Some of you might remember seeing a post here proclaiming that open carry has passed in Texas. Well… it hasn’t. Not yet, at least. Last week, some legal wrangling knocked the open carry bill in Texas off the calendar. HB 910 had to go back to the Calendars Committee to be re-scheduled amidst concern it would die there. Nope. “Turning aside a flurry of Democratic amendments, the Texas House on Friday gave initial approval to legislation that would allow those with a concealed handgun license to openly carry a holstered weapon,” statesman.com reports. “Final approval of House Bill 910 is expected Monday.” Following that vote, the House and Senate versions of the bill still need to be reconciled and most likely the Senate will need to vote one more time to approve the final version. As Lone Star State Governor Abbott has publicly pledged to sign the bill, once that vote is complete this is a done deal. We hope. You can track the bill’s progress here.
But I was in my happy place. You could have waited a little longer before posting the correction. 🙂
So what was it that I watched today on the House live video feed any they were all voting?
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=84R&Bill=HB910#vote377
I know it says it’s unofficial and I’m not a politician, but doesn’t that “RV# 279 — Unofficial Totals: 96 Yeas, 35 Nays, 1 Present, not voting ” mean that it was debated and voted on today? There were a couple amendments added – something about a municipality over 750k people can have an ordinance against people open carrying.
Maybe I’m confused though and I don’t know what this was that I watched.
You are correct. It passed floor vote on second reading. First reading is where is gets sent to committee. Second reading is when it back to floor from committee with any amendments from committee. On second reading is where it is debated on floor and floor amendments are debated. It is then voted on for preliminary approval. That’s the big hurdle. Next will be third reading and final vote. That’s a roll call vote, no debate. Then it goes to a conference committee to work out differences between House and Senate bills. When it come back to floor, its for final vote in both houses.
Good luck. Can OpenCarryTarrant folks keep KKKory locked in the basement for that long?
Robert went off half cocked?
Breitbart is reporting that the House has indeed passed open carry, BUT that there is some minor difference in the wording between the OC bill the House passed today and that which the Senate has already passed.
Either chamber must now pass the other’s bill, or else both pass some new version, so that they both agree on a single bill, before it can go to the Governor for signing.
Is it known what the differences between the two bills are at this point?
From my link above, here were the amendments that were debated and passed today:
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/Amendments.aspx?LegSess=84R&Bill=HB910
Well, so if they adopted an Amendment that a city with over 750,000 population can ban open carry, the House really doesn’t seem to have much of a heart in open carry for TX. It will be interesting to see what happens next. Or not.
And the funny thing is that they originally looked at an amendment to set the threshold at the population of 1,000,000, but then went for 750,000. The population of Austin seems to be close to 900,000, while that of Fort Worth about 800,000.
If the House Bill was really amended to allow cities over 750k to ban OC of handguns then the bill is essentially worthless. Something like 10 cities make up the DFW metroplex. Someone could break the law 5 times driving from one end of DFW the the other passing through the ban areas. Assuming all the cities don’t ban OC immediately if the law stands. I expect OC of long guns is going to get even more common if only to say FU to local city bureaucrats.
This one is listed as adopted:
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/84R/amendments/faspdf/HB00910H29.PDF
Looking more closely at the record it looks like Rep. Johnson tried to amend the bill to allow cities with populations greater than 1M to ban OC. Then Rep. Rodriguez amended the Johnson amendment down to 750k. But it looks like the Johnson amendment was tabled so it didn’t make it in the final bill. I really hope I am reading that right.
This article – http://www.statesman.com/news/news/house-approves-open-carry-bill/nkxSP/ – says that, “House Republicans defeated 11 Democratic amendments, including one that would have allowed the state’s four largest cities — Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin — to opt out of open carry.”
And this one – http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/04/after-being-delayed-this-week-house-is-expected-to-vote-on-friday-on-open-carry-bill.html/ – says, “The opt-out provision – like all the amendments offered by Democrats – was tabled with ease. Those wide margins reflected strong support among Republicans, who’ve touted open carry as a safety measure and who’ve said fears about it are unwarranted.
And Republicans even succeeded in adding a provision that would lower the penalty for those who take a concealed handgun onto property where it’s not allowed.”
Looks like it’s best to wait and see.
Only two amendments were adopted. One was to allow carry at a hospital or nursing home with permission and the other was to change the penalties from a felony to a misdemeanor for inadvertent trespass. The other was an amendment to a amendment, but the original amendment was tabled.
Well that didn’t last long.
Ahhh, the slippery slope of gun reform. 🙂
By “cut to the chase,” you mean “shoot us straight”?
Pretty sure that post just went off, probably a defective enter key.
There’s no such thing as an “accidental” blog post, only a negligent one…
Folks,
If this bit about the 750K+ population municipalities being able to ban open carry is true…
We just got the middle finger from the Texas house.
That was an amendment to an amendment that failed. Rodriguez amended Johnson’s amendment from a city with a pop of 1M o 750K. Johnson’s amendment was tabled by floor vote.
It’s not often I am this happy to be wiping egg off my face.
Please DISREGARD what I posted here… it did not in fact happen.
Yeeeeehaaaaaa!
That’s good news for Texans!
Great, but I want campus carry to pass sometime in my lifetime. I’ll be extremely disappointed if it doesn’t pass again.
I’m less confident about campus carry, but if HB 937 hits the floor, it should be within a couple of weeks. The budget, transportation, and a couple of more contentious subjects are quickly approaching, so I think that they will try and get what some consider to be distractions out of the way before some more of the big fights come up.
Me too. House committee approved it, it’s sitting in the Calendar committee now (HB 937). Senate version (SB 11) was completed back in March.
amendment 9 did not pass because it was an amendment to 8 which was tabled. So that effectively killed amendment 9
It seems the language of the bill forbids paddle holsters because
paddle holsters != belt holsters…
I OC exclusively in a Serpa Paddle Holster. I usually do not wear a belt. It’s damn difficult to remove the holster even when I try myself. It certainly qualifies as retention. Especially in cross-draw…
There is no requirement for types of holsters. As a concession to the Dems who wanted to require OC’s to use retention holsters, the bill was amended to include retention holsters in the course of instruction for the CHL license. That was done in the Senate bill.
Hope it passes. That said, I prefer to carry concealed. Now there might be some rare circumstance where I would feel comfortable going OC but I figure it’s my damn business which way I exercise my God given right to self defense.
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