By: Teresa Mull
Texas has officially become a Constitutional Carry state as Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 1927 into law earlier today. The law will go into effect starting September 1.
Constitutional Carry is, as a reminder, the policy that law-abiding citizens do not need to ask the government permission to exercise their Second Amendment rights. In Texas’ case, gun owners must be at least 21 years of age to carry under this law.
As GPM reported previously, for years, Constitutional Carry has generally eluded Second Amendment advocates in the Lone Star State; however, this year, favorable committee assignments helped with the bill’s passage.
The passage of this law is a big step in the right direction for Texan gun owners, who have been required to get training, pass an exam, go through a background check, submit fingerprints, and obtain a special license. It’s also a big win for the United States as whole, as Texas, being one of our most populated states, can now lead by example and further prove that Constitutional Carry does not make society less safe.
“This is a simple restoration of Texans’ constitutional right under the Second Amendment, a right of the people to keep and bear arms,” said state Sen. Charles Schwertner, bill sponsor.
Typical anti-gun advocates are, not surprisingly, up in arms about this new law, claiming it will increase gun violence. They’re calling for the same old “solutions” to gun violence that are riddled with flaws and have no evidence of ever having worked.
These anti-gun enthusiasts have also been ignoring the inconvenient fact that, as ksat.com reports, “Long guns like shotguns and rifles, including semi-automatic rifles, were and still are allowed to be openly carried in most public places in Texas without a license.”
Texas joins at least 20 other states with some type of Constitutional Carry law on their books. In fact, three of the nation’s safest states – Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont – are all Constitutional Carry states.
“Maine became the safest state in the nation in 2019, four years after passing legislation that Maine residents could carry a concealed firearm without permit,” reports the Journal-Star.
In a piece titled “Half of America’s Safest Cities Are In Constitutional Carry States”, Cam Edwards of Bearing Arms revealed how cities in Constitutional Carry states are among the safest in the nation.
Edwards drew from information on WalletHub that looked at over 180 cities and measured how safe they were. Of the 10 safest cities studied, five of them were located in Constitutional Carry states. The website factored in violent crime rates, law enforcement per capita, and other safety characteristics to determine which cities are among the safest in America.
Although crime is a complex subject, one cannot say that gun control is the answer to stopping crime. According to WalletHub’s rankings, cities like Baltimore (155), Los Angeles (172), Newark (150), and Washington D.C (160). are ranked as some of the least safe cities of the 182 studied. More importantly, they’re situated in areas where there’s stiff gun control.
Teresa Mull is editor of Gunpowder Magazine.