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Texas isn’t home to America’s best gun laws. The Lone Star State still requires residents to take a four-hour course, submit to a background check and provide fingerprints to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Legal open carry is only available to citizens with the resulting license to carry. But in terms of gun culture? Texas is near the top. As Texas Governor Greg Abbott proved with his post Peruta Tweet, for which he receives TTAG’s Gun Hero of the Day award. [h/t RW]

(courtesy twitter.com)

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87 COMMENTS

  2. Too bad this crank and his benighted 3rd world state never did his research.

    NY and IL is much safer than that nightmare fuel hellhole of a state.

    The US supreme court did confirm that the 2nd can be restricted by state level

        • Sources? Or are we just making up numbers? Because according to the CDC Texas is 5.2, California is 4.6, Illinois 6.2, NY 3.2

        • those numbers look good to me.

          Homicide rates include defensive gun use and criminals that have been shot buy police, AKA, justifiable homicide.

          “The concept of justifiable homicide in criminal law stands on the dividing line between an excuse, a justification, and an exculpation. In certain circumstances, homicide is justified when it prevents greater harm to innocents.” -wiki

          yup, looks good to me.

        • Assuming you mean rates per 100,000.

          The most recent statistics provided by the FBI UCR for “Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter” (note the lack of specified method) are from 2014:
          TX: 4.4
          NY: 3.1
          IL: 5.3
          CA: 4.4

          Now, you COULD make Texas look worse will overall violent crime rates per 100,000:
          TX: 405.9
          NY: 393.8
          IL: 370
          CA: 396.1

          Of course, either of those ignore that, while the rates are comparable between Texas and California, California’s raw numbers on both statistics are about 1/3 higher than Texas.

          Oh, and you meant “shill.”

        • Texas has a under reported border war it’s dealing with and its still got a lower rate than Illinois

      • Midnite Andrew? I ain’t going to the southside in broad daylight(or the westsdie)…don’t feed the troll.

    • Well, one difference between the crank and the rest of his benighted 3rd world state, vs. the more enlightened folk in NY, IL, and I’ll add California & coastal Washington state to your list … the cranks don’t keep trying to inflict their preferences on everybody else.

      I was gonna say “on the gun issue” but the difference applies to everything, really.

      Really, if you think Texas is a nightmare-fueled hellhole, live somewhere else that you find more congenial. Problem solved.

      Plenty of people prefer to live differently, especially living rurally, where a gun is more like just another tool (and most tools are dangerous – have you seen farm equipment?) It is hardly surprising that people who put meat in the freezer, keep the groundhogs out of the garden, and might have to stand off or stop the occasional fox, bear, coyote or wolf (now that they are coming back) using guns, get a tad miffed when told they can’t do that, by people who can’t manage a window box garden.

    • Ready for Monica,

      The rates don’t matter. People don’t kill people because of the existence of guns and it is not morally right to deprive all people of freedoms because of the actions of a few immoral individuals.

    • Nor did you do your research. Texas is one of the most awesome places anyone who’s ever actually been there has ever actually been to. From the way people obey the traffic laws to how friendly and polite every single person there acts. Even the people we expect to be surly like cops, waiters, housekeeping, cashiers… were happy, friendly and polite.

      I expect ReadyforMonica16 has never been there and is simply another obvious troll with an opinion unsupported by the facts. What kind of an attention starved emotional vampire must this person be?

    • Feel free to stay in NY or LA or whatever Liberal sh*thole you’re in or wish you were in. I’ll take freedom any day.

    • Thankfully the 9th Circuit isn’t the law of the land there troll boy.

      So continue to delude yourself that only Celebrities, the rich and connected, and Cali political elites should be allowed to carry in LA and San Jose (Diego)

      • I wish I could appreciate your reply – without the usual name-calling that I’ve come to expect from others on this issue.

        Justice Scalia made this very clear in his majority opinion in the Heller case in 2008 and this was reaffirmed by the SC in another case in 2010. Scalia wrote:

        “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…”. It is “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

        “Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
        Like all other rights we enjoy as Americans, there are also responsibilities and restrictions. Why should the right to bear arms be any different?

        I wonder why I can’t reply to the other gun-cowards arguements which I’ve destroyed many times before…I still laugh at the day I made jwm a screaming wreck like the brainwashed NRA slave that he was when I destroyed him in a debate about comparing crime rates to this and other countries.

        • Rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court simply state what 5 or more Supreme Court Justices want government policy to be. Unfortunately, politics, individual bias, and coercion affect every ruling … including the Heller ruling.

        • ReadyForMonica,

          The U.S. Supreme Court also claims that the federal government has righteous authority to limit how many acres of wheat a farmer can plant for his/her own consumption on his/her own property. (See Wickard v. Filburn.)

          Just because the U.S. Supreme Court says something does not mean it is right. Our federal government has no righteous nor Constitutional authority to tell a farmer how many acres of wheat he/she can plant. Neither does the federal government have righteous authority to tell a human being how/where/what kind of firearms they can carry for personal protection, regardless of how good it feels to you or anyone else.

        • I love how gun control advocates use one or two paragraphs from a 100+ page opinion to try to prove their point. They can’t refer to much else because Heller and McDonald go through an extensive legislative history and explain that the 2nd amendment must be respected to the same degree as any other right. In California 40% of the population lives in an area where it’s virtually impossible to get a conceal carry permit. Open carry is banned out right. So really, explain to me how less that 3% of that 40% owning CCWs somehow satisfies the right. 20 millions+ people cannot carry at all, under any circumstances. That’s called an infringement.

          The Peruta decision completely ignores this de facto ban on open carry. They site legislative history where conceal carry is banned and the courts upheld that decision. They are correct, but completely ignore that open carry was permissible in those cases for the average Joe (or Josey). Why don’t you take 45 minutes and read the Peruta dissent? I read the opinion of the majority and don’t agree with it. I highly doubt you’ll read the dissent though. Plugging your ears and yelling nanannana I can’t hear you proves how little you comprehend the 2nd amendment.

        • Just because a person has managed to become a Supreme Court Justice and just because we happen to like/agree with MOST of what they decide, does not mean they are infallible or even correct in everything or every opinion. Even though 5 out of 9 justices voted in favor of the Heller decision not all of those 5 agreed with the entire opinion as written.

          The Second Amendment states specifically that the federal government has no authority over ‘…the right of the people to keep and bear arms…” What any SCOTUS justice wants to believe other than that is irrelevant except as being a legal ruling that you ignore at your own peril. SCOTUS rulings have been found wrong in the past and been overturned. I suspect that at some point the Heller decision will be corrected as well.

          The other, and most important point that gun-hating trolls always seem to miss is that the Second Amendment, in fact the entire Constitution of the United States of America, does not GIVE us anything, much less rights. The government formed by that Constitution is man-made and can only be retained by the efforts of men to keep it intact as written. The rights as enumerated in the Bill of Rights are natural rights that the writers determined needed to be protected from their new government, not rights bestowed upon the people by the government. The Second Amendment is the most important protection devised to ensure that both the government created by the Constitution and the natural rights protected from that government can be retained.

          All other opinions, whether from Supreme Court Justices or Internet trolls, are wrong.

        • ReadyforMonica16 wrote:

          “…without the usual name-calling that I’ve come to expect from others on this issue.”

          So, name-calling is OK when you do it? Kinda like guns for some people, but “No guns for you.”

          “… Too bad this crank and his benighted 3rd world state never did his research.

          “… nightmare fuel hellhole of a state.

          “… gun-cowards arguements(sic – ed) … I still laugh at the day I made a screaming wreck like the brainwashed NRA slave that he was …”

          BTW, haven’t seen the source of the numbers you used.

        • Be sure to beg real hard on your knees when facing a thug, they like the feeling of power.

        • SCOTUS has also declared the police can seize any cash you have on you if they think you might possibly maybe be thinking of committing a crime, because law enforcement has psychic powers and can divine your intent as related to large sums of cash on your person. Hell, Oklahoma will even swipe your debit card and clean out your checking account without your consent if they feel you look a bit criminal.

          All above board and legal, according to the Supremes, even though the 14th amendment specifically says “Shall not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process if law.”

          Either the words mean what they say, or the entire document is meaningless and the state can do pretty much as it pleases.

          The Heller decision sites previous precedent. Previous precedent kept more than 20 million African Americans in chattel slavery for over two centuries. Previous precedent allowed for Jim Crow in spite of supposed “equal treatment under the law.”

          The Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, is not meant to be parsed or have exception found for the convenience of the times. It is the guiding principle set forth by the men who founded this nation and should be adhered to as written.

  5. “Nightmare fuel hellhole of a state”

    I just came back from getting a sandwich. Everything seemed okay out there. We have some potholes around town but I didn’t see any hellholes or if did I didn’t recognize them as such. Weird. I had no idea it was so bad. I guess I’ll take my gun with me next time I go out just in case. Thanks for the heads up!

    • Gee, they keep rating El Paso as the safest large city in the country year after year. Guess we have some catching up to do to be a “hell hole.” Not bad for the largest metopolis stradling an international border anywhere in the world. Guess the trolls are just jealous!

  7. I live in central Texas, I came here from NYC 3 years ago after living there 56 years. I will never go back to that hole of a city. At one time it was a great place and slowly turned into a bottomless pit of crime and filth. I didn’t like him much but Giuliani did clean up some of the mess, now it’s worse than ever.

    Crime is everywhere now in the USA, in some places no you cannot walk down a street especially at night in some places, both Texas and New York. The difference is in Texas there aren’t as many places like that considering how big it is and you have a fighting chance if you have to, you can be armed here. The problem is the government is not keep these thugs in prison, they are let go to commit more crime and have more children.

    I grew up in Brooklyn, at that time not many people had handguns it was either the police or organized crime, we had knives although some guys carried like truckers but they were few and far between. Now all criminals have a handgun of some kind, the thug gun of choice is a .40S&W Glock 22 or 23. I use the Glocks in both 9mm and .45 ACP.

    Whether the crime is higher or lower doesn’t matter, the difference is I am armed, trained and have a fighting chance. In NYC I did not, in California you do not, average people have trouble getting a carry permit or even having a firearm in the house, use it and you are going to jail even if you are protecting yourself, that’s madness. I refuse to be a victim.

    Good for you Government Abbott!!!

    • Yeah, Abbott does a real sure job of turning Texas into a much bigger hellhole than I’m sure Somalia would envy.

      Might as well kill tourism by allowing open carry – the state is going down the sinkhole anyway.

      • I don’t hear complaints from tourists in Utah. Open carry here requires no permit or class. Keep going though because you are making your lack of background very obvious.

        • Vermont has tourism on the same scale as Texas, Even Florida? Maybe they attract hunters, but not families with children.

          Hunters are not equivalent to families with small children going to the beaches or Disney land or Six Flags.

        • Natural rights are not dependent upon whether or not they are good for tourism!

          By the way, you are aware that Florida is FAMOUS for its theme parks? Disney World. Busch Gardens. Too many more to list. I’m pretty sure they cater to tourists and especially to families.

          Texas may have a tourist industry. Many people come there to hunt feral pigs, even though that is not necessarily a family type vacation. But the more important point is not tourism but that many people, whole families, are moving to and becoming permanent residents of Texas in order to get away from the political hell-holes such as those you seem to consider Heaven on Earth. You are welcome to all your fascist states. They will never see a dollar of my tourist money and in fact unless under some unavoidable circumstance my shadow will never appear in their environs.

        • Arches, moab, the salt flats, ski resorts, and various popular temples… There are many families of tourists coming to Utah. Utah is one of the 50 states in the united states. Just in case you didn’t know. Should I also point out that the Utah concealed carry permit is one of the most popular. Low crime rate and guns everywhere, your arguments are infantile.

      • You’re too incendiary, your troll is showing. The key to good trolling is subtlety. You can make outrageous claims, but you have to limit them to only a few here and there, once in a while. You’ve gone way overboard so far on this topic. It’s not too late – pick a different name, scale things back a little, and give it another go. I give your effort thus far about a 6/10. You’ve made up some random lies and are positing them as fact, which is a good start. But you’ve got a lot to learn.

      • San Antonio was really nice the time I went there for work. Unfortunately, I only had about a half day or so for sightseeing, but I’d go back in a heartbeat. Lovely place.

        • San Antonio? Really? Don’t come to Austin unless your affairs are in order and you are able to say “never mind, I’m not going back! Ever.” Like thousands before you.

  8. Good on you Greg. Hopefully Texas gets to realize that carrying a weapon(concealed or otherwise) is a natural civil right that is most certainly covered by “shall not be infringed”.

  9. So, does that mean that if I exercise the right to keep and bear arms, without going through the bureaucracy and refuse to surrender said arms, he will direct DPS and the AG to ignore me?

    Or maybe it means that if the state comes to take my arms because they don’t want me to have them for whatever reason, I would be within my rights to declare myself unencumbered by the state’s action?

    I love the flag and think it makes an incredible point, but I find it disingenuous to think that an agent of the government would honestly endorse it and not just use it for that sake of politics.

      • Is tourism the main source of revenue in those 40 other states? No. I suppose you want us all to pay a state income tax to make up for the lost revenue when the tourism industry tanks. Just so that you can feel like a real man. Obviously a gun nut.

        Weak.

        Another gun-nut destroyed another another streak of victories I’ve obtained from defeating the nuts on this website.

        Well off to live my life in the real world while the tinfoil hat troops continue to whine about this country is screwing them over.

        • In your own mind you’re a winner. In your own mind, blowingbill16. In the real world you’re just another troll that’s a little mental.

        • I’m typing this while smiling and cleaning a kalashnikov… You know why people like you will always fail? Because we have the truth and all the guns. Maybe just for you I’ll go load some more 308 armor piercing rounds for what people like you would call my “sniper rifle”. Thanks for the motivation. Not that the paper targets I’m shooting tomorrow know the difference but liberals pee themselves when someone has armor piercing ammo. Like most liberals carry any more armor than their tin foil haha.

        • Uh, working Texas doesn’t subsist on tourist revenue…we make/find our own money, for the most part. That’s why we/Abbot could afford to shove Obama’s bathroom-mandate right back up that old fruit’s ass when he threatened to withhold federal funds.

          Yeah, I’m so totally ‘destroyed’ by that stream of nonsense you typed –seriously, who thinks in phrases like that? You pwnin’ noobs or something with that ‘real life’ of yours?

        • Spinning in your chair and calling it a victory lap doesn’t mean you’ve won anything, kid.

        • Monica, at 16 you are still too young to understand such serious topics, come back when you have a bit more experience.

  10. I appreciate Governor Abbot’s tough talk and defiant attitude. Hoping he can back it up.

    • There is no doubt Monica is part of a concerted effort. Both on TTAG and many other social media sites.

      Time for us to stop turning the other cheek and fight back

    • There was a blurb out there that said a Clinton super pac was hiring trolls. And Bloomie still hasn’t run through that $50 million for Anytown yet.

  14. Texas isn’t the gun friendly place most people seem to think it is. New Mexico and Colorado are both more permissive.

    Also, don’t feed the troll. Let it starve.

    • Trolls have value, especially the trolls as inept as those we have seen here recently.

      1. They are good for a laugh.
      2. They enlighten us as to the ridiculous arguments the opposition presents and/or possibly believes.
      3. They give us the opportunity to consider our own positions and compose reasonable and logical arguments against the obvious and ignorant propaganda the anti-2A crowd disseminates.

      Oh, and 4. They give TTAG a lot of additional page hits and comments which is financially beneficial to promoting the site and its message.

      Troll away, asshole.

    • We all should really cut him some slack. It’s not like he has much else to do while waiting for his honey Monica to finally turn 16. So he goes on sites like this one and trolls, makes stuff up and after he gets slapped few times he calls it a victory and goes to sleep.
      Besides, if we didn’t have someone like him to give us bit of excitement from dispute, we would have to make someone up to disagree with the majority. Like 2Asux for example. Echo chambers get boring fast.

  15. Just got online, and read some of the comments. Obviously, a troll found the site. They are all the same. They barf up a bunch of BS stats, call a few people names, and then they leave when they lose the argument. A lot of times they turn out to be some teenager sitting in their parents basement. You cannot convert those people no matter what facts you present. These are the type of people who will put on a swastika, brown shirt, and march through a town confiscating guns from Jews so they can come back later to cart them away to a camp. These are the same kind of people who will wear white robes while marching through a black community confiscating firearms from blacks in order to make them defenseless when their henchmen come through. They have swallowed the coolaid, and they will take this to its Progressive, bitter end.

  16. It is plausible that the gun stats are as accurate as the UNEMPLOYMENT rate…..perhaps??????….Hmmmmm????? 🙂

  18. I’m not a big fan of Texas gun laws, especially the fact that you have to have a concealed carry permit to carry openly. That’s pretty dumb . . of course, I live in Virginia where anyone who can legally own a gun can openly carry it.

    But . . I do like Texas and always enjoy the wonderful people there whenever I visit, especially in the great little towns like Abilene and Midland. The real Texas.

    I just hope they can get their stupid gun laws under control.

    • You do realize Texas has had Carpet Baggers move in after the civil war and now have a lot of Californians moving here. The common denominator is both screwed up their own states by their “progressive” ideas they bought with them.thus. “stupid gun laws”. That did not come from those who settled here. If Constitutional Carry passes Texas Legislature and Abbot is Governor, Texas will have less stupid gun laws. When the televised debate for Open Carry was going on, I had to change the channels due to sheer stupidity of Dallas, Houston, San Antonio representatives.
      Gun laws have become more less restrictive over the years. Texas does not have the best or worse gun laws compared to other states. And if you not lived in Texas for a long time, you would not know how much better it is now

      • I can’t disagree with you on that. The same thing has happened in a lot of places where the people move from a liberal state to get a better lifestyle, and then bring all their Liberal baggage along with them. Look what happened to Colorado. And believe me, we have the same problem here. Our governor and both our US Senators are raging Liberals that got elected because of all the wealthy Liberals and welfare recipients in the two big counties adjacent to DC and Maryland. The only thing that keeps us afloat is the fact that every other district in the state is solidly conservative so our state legislature is able to not only enact laws and prevent bad ones, and even override the governor’s veto sometimes.

        I just think Texas is a great state and the people there deserve better. I think we all do and I think Abbott is a great governor and I wish we had one like him.

    • “I live in Virginia where anyone who can legally own a gun can openly carry it.”

      Really. So, are you saying that you OC on a daily basis, to work, to dinner at a nice restaurant? I didn’t think so, your state is no farther advanced than Texas. I’ve lived in TX (as a residence, not always here) since 1972, and have always been able to carry my gun, to buy new ones, to go shooting when I wanted, to own what I liked. Is some place better? Could be, but look again in 10 years, we’re electing people like Abbott, we will soon have Constitutional Carry, and we will *mean* it. Until then, I carry every day, every place, including the past 3 weeks in Virginia. I think you do not.

      • Wow, you’ve really got a lot of unresolved hostility. I hope you’re getting some help for that.

        I prefer concealed carry and I carry every day. I only open carry on rare occasions like when we’re making a run to a drive-through and I don’t want to switch over to my IWB and I’m not getting out of the car anyway.

        My point was entirely that it would be a good thing for Texas gun owners if they could open carry without a concealed carry permit and I am happy that Virginia has no laws against what should be every lawful citizen’s right. It’s no big deal here to see someone open carrying in Wal Mart or on a motorcycle or when taking a walk. I would imagine in Texas the police would stop that person and demand to see their concealed carry permit.

        Here you can carry openly and only need a permit to carry concealed. I don’t see the point of needing a concealed carry permit to open carry. Now, if that sets you off on another tirade, I hope you’ve taken you blood pressure meds today so you don’t suffer a myocardial infarction. Look it up.

  19. Monica… I miss your point of view. Contact me any time. John Fritz. Trust me, I ‘ll be here.

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