Permitless gun carry bill resuscitated
Texas Senate-passed version amended to placate police
Two weeks after a bill to allow unlicensed people to carry guns in public was blocked in the Texas Senate, the measure was revived on Wednesday and suddenly has a much better chance of becoming law.
With vocal support from Gov. Greg Abbott, the Senate agreed in part to a heavily amended version of the so-called constitutional carry bill that now includes safeguards demanded by law enforcement groups who had been fighting the legislation for months. About 20 states have adopted similar laws; Texas would by far be the largest.
The legislation would still allow any person over the age of 21 in Texas to carry a handgun in a holster without a permit unless they have a criminal history. But the amendments, among other things, would stiffen penalties for felons carrying a weapon or others who shouldn’t be carrying weapons, such as domestic violence offenders. Another amendment would prohibit people from carrying firearms in public while intoxicated.
While Democrats repeatedly warned the legislation would make cities more dangerous and make the job of police more diffi
cult, state Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-georgetown, asserted that more people carrying guns in Texas will make everyone safer.
“My belief as the author of this bill, is that individuals carrying — that are lawful doing so in self-defense — make our society safer, and as such make our communities safer and help law enforcement in general,” he said during more than 6 hours of questioning and debate.
Schwertner said the U.S. Constitution already guarantees Americans the right to bear arms, and the bill simply removes the permitting requirements that are a burden to legal gun owners. He stressed that people who buy guns from licensed gun sellers will still need to go through background checks.
State Sen. José Menéndez, Dsan Antonio, pushed back, calling it “irresponsible and creating a path for more violence.” Menéndez specifically warned of the threat to victims of domestic violence.
“The ability for more men to carry a gun is actually more dangerous for women in abusive relationships,” he said. “A woman living with a gun in the home is three times more likely to be murdered than one with no gun in that same home.”
Republicans had also expressed concerns about domestic violence victims being put in danger, but Schwertner said the amendments to the bill add stiffer penalties. He said people with a domestic violence offense in their backgrounds caught carrying a handgun would face a third-degree felony - up to 10 years in jail. Currently, it is a Class A misdemeanor.
The bill passed by an 18-13 vote with all Republicans in the Senate voting for it. The adopted amendments were not immediately available Wednesday for the public or media to review.
The debate was interrupted at one point when Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-conroe, collapsed on the Senate floor. After several minutes, state troopers helped Creighton to his feet and escorted him out of the chamber.
After he left the floor, lawmakers continued debating the legislation. Even though Creighton had been removed, he was listed as voting for the bill.
The bill still has a ways to go before becoming law. The bill was passed by the Texas House last month, but because the Senate amended the bill, it has to go back to the House for another vote. If the House adopts the bill without amendments, it would then go to Abbott for his final say to make it law. Abbott has made clear in the last week that he will sign the bill if it gets to him.
“I support it, and I believe it should reach my desk, and we should have ‘constitutional carry’ in Texas,” Abbott said last week.
The bill’s passage is a dramatic shift from two weeks ago when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who oversees the Senate, said there was not enough support for it to pass the Senate. But Patrick last week had a very different take, saying he was still short votes, but “optimistic” it would pass.
A key to that transition has been law enforcement groups that opposed the bill, agreeing not to oppose it as long as the Senate added amendments like those tacked on during Wednesday’s debate.
The Sheriffs’ Association of Texas, for instance, said with the amendments it would support the legislation.
But some Texas sheriffs are still not on board. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez has not seen the amendments, but a spokesman for him said Gonzalez remains against permitless carry.”
Texas Republicans who support the permitless carry bill have repeatedly said they are trying to catch up with more than a dozen other states that allow residents to carry guns without a permit. Seventeen other states already allow permitless carry, including Oklahoma and Arkansas. Three more states: Iowa, Tennessee and Wyoming will allow full permitless carry starting July 1.
Gun control advocates say lawmakers should be tightening gun laws after all of the mass shootings in Texas over the last few years, not loosening them. One of those critics is Rhonda Hart, a gun safety activist and the mother of a student killed in Santa Fe High School in 2018. At a news conference on Wednesday, she recounted how after the shooting, Abbott and Patrick were among the politicians that met with her and other families who lost children that day.
“And they promised us in that room in June 2018, that gun safety was going to come to Texas and that a mass shooting like this would not happen again,” Hart said. “Since 2018, I think we’ve had El Paso and Walmart, we’ve had Midland-odessa, we’ve had so many mass shootings, you can’t even keep track of it. So I would like to specifically call them out for their outright lies. It’s very interesting that in just two or three years, how they promise one thing, and they’ve completely turned their tails and gone on another path.”
The amendments aimed at winning over law enforcement could still face trouble from gun rights groups as the bill heads back to the Texas House for more debate. The Texas chapter of Gun Owners of America pushed its members to call senators and protest “watering it down.”