About those Texas gun laws…
Or much ado about not much at all.
I have read the lurid stories about the changes in Texas gun laws that went into effect on September 1, 2019. Despite a fair amount of face-palming and eye-rolling, I hadn’t planned to say anything.
Then the editors of Medium decided to add Karyn Quinlan’s “Texas Makes “Open Carry” of Guns Even Easier” to the daily digest.
According to her profile, Ms. Quinlan is a writer, photographer, improv nerd, and malcontent who lives in the Finger Lakes region of New York state.
According to some bizarre standard that I frankly can’t comprehend, this makes her eminently qualified to comment on Texas law.
Unlike the politicians in Albany, legislators in Texas meet once every two years for a total of 90 business days. The laws that went into effect on September first were passed in the 2019 session that ended on May 27th. For those having trouble with the concept (like Ms. Quinlan) that means the laws were enacted 68 days before the murders at the Walmart in El Paso or 97 days before they went into effect.
So, contrary to the clickbait, the Texas Legislature did not rush back into session after either the shooting in El Paso or the weird spree in Odessa and rush through a new law saying that Texans could not be prohibited from putting their guns into rented storage units. Unless the governor calls for a special session, the legislature will not meet again until January 2021.
It’s important to note that Texas and California are the only states entirely situated west of the Mississippi River that require a permit to carry a handgun in public. Every other state either allows open carry without a permit or both open and concealed carry without a permit. [Yes, part of Minnesota is west of the Mississippi; that’s why I said “entirely.]
HB121: While it’s not an automatic offense in most states for a person with a concealed carry permit to inadvertently enter a place with a “No Guns” sign (see illustration), it is a Class C misdemeanor in Texas that carries a maximum penalty of a $200 fine.
However, the signage does not have to be in the form of a sign. There are places where there are numerous notices, all in a common size and coloring, on doors or windows…