HB1238: Permitless Carry Bill Endangers Black Lives
Written by Jet Harris –
Texas House Bill HB1238 is set to make it out of committee and is likely to be passed – allowing every single person in Texas to carry a firearm without a permit. Permits require a safety course and a background check, and that is something that the Texas House will soon vote to decide whether is necessary or not.
Of course, they will not vote to eliminate gun permits, they simply vote to make them unnecessary. They always vote to eliminate abortions, though, and refuse to pass legislation that makes them unnecessary. Maybe if we started giving out free firearms with abortions they’d treat women’s rights to their own bodies as important as their right to own guns?
Since Sutherland Springs (27 dead), Plano shooting (10 dead), El Paso Wal-Mart (23), Midland-Odessa (7) and Church of Christ (3), the GOP has decided to fight for less restriction on guns. In 2020, there were 19,223 American lives lost to gun violence. If guns prevented crime as ammosexuals claim, we’d have the fewest gun deaths on the planet. Spoiler: we don’t.
We went from licensed concealed carry to licensed open carry and now, the GOP wants permitless carry. Next, every single Texan with white skin and a Trump tattoo will be mandated to carry an assault rifle to the Whataburger to pick up a Dr. Pepper Shake (those are delicious, by the way- it’s like a Dr. Pepper float slushie). If this bill passes, any person can buy a gun at a gun show without a background check and carry the gun openly or concealed anywhere in the state without a permit.
I honestly wonder if these good old boy Republicans go through the news and select the most heinous crimes committed this year and have a brainstorming session where they determine how to make it easier for the next guy to pull off.
Today’s the 30th anniversary of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan with a gun bought from a pawnshop. The background checks that are in place today were strengthened after Reagan was shot. These gun laws never have any real teeth, though. Any bad guy with a brain just goes to a gun show and signs a waiver that promises on their honor that they’re really allowed to buy the gun.
Then, if this bill passes, they’ll be able to carry that gun anywhere guns are allowed, and the police won’t be able to ask them for a permit because a permit won’t be required. What happens next is like a “Choose Your Adventure” book, except instead of choosing your own adventure, what happens next depends on what color your skin is.
Any person of color openly carrying a gun can be shot by the police, and the police have a built-in get out of jail free card. A police officer has free reign to kill anyone they believe is a threat. I believe we all have enough evidence by 2021 to know what that means for a person of color carrying a gun, legal or no. Permitless carry puts Texans of color in extreme, immediate danger.
In fact, Biedermann, the Republican from Fredericksburg that introduced this bill says that it is necessary for Texans to be able to carry guns without permits because of the “riots and calls to defund the police.” He is basically letting everyone know that we need to defend ourselves against the existential threat that is Black Lives Matter – it’s not even a dog whistle at this point. The white men need their guns because the black people are trying to be their equals again. It’s a tale as old as Texas.
What’s so infuriating is that they know something is up and that is why they keep throwing out all of these other excuses for gun violence. It would be understandable if they actually did something, but they seem to go around with the philosophy of “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas.” They keep trumpeting mental illness as a cause but when was the last time they actually proposed change? How about more out patient treatment or in patient treatment centers? How about changes that allow government agencies, police, and others access to mental health records? I’m not saying I agree with all that, but proposing it would at least show you are trying.
1Tamir Rice. The death of that child still breaks my heart.
2Jefe, thanks for giving me the ten years back, but it was *40* years ago today, not 30, when Reagan and Brady were shot by a nut case who had no trouble getting a gun.
And speaking of Reagan, guns, and “those people”, remember when gun control was all the rage among R’s — and even the NRA? It was called the Mulford Act, it passed in California in 1968 and was signed into law by ol’ Ronnie the Popular his ownself, and for those not old enough to remember, I bet you can guess what it was in response to…..
3I’ve always felt we should treat gun usage like we treat drivers. They need to pass a written test on the law, they need to pass a test with a peace officer to prove they know how to operate a gun and then when they get one, they need to register it and buy a liability insurance policy for it. Otherwise, we need to follow the Chris Rock rule, make guns cheap, but charge $1,000 per bullet!
4Leave it to my state rep., Kyle Biedermann, to yet again come up with something egregious like his other bill to allow a vote on “Texit.” Every time I drive past his Ace Hardware store I say “F**k you, Biedermann!” out loud. It doesn’t accomplish anything but it makes me feel a little better.
5While I agree more or less that this proposed Act [which extensively changes existing laws] is something to worry about, the viewpoint here is a bit muddled.
IIRC, nearly anyone can carry “long guns” [rifles, shotguns] openly and permitless right now.
This new Lege Bill applies mostly to handguns, which are a subset of “firearms”. So the Salon article wording is a little misleading. [I tried to read the proposed bill linked, but my eyes glazed over long before the end].
As a highly trained marksman, I’ve ‘conceal carried’ a weapon [always a semi-auto pistol] for much of sixty years without a problem.
But the thought of any damned ignorant untrained yahoo whosoever walking around streets, stores, etc., with a deadly weapon [open or concealed] scares the livin’ shit outta me; be they Anglo, POC, or space alien.
These Rethug reptiles are getting well beyond just dangerous to the general welfare.
“…and is likely to be passed – allowing every single person in Texas to carry a —firearm— without a permit. Permits require a safety course and a background check, and that is something that the Texas House will soon vote to decide whether is necessary or not.”
6When I was growing up, mostly in Georgia, firearms were almost unregulated. They were also not the center of cultish fervor.
Sure, I remember reading a column in my granddad’s Field & Stream nostalgically recalling the author’s first .22. But there was nothing like the sexual/psychotic worship of guns or the open fantasizing about the pleasures of killing people that are the common coin of ammosexual discourse.
I say the fetishizing of guns is, along with anti-littering, the most successful example of a long-term publicity campaign.
But one other thing has changed entirely since the days of my youth: the cheapness and reliability of guns, especially handguns.
Sure they were cheap back then: hotter than a $2 pistol became a phrase from real life. But $2 pistols were unreliable, which is why men still carried razors in their boots.
Today guns are slightly more expensive, compared to average weekly pay, than they used to be; but they are nearly 100% reliable. Instead of misadventures, which used to be common, we now have easy mass shootings.
7I’ve said it before, but it seems to be time to repeat. “If ignorance is bliss, I live in the hap, hap, happiest state in the whole wide world”.
8Growing up in CT I thought it was the most boring spot in the country, stuck between Boston and NYC. Living here as an adult and reading about the rest of the country, I think I’ll take boring.
We did have a list of states we wanted to visit someday, but now a lot of them are listed just below “Hell”.
9lazrgrl @8.
Between growing up in a family that believed in car vacations to see friends and relatives, business trips, and a few adult vacations, I’ve now gotten to all 50 states.
My future travels are on a list … and the choices of which ones to take are becoming easier and easier as states clarify their objectionable policy preferences. This month pushed Georgia, Florida, and Texas off or to near the bottom of my preferences. Two spots where I used to live, Iowa and South Dakota, are dropping, with room to go down further.
10The repugnantican agenda- make it difficult to vote; make guns available to anyone regardless of, well, anything; cancel all women’s rights; block any legislation supported by non repugnanticans regardless of who it helps; push the big lie including there was no attack on democracy on Jan 6; circle the wagons around repugnanticans no matter how repugnant (gaetz, boebert, cruzer, etc). Must be leaving some things out.
11I guess they really haven’t changed.
The people in Texastan getting ready to secede and need the people armed.
12Perhaps start adding a poison pill amendment to such agreements. For example, state that the doctrine of “qualified immunity” does not apply to anyone shooting someone lawfully carrying a firearm.
I expect the bill would be withdrawn once the idea of letting non-whites carry weapons without the risk of being gunned down sank in…
13If that bozo from Fredericksburg gets any more serious about secession he’ll have to shoot me, because [many redacted words] he’s not even a native Texan, and I am, from quite a ways back (not as far back as others, for sure) and I do not appreciate his stupid, bigoted messing about with MY state.
14Bierdermann is big when it comes guns, so why didn’t find time to serve in the military after he graduated from college?
15One would think that such a big ammosexual such as the “Bied,” would have taken a few years off from running a Ace Hardware store and serve his country!
What a loud mouth Chicken-Hawk!
When I was a kid some 60+ years ago I couldn’t get a hunting license without first passing safety training. I don’t think a background check and training is too much to ask. I view gun ownership not as a right but a privilege, just like driving a car. I’m with Sandridge @ 6 when it comes to any idiot carrying firearms around in public. Even untrained so called good guys with guns manage to accidentally shoot themselves. There are plenty of examples at YouTube. All this Dodge City mentality is ridiculous.
16Exactly. A lot of these guys who want part of the country to secede, or who seem to be looking with glee toward another civil war, haven’t actually served, or even (apparently) done enough study of war to realize that *their* families, their kids and grandkids, their homes, their businesses, are very likely fatalities in a war. It’s as if they think their AR-15s and such are magical–able to protect them from other guys’ AR-15s, and ensure that all the danger will still be borne by someone else.
Like our Lt. Gov, who wanted people at greatest risk of dying from COVID to be happy to die to “save the economy” (while he himself was in the age range but figured he was safe because $$$), Biedermann thinks he’d come out of a civil war still riding the crest of a wave, untroubled by the chaos and losses inherent in any war.
17Does the dumbass realize that if Texas secedes, the 2nd amendment no longer applies?
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