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Beiruty wrote:As for 3) Does it include Mosques?

I would think so. Doesn't the original language about CHL in churches and .30-06 call them "houses of worship"? That would certainly include mosques. Whether a certain piece of the law says "church" or "house of worship", I am pretty sure that a court would use the terms interchangeably, and therefore mosques would be covered.

jmra wrote:

Pawpaw wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:

Dave2 wrote:

android wrote:

RPBrown wrote:With all of the lengthy discussions here about church carry and security teams, I am surprised to see the number for that so low.

I don't even go to church and I picked that one. I have read about the issue and I think it's a burdensome restriction.

I didn't pick that one because I don't see what makes churches special in this regard. I'd either make the exception for all non-profits in general, or not for anybody (not sure which).

Churches do have a unique need for this legislation that no other non-profit experiences. (The bill also applies to schools.) No other non-profit organization tends to have a large number of people gathered in one location on a regular basis, thus making the planning and attack by a mass murdered easier. Churches are targeted specifically because they are places of worship.

Very few churches post 30.06 signs and many tens of thousands of CHLs carry handguns in church every Sunday, as well as other days. Texas law allow people to defend themselves and others and there is no doubt that many CHLs will respond to a violent attack in their churches. Being able to form a volunteer security team and educate/coordinate with fellow armed church members will increase overall safety.

Chas.

I voted for this one, but I do have one concern. That would be the seeking out of CHLers for the security team or, even worse, a church requiring all security team members to have a CHL and be armed. That could easily get out of hand and result in a bad situation. I would hate to know someone got their CHL just so they could "play cop" at church.

IMHO, having worked with E&E teams for years, this concern simply doesn't have much validity. Any reputable church organization is going to vet their team members stringently. In order to be effective these team members have to be people who interact well with both members of the church and guests. We aren't talking about loners who don't fit in.
Simply put, there is not a member of my E&E team who couldn't be a cop if that was their calling in life. If they wanted to "play cop" they would do exactly that and get payed for it.
Remember, the only reason this restriction was applied to churches in the first place was the strong lobbying arm of security firms who were afraid they were going to lose some of the easiest money they make.

ETA: who would you prefer "patrolling" the halls of the church your family attends, a cop who just rolled up from pulling an all night shift or a well rested, well vetted, well trained professional business man who knows the members of your church and has a vested interest in protecting those members? I think the answer is simple. Now we just need to stop neutering that individual.

First of all, one of my votes was for #3, so I couldn't agree with you more. At my own church, the pastoral staff have organized two first responder teams, one medical, and one armed. The medical first responders are (no surprise) doctors, nurses, paramedics, and EMTs in private life. The armed first responders are all off-duty cops who are church members. I have had this discussion with several of them who are also friends of mine and who are aware of both my CHL status AND that I carry at church. I sought them out and broached the subject with them because I had a concern: in the event of an active shooter situation, I am going to do whatever I can to protect 1st my family, and 2nd anyone immediately around me.......NOT because I am Batman, but because I am a husband, father, and grandfather, and the members of my church are people I consider to be my "extended family". I can't protect all of them, but I can protect those right near me. My concern was that I didn't want to be shot by a member of the armed first responders if I were to produce a firearm during an active shooter situation. So I thought it important to bring the issue up with the armed team-members that I know, trusting that they would inform those that I don't know of my identity. There is a fairly large number of CHLs who attend my church, almost certainly a significantly higher percentage than among the general population. In a church with an average weekly attendance of around 1,500, I personally know of quite a few people who have their CHLs, but that isn't all of them, and that doesn't include the ones I know are off-duty LEOs. Occasionally, one of the CHLs I know will "out" someone to me whom I didn't know had a CHL.....so there are a lot of us out there.

Interestingly, even though I am very much in favor of #3, this does raise a significant safety issue. Can you have TOO MANY guns around in an active shooter situation? My guess is that most LEOs would answer this with a fairly emphatic "yes".......not because they are anti-RKBA, but because they understand that a lot of people who are perfectly legal to carry and who have perfectly stable personalities will NOT have even a fairly minimum level of training in an active shooter situation, and therefore the likelihood of a fratricidal shooting is higher by some degree or other.

The current state of the law, for now, deals with that by including only LEOs in that privilege. YES, the security guard industry lobbied hard for this restriction, and it is a very self-serving restriction which benefits them above all others; but even if you take them completely out of the picture, it is a reasonable assumption that experienced LEOs are less likely to be involved in a fratricidal shooting than non-LEOs.

Before anyone here gets their dander up about that, remember that the 15,231 members of this board (the majority of whom have never posted more than once or twice) represent a tiny fraction of the total number of CHL holders in the state. Even if everyone of us was tactically minded AND TRAINED, we would not necessarily represent the typical CHL holder. Furthermore, as we know from our own discussions on this board, not all of us are intimately and confidently familiar all the time with all of the law. My words about church response are not limited to members of this board. I only know of 3 CHL holders associated with my church who are/were members of this board besides myself. One of them hasn't posted since 2008. One of them has moved on to another church several years ago, and the 3rd is a more recent member. I'd bet that some of the CHLs at my church are just some old guy with a Kel-Tec .32 stuck in their pocket. So we here on this board are not typical. We tend to be better informed about the law. We tend to be better trained or at least concerned about training. Etc, etc.

So, even if #3 passes, churches have a vested interest in making sure that those who are to be part of their armed first response teams are going to be qualified for the job. In the same way that school systems around the country are beginning to provide training for teachers to be armed first responders, churches should have the opportunity to do that. They don't have to pay for it, just organize it. Those LEOs who currently volunteer can—if they wish—be part of the training either as students OR instructors. It seems to me that it would be useful for the LEOs to get to know and become familiar working with non-LEOs who sign up. Those members who want to participate can pay for their own training. Perhaps the price per student can be varied according to how many sign up. I would personally be willing to absorb this kind of expense on behalf of my church, and I suspect that most who were interested in this kind of participation would themselves be willing to do the same.

But in a nutshell, I do think that implementation safety should be part of any discussion in passing #3. It may be less of an issue in a small church with 50 members where everybody knows everybody else fairly well, but in larger churches like mine with an average weekly attendance of 1,500 spread over 3 services, even after having been a member since september of 2006, I don't know everybody. I'm not sure it is even possible. And forget about the mega-churches, which bring the issues to a whole new level. Safety implementation is going to be a big issue in getting this passed.

Misfit Child wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote: Stretching truth and telling lies is the libtard way. Let's not go there.

I have carried in a multitude of states. Out of respect for the ladies present I will simply say, "Physician, heal thyself."

You plainly skipped to the bottom of my post. Let me backtrack for you:

The Annoyed Man wrote:........I want Constitutional carry. I want it just as bad as anybody does. But I'm not going to stretch the truth to try and win arguments. I'm not calling you guys liars. Really, I'm not.....

Now, I've never said you haven't open carried in a bunch of states. On the other hand, I do absolutely dare you to OC in Henderson County Nevada, an open carry state with state preemption in firearms laws, or Aurora Colorado, in another open carry state with state preemption in firearms laws.

Go ahead. Then, once you've gotten out of jail and surrendered your CHL on account of that shiny new felony conviction of yours, please come back here and tell us how it went for you. Do you see the point I'm making? The one thing that OC advocates always fail to mention.....and in my experience, they get their feathers up whenever it gets brought up.....is that "the majority of states have OC" is not 100% true for those states which, at least on the books, have open carry. My point is that it doesn't matter if they have OC, you and I cannot count on even enforcement of the law in those states. I've just listed two of them. Twice. I'll bet you that if I were to take the time, I could show more. If I can name TWO without even trying, I've already made my case. That line IS oversold. In actual application, it isn't reliably true. I was careful to state that we need to not speak as true, those things which we know not to be reliably true. Absent reliability, you're just playing a game of chance. You shouldn't preach chance as reliable truth. It's not right.

Let's unpack your claim: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_carry ... ted_States. According to that link, 20 states have unlicensed OC. Last I checked, 20 is less than half of 50, so that's not a "majority". In one of those states, Arkansas, the meaning of the law is still up for grabs.... and it is NOT a certain thing. If you tell people that it IS a certain thing, you're practicing informational malpractice. Their legal fees will be on your conscience....if you have a conscience. In two of those states which I've already mentioned, there are counties which flout the state's preemption, and you will be arrested for open carrying in a state with open carry. In the state of Delaware, you can't OC in the state capitol. So there's another state where OC has geographical exceptions.....not just private property exceptions. Michigan, which is listed as a permissive state, still requires a license. And by the way, in many of these states there are large tribal reservations where tribal law preempts state law. So you can't just OC willy nilly on reservations.... which occupy thousands of square miles of land. And speaking of states with Indian reservations, New Mexico permits open carry, but YouTube is overflowing with chuckleheads who have run-ins with NM cops, particularly in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, over the fact that they are open carrying. Connecticut has licensed open carry. Do you think, post Sandy Hook, that they are issuing a lot of licenses lately?

That's a lot of words, so I'll start a new paragraph.... Oregon has OC, but it is illegal in a lot of Oregon's cities. In Pennsylvania, you need a license to OC in any city over 100,000 people, but not anywhere else....... except in your car. You always need a license to OC in your car in PA. California is an OC state! Really? No, not really. :( Quoting OCDO, "Open carry is generally prohibited except in unincorporated areas where the county has not made open carry illegal, or, pursuant to a CA open carry permit issued and valid only in a county with a population of less than 200,000 persons." Maryland has licensed OC, but rarely ever issues licenses.....so.... no, Maryland doesn't really have OC. Ohio has OC. Yes it does. But, you can't OC in your vehicle in Ohio unless you also have an Ohio concealed carry license. Rhode Island has licensed OC, but licenses are rarely issued.... so... like Maryland, Rhode Island doesn't really have OC. Did you remember to omit Maryland and Rhode Island from your "majority" of states with OC?

14 states have licensed open carry. In other words, they are no different than Texas....except the gun is exposed..... in which case there is little practical difference from a rights perspective. You still need a license (license = permission) from the state to exercise your right.

I could go on, but I've already spent more time on this than it is worth to me. I just hoped that by doing so, you'd begin to understand why I made my comments in my previous post. A much more accurate statement is "most states have some kind of provision for OC, but in a number of those states, those provisions are for all intents and purposes, worthless".

You say you've OC'd in a multitude of states. Good for you. You've been lucky. I hope your luck holds. I really do. I still don't think you should encourage people to believe the canard.......unless you can prove that it is 100% reliably true. You can't, so you shouldn't. That's my 2¢.

And I'll repeat.... in My world, Constitutional Carry would be the ultimate goal. It's what I want. I'm just not going to exaggerate certain information to try and convince people.....who might in turn go to jail because of something I told them.

I don't need healing, thank you very much. Like jrma said, I'm not your enemy. I just think it is important for us to have complete moral clarity in managing the issue.

pancho wrote:

Beiruty wrote:Open carry is legal in the majority of the states. So, as matter of principal, in a gun friendly state like Texas, why Texas should be one of last to make the OC lawful?

That's a good question Beiruty. I can't think of any other state where someone with a license to carry faces up to a year in jail if they remove their jacket and their holstered handgun sees daylight. We can point fingers and blame next year on the in-your-face demonstrations but that doesn't explain the past 15 years.

"Legal in a majority of states" is kind of a canard. It is legal in "a majority", but in a lot of those states it is not common and will still earn you a trip to the hoosegow while the judge sorts it out. And even in the states where it is legal without issue, you can still be barred from entering any number of places with a simple sign.

I want Constitutional carry. I want it just as bad as anybody does. But I'm not going to stretch the truth to try and win arguments. I'm not calling you guys liars. Really, I'm not. But this "legal in a majority of states" thing is way oversold, and it is straight out of the OCDO propaganda package......and a lot of those boys are clean out of their minds. For instance, Nevada is an OC state, with total state preemption. Except Henderson County does not recognize the state's preemption, and if you OC into Henderson county, you'll not only be arrested, but you WILL get convicted, and you WILL serve time on a weapons charge.......even though Nevada is one of "that majority of states which have OC".......with state preemption in all gun laws.

Ditto Colorado. STATE law says OC is legal in Denver, LIttleton, and Aurora. Go ahead and try it. I dare you. Colorado's State preemption isn't worth a cup of warm spit.

Stretching truth and telling lies is the libtard way. Let's not go there.