Don't Mess With Texas... Especially Its New Gun Law
Texans and guns.
Back in 2006, Dick Cheney shot a man in Reno, err, Kingsville, in South Texas. In the face, while hunting quail in an open field. On a 53,000 acre spread.
He claimed (and experts disbelieved) to be at least 90 feet from his victim, an elderly hunting partner. No charges ensued, and it was played for laughs nationally because nobody died. Still, the guy got seriously riddled in the face, head and upper body. He was in the hospital for weeks and will carry shrapnel the rest of his life.
That near-tragedy happened in a largely unpopulated environment. Today, vast suburbs now exist that were rural two decades ago, so the following was bound to happen: Some years ago, 3,000 mainly undeveloped acres were annexed by the city of Fort Worth and placed under its urban firearms ordinance.
This didn't sit well with the gun lobby. As far as they were concerned, rules for how close a hunter, on city land, could be to a home or school shouldn't be determined by the, um, local government.
Fourth of July fireworks near homes and businesses certainly matter from a safety standpoint, but guns? What are you, a communist?
So in '05, the legislature co-opted municipalities by setting the limit on hunting in these areas: not within 150 feet of "homes or occupied buildings." That's right: just 50 yards, half a football field. Great quarterbacks are known to throw the ball farther than that, and I guarantee you their arm velocity is much less than a Remington 12 gauge over and under.
The upshot? Since the law passed four years ago, the Dallas Morning News now reports:
{E}ach year ....frantic callers have flooded North Texas 911 lines on the opening day of dove hunting season with complaints about noise and the proximity of hunters to their homes.Police Chief Todd Renshaw of Frisco {north of Dallas}, said he knew of no related injuries, but in some cases shotgun pellets rained down on homes and businesses.
And to him that means hunters are simply too close.
"I'm a hunter. I hunt dove. But there are places in Frisco where I have hunted that I don't any more, because it's just too close to civilization."
A pending bill in the current session of the legislature increases the distance from 150 to 1,500 feet for schools, day care sites, residential subdivisions, apartment complexes, parks and outdoor recreation areas. The Texas State Rifle Association (the Lone Star wing of the NRA) has supposedly signed off on the increase, and that's a good thing.
Ah, but they're happy to be magnanimous for a big reason. The more important law they want from the Texas legislature is almost in the bag: the right to bring a gun to work!
There's already a state law -- fairly recent -- allowing concealed weapons, yet one of the exemptions lets employers choose to keep guns off their private property, whether an office, chemical plant, factory, etc. The new law will take away the bosses option, granting workers the right to keep guns and ammo stored in their vehicles, parked on-site.
The argument offered for the change by supporters, with a straight face, is that driving to work in these tough economic times is just too dangerous, and people need a pistol to get to their job alive.
It's going to pass despite opposition from the powerful business lobby.
Hey, Bob in accounting? Your days of complaining about overtime pay may be finished. And when that creepy co-worker gets the pink slip, try to be away at lunch.
POSTSCRIPT: Pro-gun forces are pushing several other pieces of legislation that have been filed this session. The most disturbing would actually repeal the existing requirement that when stopped by law enforcement, a Texas concealed handgun licensee must show their permit if they are carrying their handgun.
In other words, a person with a loaded gun in the car -- and a permit to carry it -- won't have to let the officer know they're packing heat when pulled over at, say, 2:00 AM after a night of drinking. Currently, those carrying have to show their permit so the officer at least knows the full potential of the situation he or she is dealing with.
We already know cops are armed. It seems only fair they should know if we are, and many in law enforcement think this bill is terribly misguided.
The Texas arm of the NRA, however, proudly endorses it on their website. Then again, they loved cop killer bullets, too. The "true colors" of these gun obsessives are showing.
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I am totally surprised that Texas would impugn the rights of property owners (businesses) like that.
Can a person still prevent someone from entering their home with a gun? What's the difference?
How about taking alcohol to work - can an employer still ban that?
Can they keep people from bringing their children to work? Enforce a dress code?
What is the liability of the company if an employee shoots somebody - like his boss?
Will management be eligible for hazardous duty pay?
"I am totally surprised that Texas would impugn the rights of property owners (businesses) like that.
Can a person still prevent someone from entering their home with a gun? What's the difference?"
the difference is that when you go to someone's home, you usually have an option of parking off their property. Business owners can still prohibit firearms in their buildings, just as a home owner can. What we are talking about here is if the firearm can be in a vehicle.
Let's say I have concealed carry permit. I drive over to see you. You don't like firearms and don't want them in your house, so I leave my firearm in the car. I can still exercise my legal activity of carrying concealed to and from your house, just not in your house. Now, if I am going to work and I have to park in a company parking lot, and my employer doesn't allow concealed carry, by the current rules I can't exercise my legal activity of concealed carry while going to a from work because I can't leave my firearm in the car since the car is on company property. That is all this law is meant to change.
Sorry I didn't read the article close enough. I thought it was saying they could carry into work, not leave it in the vehicle. Big difference. My opinion, that leaving a weapon in your car is fine. Your car should be considered an extension of your own property.
If people are allowed to bring guns to work (preferably under CC laws) I think you'll see a lot of the worker on worker violence that is plaguing god-fearing Tejans in the work place go down.
As well, it's bound to have a salubrious effect on sexual harassment. Guys will think more than once about harassing that "pretty little filly" is they're not sure if she's packing or not.
Hopefully, the enlightened legislators of this great state will seriously consider allowing prison inmates to bring guns to prison. I think that could solve a lot of the problems rampant in our prisons.
And of course if Santa Anna stages a raid up North, we're going to need every able- bodied man in the state in the militia to resist.
Why don't they make guns mandatory and return to vigilante justice?
You make a lot of sense, but you forgot dueling - that's how real gentlemen settle disputes.
They did make them mandatory in Kennesaw, Georgia.
This pales in comparison to what lawmakers in Montana are up to. Montana has concealed handgun permits, which are fairly easy to get if you pass a background check & show a certificate of training. But on the horizon is HB228 which would allow anyone of legal age (18) to openly carry a handgun without a permit. It also allows that person to display their handgun if they feel threatened. If this thing passes, law enforcement will have no more jurisdiction to question someone carrying a handgun in city limits. No training needed, just flash your weapon if you have a beef over a parking spot. You won't even need to show justification! Wouldn't you like to be a retail clerk with teenagers packing heat in your store? With hate crimes on the rise it would be so easy to intimidate people you don't like with your pearl handle wheel gun. Welcome to Toombstone Montana!
"But on the horizon is HB228 which would allow anyone of legal age (18) to openly carry a handgun without a permit. "
Open carry is nothing new and since the legal age for possessing a handgun is 18 in most states, I see little wrong with it.
Oh & Odin......
Open carry in the city limits is NOT legal right now in Montana. If you have read MT bill, you will see it puts the public at risk. For anyone 18 or older to be able to strap on a gun and walk through the city is inviting disaster. It will not make people safer, people have tempers. When they are provoked, under this bill they could now display their gun to the other person. How long do you think it will be before somebody gets shot? The honest gun owners have concealed permits, I am very comfortable with that. It's the people who shouldn't be packing that worries me & law enforcement will have no jurisdiction to question them. If you can't understand why the jewelry store owner would be nervous, then I think you are naive.
Well, cross Montana and Texas off the list of places I'd ever live/visit/work
48 states have legal concealed carry. I guess your travel options are pretty limited.
For the record gun crime in Texas has dropped to it's lowest level since records have been kept. The drop began when the concealed carry law went into effect. Unlike places where guns were outlawed such as Australia and England, DC, etc. In those locals gun crime went through the roof. Now Bobbys carry guns. They never had to before they were taken from the citizens. I am not a member of the NRA, nor do I have a Concealed carry permit. But the fact that honest folks want one do does not bother me. I have never been threatened by any of them. In fact it is a CONCEALED carry permit. Display is strictly illegal unless you are using it. At that point you will have to justify your action to the authorities whether you shoot or not. Also, if you check you will see that the Supreme Court has ruled that Law Enforcement officials do not owe you any protection whatsoever. Yes it sounds crazy to me also but that was the ruling. Cops will most often try to help you, but crooks don't assault you at the doughnut shop, (cheap shot I know), or the police station, or anywhere cops might be hanging around. Fact is Doctors/Medics mistakes kill more people every year than all guns in the US including accidents and intentional shootings. I know all the arguements on both sides and the numbers are with the Gun folks. Freedom carries risk. Live with it!
Wow.
One of the greatest mistakes in US history must have been the second amendment. Why in the world is it a right to bear arms? Seriously why? What good has it done? The Bill of Rights states the rights of the people. Seriously, it's hard to get over, that there actually exists such a protected right. And isn't it sad? How can we the people and our elected leaders not only understand the major connection between non existing gun control, nor bullet control, and killings, but also change our attitudes toward gun control? There are approximately 12, 000 killings caused by guns in the US each year. Compare it to for example France, or most European countries, they are down under a 100! If that is not upsetting- I don't know.
"It is not the firearm in the car that causes the problem, it's the individual who possesses the firearm." senator Glenn Hegar told the Dallas News. Seriously Mr. Senator? It is obviously about the availability
That Texans loves their guns is surely no understatement as this new law only proves. Give me one good reason for why you, a sane person, would want to bring your gun to work.
Let me point out a couple of incontrovertible facts to you.
(1) Since folks like me in the well regulated militia have been able to bear semi automatic weapons, not one boot of Canadian or Mexican troops has touched the sacred soil of our country. Not one.
(2) Nor has a single Russki paratrooper landed anywhere in the USA.
Nor has a tyrannical, oppressive government ever come to power - at least not yet. I really got a kick out of the liberal Bush haters here the last few years. You screamed and cried about the tyrant GWB and how his “regime” needed to be overthrown. But being generally anti-2nd amendment and mostly unarmed, how would you have done it? By using harsh language?
"One of the greatest mistakes in US history must have been the second amendment. Why in the world is it a right to bear arms? Seriously why?"
Because everyone has a right to mount a defense of themselves, their community, their state, or their country.
"And isn't it sad?"
No, it is quite nice.
BTW, I've lived in Europe. There is a reason I continue to call the US home.
A cogent argument which explains all those countries in Europe occupied by foreigners or suffering under the heel of domestic tyrants, like France and England.
Thank God for the Second Amendment!
Texas has the highest incidence of child homelessness, among the lowest access to health and human services, among the highest property taxes, among the worst educational system, and the best our state legislature can do - when it meets once every 2 years - is fixate on guns and voter suppression tactics. It's a huge state governed by pinheads.
Then explain to all the dummies here why there isn’t a mass exodus from Texas going on? You know, like the exodus currently happening in California, Michigan, and a few northeastern states. I understand that many of the relocated Katrina victims have stayed to live permanently in Texas. Just about all of the gang bangers from New Orleans rushed back to the Crescent City as soon as they could because in Texas they found the criminal laws stricter and the general population well armed and better able to defend themselves. Go figure.
Danger.
If you need to take a gun to work to defend yourself inside from folks you know, imagine what's it's like outside where there are all the folks you don't.
Tejas is a pretty scary place as any good patriot can tell you.
Fairly "liberal" gun laws, capital punishment and a plethora of TV pastors and the place is still barely civilized and highly dangerous.
Imagine what it would be like without these measures!
It's a veritable poster child for Objectivism.
If Galt's Gulch weren't already in Colorado, they'd move it to Tejas!
People forget that someone with a Concealed Carry Liscence has already gone through an FBI background check with fingerprints, provided proof of training, etc.
These are not usually the ones that flip out. In fact, these are the people that are obeying the law, getting liscences, and so on-- which is exactly what gun control advocates have been wanting all along: "You shouldn't have a gun without training and a liscence!"
Well, guess what? These are the folks with training and liscences. And if you do your research, you'll also find that very few of these people are involved in gun crimes.
Look, if a person has a concealed carry permit and has to park in a company lot, but cannot leave a firearm in his vehicle due to company rules, then the company is basically making it so that the employee will be unable to exercise his lawful activity while going to and from his place of employment. And that is simply not tolerable.
The guys who are intent on doing harm to their employers and fellow employees are going to bring a firearm to work regardless of what the company rules are. And the chances of an employee who has gone through the trouble of getting a concealed carry permit storming out to their vehicle to get a firearm and cause havoc are a heck of a lot more slim than the chance of the other scenario.
That's a stretch, Jackson. They still can't take their guns inside. The change in the law just lets them keep a gun in the car they drive to work. You want to see something really scary, check out the defensive shooting classes at your local range, where you'll see a bunch of Texas housewives unloading automatics at bad guy targets while they shout "drop the gun!"
Nah, it just makes it more likely that they will have it for the shootings on the freeway to work.
Who among you thinks that a few words on a piece of paper are going to keep a person unstable or angry enough to attack a co-worker from doing exactly that. Possession of a gun in the parking lot does not create that person's ability or willingness to do harm.
If these words were the least bit effective, there would be no crime and therefore no reason to have a police force.
Banning guns from any location will not disuade those who don't obey the laws anyway.
Remember when the Texas Concealed Handgun Law was supposed to lead to "blood running in the streets"?
It hasn't and never will.
You're right, the current law doesn't stop everyone. But it DOES limit those who might otherwise go crazy to just what they have on hand, not very likely to include a gun.
So all these years of "tough on crime" and capitol punishment down there and you guys are still too scared to go outside without a weapon?
It's not only outside.
This law is to protect honest god-fearing Tejans from their dangerous co-workers inside.
MajorKong:
Not nearly as scared as I would be in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., etc.
That's why I remain in Texas where I still have the right of self preservation and am not a defenseless moving target for some mugger, gang-banger, or dopehead who needs a fix.
I don't tell you how to live so please allow me the same courtesy.
Please read the article and note that it allows employees to have guns in their cars, not at their desks. And if you think that banning guns is going to stop someone who is determined to shoot up the workplace, you are delusional! This change in the law is only of benefit to the law abiding, since the non law abiding don't care what the law is.
I thought Huff Post readers were more careful critical thinkers, not knee-jerk anti-gun emotional reactors.
Please understand that this will VASTLY increase the chances that you will get shot at work. If "Bob" gets pissed off and his gun is at home, he's not very bloody likely to go home during the workday, grab his gun, and come back with it. And by the time he comes in the next day, he's not likely to still be mad.
How much more likely is "Bob" to go to his car in the parking lot while angry and shoot everyone???
And one more point, this is from the party of personal responsibility and corporate love. Why WOULDN'T they want to allow a corporation to decide whether they want to allow guns on the property or not???
"If "Bob" gets pissed off and his gun is at home, he's not very bloody likely to go home during the workday, grab his gun, and come back with it. And by the time he comes in the next day, he's not likely to still be mad."
Most workplace shootings involve exactly that: An employee going home, getting their gun, and coming back to shoot the place up.
Just as saltydog101 said, the type of people who shoot up their places of employment, have never been inconvenienced by any rule that says they can't leave a gun in their parked car.
What are the chances that everyone with a gun will flip out at once? Sure, "Bob" goes out and gets his gun to shoot up the place, but then Marvin, Fred, and Sue also get their guns and stop Bob in his tracks.
Otherwise, ol' Bob just gets his gun and returns to work, knowing he'll easily take down two or three dozen helpless workers before the cops arrive.
"Please understand that this will VASTLY increase the chances that you will get shot at work. "
No, it won't.
There have been cases when a pissed off "Bob" did go home, returning a day or a week later with a gun. There have also been cases of workplace shootings because "Bob" was going after a woman who worked for the company because she left him. That said, it seems to me that plane crashes kill more people than rampage shootings. And since both tragedies are rare, this means it's unlikely that most of us will ever have to deal with these situations.
Stupidity from Texas? Shocking.
I'll bet ya you can't take your concealed handgun into the Texas legislature or into Texas courtrooms. They can dish it out but they can't take it.
This is what I was thinking!
There are days I am just SO proud to be a Texan! This is, of course, not one of them and I think I am going to be sick.
MMH
No way. I'm speechless. I don't know what to say about Texas laws.
You can carry a firearm to work. There is no good health care coverage in the USA to ensure mentally unstable folks will not be carrying concealed weapons--I'm sure there are plenty unstable folks in Texas. If you get caught with MJ, a substance that makes you love everyone and eat junk food, you're in a world of trouble.
Apparently, its legal to be drunk and crazy and carry a gun to work in Texas.
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