Petition for "open carry" in Texas Options

[impala454]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5851852.html

FORT WORTH — Despite the Lone Star State's love affair with the gun, there's at least one firearms restriction that some Texans want lifted.

Texas is just one of six states in which handguns can't be worn in plain view. The other 44 states, in the parlance of gun advocates, are known as "open-carry" states.

More than 3,500 people have signed an online petition asking Gov. Rick Perry and the Legislature to permit Texans to wear their handguns without concealing them.

The Texas Citizens Defense League supports the petition, which requests that people who legally buy handguns be allowed to carry them openly, except in places prohibited by law.

I guess it wouldn't bother me, so long as you still had to have a license to carry. I've been to gun ranges quite a bit now and see a lot of careless people. I think this would deter crime quite a bit, but I also think there'd be a lot of accidents.

What do you guys think of this?

[Mommy]

I guess my reasoning is more for kids than anything. I just don't want my kids around guns at all. It probably will end up being something my husband and I have to discuss a lot though. He inherited a bunch of rifles from his grandfather, and I think he wants to eventually bring them to our house. Currently, they are at his grandma's house. I think he feels differently about the whole gun thing than I do. I just want our kids to be free of guns like I was growing up. Yeah, I lived in a rough area, but my parents never owned a gun. They didn't want me or my brother to find it when we were little and think it was a toy. Kids have grabby hands. They might see someone walk into a store displaying their pistol at their hip and run up and grab it. Doesn't matter how great of a parent you are. Kids are unpredictable.

[FORSAKENR320]

I guess my reasoning is more for kids than anything. I just don't want my kids around guns at all. It probably will end up being something my husband and I have to discuss a lot though. He inherited a bunch of rifles from his grandfather, and I think he wants to eventually bring them to our house. Currently, they are at his grandma's house. I think he feels differently about the whole gun thing than I do. I just want our kids to be free of guns like I was growing up. Yeah, I lived in a rough area, but my parents never owned a gun. They didn't want me or my brother to find it when we were little and think it was a toy. Kids have grabby hands. They might see someone walk into a store displaying their pistol at their hip and run up and grab it. Doesn't matter how great of a parent you are. Kids are unpredictable.

well, i can agree with your concern, but my arguement to that is just how many gun related incident happened in the 50's and such? i think the safety issue among kids began when parents started refusing to educate their children on firearms. THEN it becomes a forbidden toy, and thats what makes it dangerous. children should not be hidden from the world, it makes them blind to danger. as a parent you shoudl educate your children on the reality of life in a safe and controlled way, and that to me is how guns should be taught to children. you must teach them they are instruments of death, and not toys. thats the parents responsibility. the true failure of a parent will be when that child IS exposed to a firearm, at a friends house, or some such (because you WILL NEVER GET RID OF GUNS!) and your uneducated child decided to experiment with it.

point being, the gun is not the problem, the parent is the problem.

[Mommy]

well, i can agree with your concern, but my arguement to that is just how many gun related incident happened in the 50's and such? i think the safety issue among kids began when parents started refusing to educate their children on firearms. THEN it becomes a forbidden toy, and thats what makes it dangerous. children should not be hidden from the world, it makes them blind to danger. as a parent you shoudl educate your children on the reality of life in a safe and controlled way, and that to me is how guns should be taught to children. you must teach them they are instruments of death, and not toys. thats the parents responsibility. the true failure of a parent will be when that child IS exposed to a firearm, at a friends house, or some such (because you WILL NEVER GET RID OF GUNS!) and your uneducated child decided to experiment with it.

point being, the gun is not the problem, the parent is the problem.

Yeah, I see your point too. Maybe my opinion would be different if my brother was more normal. He would do things without thinking all the time. I'm sure when I have my own kids, and they are "normal" I will see that it's not as big of a concern.