CPRC at Fox News: Texas about to role back 145-year ban on Open Carrying Guns

Jun 3, 2015 | Featured

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at  Wednesday, June 3, 8.00 PM

From Fox News:

Some 850,000 Texans already have permits to carry cooncealed weapons, according to said John Lott, president of the pro-Second Amerndment Crime Prevention Research Center, and a Fox News contributor. Since licensed gun owners commit firearms violations at a very low rate, Lott said, simply allowing them to carry guns openly will not create any new dangers for law-abiding citizens.

“The notion that Texans who open carry their guns will start shooting each other is absurd,” Lott said. “Just because those people can now carry openly won’t change that, any more than the 44 other states that already allow open carry.”

A 2013 Texas Department of Public Safety study found only .3 percent of convicted crimes were committed by those holding a Concealed Handgun License. . . .

The Houston Chronicle has this useful discussion on the history of the open carry ban in Texas:

. . . Texas was the first state to ban its citizens from carrying handguns, a restriction that remained on the books for 125 years. Now, 20 years after the Texas Legislature OK’d the carrying of concealed handguns with a license, some lawmakers want to make it legal to carry holstered weapons in plain sight.

With the Legislature set to convene next month, lawmakers and historians are taking a look back at the law and its troubling Reconstruction-era origins.

“One of the noticeable goals was to ensure that black people did not shoot back to the guys in the white hoods,” said Clayton Cramer, an author and historian who has written extensively on the selective enforcement of early gun laws. “A great many of the southern states relied on the fact that they could enforce these laws fairly arbitrarily.” . . . .

johnrlott

1 Comment

  1. Evan

    I think the headline should say “roll back”.

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