produced attitudes that came to Texas from those states. So, yes, in a way, the seeds were sown "much" earlier (and perhaps not even in Texas).
 
So all of this is about my use of the word "much"?
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I suppose you could say that--at least in the sense that I had difficulty reconciling it with what I had researched on the topic.
...in many ways, a reversal of Black Codes dating in some states from 1800 or so. Which produced attitudes that came to Texas from those states. So, yes, in a way, the seeds were sown "much" earlier (and perhaps not even in Texas).
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In that sense, one could trace the lineage back to Europe and the idea that only the top levels of society were permitted to be armed.
 
In that sense, one could trace the lineage back to Europe and the idea that only the top levels of society were permitted to be armed.
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You're correct. I stand corrected. It wasn't much earlier, it was much, much earlier. ;)

But really, there is much truth in that. History is a flow of events--the past flowing into the present. It is hard to pick any one point and say, "This started here" about anything.
 
Before 30.06, we had a sort of OC. A Texan was allowed to OC while hunting, fishing, or in "similar" activities.

The problem being that there was no bar to arrest, and whether or not an individual arrested would be prosecuted was up to the Prosecutor in the County where they were arrested (a situation which still attains for our "defense against prosecution" laws governing carry today).

We also still have OC in two other circumstances. The proprietor of a business may OC on premises (but is very limited in being able to extend that privilege to employees). Also, a person could carry on their own private (not public) property, and allow others to do the same
(which is where the BBQ gun tradition occurred). However, this, in practice, only applied to those residing outside of incorporated city limits, and were always subject to whether anyone complained about the carry.

A bill that would clarify what 'ordinary' forms of carry were allowed could probably pass both the houses in their 142 day biennial session
Unrestricted OC, probably would not. If only because that's how Austin politics goes.

For those wanting to carry in S'bucks, Chipotle and the like, they'd be much better off by pursuing such OC aims as a 1sr Amendment issue, rather than as a Second.

That's mt 2¢; others' differ.
 
I think the solution to ya'll's debate is that Jim Crow had roots reaching back farther than Jim Crow ;). Selective enforcement of weapons codes, as well as selective harassment of weapon-bearers despite the lack of weapons codes, has been around since before there was law in Texas --and we didn't exactly operate according to what was on the books for much of our history, either ;)

Weapons carry was obviously restricted to soldiers during the martial law period following the Civil War when Union troops were enforcing reconstruction. Once they left, the racist tyrants remaining found the mechanisms for curtailing citizens' armament..."useful," and put up a law that abided by the Constitutional amendments, but was selectively enforced in order to bypass them.

Later, when racism finally ebbed, the state found itself enforcing those same laws against all citizens, and that's when they became an issue for white Texans (as they had been for non-whites and the poor, prior), ultimately building to the current Gun Culture 2.0 state of affairs where we seek to finally cast off these shackles. Unlike the groups repressed in the past, we actually have the numbers and resources to do something about it --finally.

TCB

PS: I changed my signature solely in anticipation of the passage of OC this next session :)
 
Open Carry in Texas legislation pre-filed

HB195 Prefiled legislation for the 84th Texas legislature (2015-16)

Status
Status: Introduced on November 10 2014 - 25% progress
Action: 2014-11-10 - Filed

Summary
Relating to the carrying of handguns; providing for the open carrying of handguns; removing the requirement that a person who may lawfully possess handguns obtain a Concealed Handgun License in order to carry a handgun lawfully in the state of Texas, and conforming changes.

The problem with this is that without a state issued permit, I can hardly leave my neighborhood without violating the federal Gun Free School Zones law.

Also filed today by Rep Daniel Flynn, HB106 "Relating to the authority of a person who is licensed to carry a handgun to openly carry the handgun; providing penalties."
 
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So if they're just now getting ready to, then during all those gun movements in Texas, why were they open carrying if it wasn't lawful at the time?
 
IOwnTheWorld1994 said:
So if they're just now getting ready to, then during all those gun movements in Texas, why were they open carrying if it wasn't lawful at the time?
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The open carry demonstrations all involve the legal open carry of rifles, shotguns, and black powder pistols, either antiques or replicas thereof. Only the open carry of handguns is prohibited and that is the change being sought.
 
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