In Texas, guns are everywhere, whether concealed or in the open
NEW BRAUNFELS, Tex. — To live in Texas is to live surrounded by guns.
Each morning, men here strap guns inside suits, boots and swim trunks. Women slip them into bra and bellyband holsters that render them invisible. They stash firearms in purses, tool boxes, portable gun safes, back seats and glove compartments.
Neighbors tuck guns into bedside tables, cars and trucks. They take guns fishing, to church, the park, the pool, the gym, the movies — even to protests at the state Capitol. The convention center hosts gun shows where shoppers peruse AR-15s and high-capacity magazines outlawed in other states. Texas billboards offer an endless stream of advertisements for ammunition, silencers and other accessories.
It has been legal here to openly carry long guns like rifles for generations. But Texas’s gun-friendly attitude isn’t just a relic of the Old West and ranching: Many restrictions on handguns were loosened only recently. Two years ago, state lawmakers gave those 21 and older the right to carry handguns without a permit; in 2015, they gave those with concealed handgun permits the right to carry on public college campuses.
Two years earlier, Texas lawmakers responded to the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut by allowing public school staff with concealed handgun permits to arm themselves. After the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Tex., by a gunman using an AR-15-style rifle he bought within days of turning 18, a state House committee passed a proposal to raise the age to buy, lease or receive certain semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21. But the House rejected the proposal and the legislature instead passed a law requiring armed security at every school and mental health training for some district staff.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/09/26/texas-guns-open-concealed-carry-laws/?itid=mr_national_1
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