On January 1st, Texans and even visitors from states with firearms licenses recognized by Texas, can carry handguns openly. Opponents of course are predicting “blood running in the streets”, “Dodge City shoot outs”. They also predicted that formally sane Texans who have carried concealed handguns for years without incident, will suddenly start going insane and shooting people over parking spaces. Or maybe having to stand in line at BBQ places. Something like that.

Interestingly, these were the same predictions made in Texas when then Governor George W. Bush signed the bill establishing concealed carry into law. That was in 1995 and none of that has come to pass. Nor have those dire predictions come true in any state where concealed or open carry has been legalized.

Back to Texas. Until the new law was passed, Texas had stringent concealment requirements. Inadvertently letting your concealed firearm be exposed was a crime and some people were prosecuted when, for example, the wind blew a jacket open and a no longer concealed firearm was now exposed. Thus most of the open carry advocates were fighting for protection from that sort of thing, although many of them also wanted to be able to carry openly. Which, considering how hot some parts of Texas can get, isn’t unreasonable.

I expect that at first some people will openly carry just because they can. After a while, the novelty will mostly wear off and we won’t see people walking the Streets of Laredo other other Texas cities with firearms fully exposed. Some will, but I expect most won’t.

Texas police agencies, especially in Houston, Austin,  and other cities have spent considerable effort in training their police officers and educating the public about the new law. In the first week of the new law Dallas Police Report No 911 Calls on Open Carry. A full week and apparently nothing is going on in Dallas. Amazing.

Since there are 44 other states that allow, or at least don’t prohibit open carry, we shouldn’t be surprised.

Unfortunately, even in states with a long history of open carry, some people aren’t clear on the concept.

Open-carry dispute caught on tape

BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT — The state’s open-carry law has again caused a stir, this time when a man wearing a holstered firearm walked into a downtown Subway restaurant and recorded an encounter with police on video.

Picked up Thursday by a number of websites, the video shows the viewpoint of the armed man, who is repeatedly asked by Bridgeport police officers to show them his gun permit.

The police could have handled this much better than they did. The open carrier could have handled this better as well, but the law in Connecticut is fairly clear and open carry is not new. Similar things have happened in parts of New Hampshire and Maine. The latter state has very clear and strong open carry laws and police departments as well as a couple of chiefs have found that out the hard way.

I think it’s a bit odd to automatically consider people who are open carrying to be potential criminals. Criminals don’t generally, at least I don’t think that they do, advertise that they are breaking the law. In fact, the seem to go to great lengths to avoid being detected breaking the law. So, it would make sense that a criminal would try to hide an illegally possessed weapon and probably avoid getting into a debate with three police officers over open carrying.

Then again, the officers are responsible for knowing the law and carrying it out correctly. Here is a training document from Connecticut State Police to it’s troopers regarding open carry.

While I’m not big proponent of open carry, that doesn’t mean that I oppose the ability of those who are proponents to exercise their right to openly carry firearms. If people are going to carry openly, they need to understand the law. As do police officers.