...what these folks are proposing:
FORT WORTH — Saying Texas firearm laws are overly restrictive, a group of gun advocates is lobbying state lawmakers to permit wearing handguns in plain view.
With the legislative session scheduled to begin in January, supporters of "open-carry laws" have placed ads on billboards in Houston and San Antonio and on taxis in Austin.
The Texas campaign is expected to intensify Tuesday with a radio message in Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin. The ad says, "We don't hide our colors, do we?" and encourages Texans to sign an online petition asking lawmakers to make Texas a place where people can openly wear their guns. More than 28,000 people have signed it so far.
It's worth asking, though, if what they're advocating is open carry with or without a permit. I would guess it's permit-free OC, and that would be great. Either way it'd be a welcome step toward getting Vermont-style carry here in Texas, that is, the ability to carry openly or concealed without a permit. (That would help out a lot of folks, as it currently runs about $200 or more to get a permit in Texas once you pay all the assorted fees to the state and the CHL instructor.) No doubt the state's major media would come out in full force against it, but if I remember right that's basically what they did when the original permit system was being debated. As it turns out all their BS about "blood running in the streets" and "Wild West shootouts" was just more fearmongering. In any event, though, a new version of an old question deserves to be asked — if certain people can't be trusted to carry a weapon without a government background check, then why are they still walking in free society?
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