I just want to clarify something here. Back when I first joined this forum, someone pointed out to me in no uncertain terms that a thing is always legal unless the law prohibits it....that laws always prohibit, unless they provide exceptions. Example: concealed handgun prohibited without exception of CHL. Otherwise a thing being "legal" is defined by the absence of any laws prohibiting it. In other words, if there is no law against it, it is legal. As a California transplant, it took me a while to absorb that. I came from a state where we were indoctrinated to believe that the law gives you permission for a thing, until another law forbids that thing, but that ALL things are covered by the law one way or the other.talltex wrote:.....The law says you CAN do it with a rifle or shotgun...period. The law says you CANNOT do it with a sidearm...period. ....
So what I want to clarify in light of the above is this:
- Does written Texas law specifically permit/allow the carrying of loaded/unloaded long guns, or....
- Is the "legal" carrying of a loaded/unloaded long gun defined by the fact that there is an absence of written Texas law forbidding it?
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The way I interpret the strictures against "a manner calculated to cause alarm" is that there IS such a thing as "inappropriate" firearms behavior. This piece of law about "causing alarm" protects you from the tree-hugger who sees you get out of your pickup truck with a long gun, preparatory to entering a hunting field, but it places you in legal liability if you carry that same long gun into the local drugstore......where the guy behind the counter might very well and understandably be alarmed that you are there to rob the joint.Solution? If you feel the personal need to carry a firearm into the local drugstore, then until OC actually passes, get your darn CHL, and carry a concealed pistol!
If the shopkeeprs are inside, tending to their business, they do not time nor should they expect to have the inclination to stop work and a long look up and down the street to observe your intentions with that long gun before you enter their shop. They hear the door open, they look up, and there's a guy with an shotgun. If he's not running a gunstore, don't you think the guy might have legitimate cause for alarm? If you don't, then you're the one being unreasonable.
So yeah, it IS alarming, and being alarmed DOESN'T always mean that the alarmed person is necessarily anti-gun. It just means they don't want to get robbed, and you've just given them reason to—at least momentarily—fear that getting robbed is about to happen. I'm not anti-gun in the least, but if you walk into my store openly armed with a long gun and I don't know you or your intentions, then YEAH...I'd be alarmed.......and I'M armed (think about those possibilities for a moment). People who do this while refusing to take into account the legitimate concerns of others are being foolish and it will undoubtedly blow up in their faces some day. Remember....as of THIS MORNING, 9/1/13, I do not have to wait to draw my gun until confronted with use of deadly force against me. I can now draw my gun when confronted with a regular use of force. If I don't know you or expect you to come in with a gun, I'm very likely at first glance to interpret that gun as an attempt to rob my store, and react accordingly.
Passing soccer moms.....phtttt! You can't do anything about idiotic people driving/walking by—except leave the gun in the car or be willing to face the consequences of the alarm of small minds passing by—but you canNOT reasonably expect business owners, who have cash in the register and a sizable investment in inventory, and employees (who are perhaps family members) to protect, to not be alarmed when you walk into their drugstore or giftshop or soda fountain or wine shop with a shotgun/AR........regardless of whether it is slung across your back or being held at port-arms. (And by the way THIS is exactly why it is a BAD idea to extend 30.06 to include OC....but that's another debate.)
The reason it is alarming to a lot of people is that it is not the societal norm. It hasn't been the societal norm for a couple of generations now. That's too bad, but that's just a fact. People who openly carry a long gun around probably represent a tiny fraction of 1/10th of 1% of the population......even including that part of the population which is very pro-gun. Most of us on this forum are very pro-gun, but I think it is a safe bet that on any given day, most of us are not walking around with an openly carried long gun, just on general principles and without some other very specific sporting/hunting/training purpose. IF the behavior were a societal norm.....as in everybody does it or at least is around people who do it, then "cause for alarm" would be vastly reduced. When I was a little boy, I walked around town with a .22 rifle. Nobody cared. We live in different times today. Failure to heed that fact will lead to your own legal demise. It's called "reality." Yes, that reality can be changed, but it won't be effectively changed by scaring people who don't need to be scared. After all, their opinion about the expression of your right is protected by the 1st Amendment. Shall we limit the 1st so that you can express the 2nd?
Balance, gentlemen. Being "in your face" is not a balanced approach to promoting the right to openly carry......any kind of gun. When OC advocates in California did some unloaded OC demonstrations, they got OC almost completely illegalized, at a time when the law basically ignored it as long as you weren't being too "in your face" about it. You might say, "Well that's California, and this is Texas, and it can't happen here." If you think that, I have two questions for you:
- Why does Joe Strauss keep getting reelected as Speaker?
- What do you think is the political persuasion of at least 50% of the Texas transplants from California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, who have moved here following their jobs.....and what effect will that have on the state's population centers, when only 17% of the population is rural and less likely to be alarmed by an openly carried long gun? (SOURCE)
We have ONE way, and ONE way ONLY to change their minds: education in a non-threatening environment. Invite them to try out shooting. Invite them on a hunt. Have calm (disarmed, or at least concealed) conversations with them about why you believe the things you believe. Keep coming back to how much better off they are with an expansion of rights, rather than a limiting of rights. But showing up with an AR15 strapped to your back in front of some soccer mom who transplanted here from New Jersey and just saying "deal with it," is not going to win you any points, and it may result in taking a ride. If it does, deal with it.
Here's another reason to worry about the changing demographics: Preemption. Right now, the state constitution provides for state preemption. We have a republican majority in the legislature and voted republican in the last 9 presidential elections, NOT because the cities are safely republican....they're not....but because between that 17% rural population and somewhere around 35-45% of urban populations are republican to arrive at the 57% statewide republican vote in the last presidential election. How long before the urban populations get big enough and liberal enough to get "home rule" included in the state constitution? After all, we are considering something so mundane as highway funding getting included in the constitution. When those cities grow to the point were their democrat voters consist of greater than 50% of all voters, CHL will eventually be banned in Dallas, Houston, SA, etc., etc.
This is nothing to trifle with, and OC of firearms, ANY firearms, absent legislation which either removes the laws against it, OR provides a law permitting it, is simply asking to wreck the whole thing for everybody. There is A) what ought to be, and there is B) what is. I'm never in favor of acting as if A=B when it manifestly does not. MLK fully expected to be arrested for his activities, and he wasn't surprised when he actually got arrested......as his famous letter from the Birmingham jail indicates. Why should any of us expect any different until A DOES = B?