As Texas Goes... Read Online Free PDF

But if you live in a place where police are easy to summon, and where a lot of strangers may be bumping up against you in the course of a day, you would probably feel safer if only the cops are packing heat. (Before we go any further, let me say that this discussion does not have anything to do with hunting. Or keeping a gun in the house in case of intruders. Most Americans, be they empty-place or crowded-place dwellers, think it is fine for people to have rifles for hunting if that’s what they like to do. And they also approve of the gun-in-the-home thing although honestly, it’s not all that great an idea.)
    The Texas creed is that the more people carrying concealed weapons the better, even in what would seem to be the most wildly inappropriate situations. The legendary former lieutenant governor Bob Bullock , who was intensely attached to both alcohol and firearms, once drunkenly pulled a gun on a waiter, pressing the barrel to the man’s head and cocking the hammer. Nobody appeared to hold it against him.
    Real-world experience suggests that a passel of law-abiding citizens carrying concealed weapons at their local shopping center will not react fast enough to stop one armed and crazy person from shooting a child, several senior citizens, a judge, and the local member of Congress. But arguing about this is pretty fruitless. While there are a number of dedicated people who are spending their lives trying to talk empty-place states into more prudent gun laws, I have personally given up that battle. If you’re a Texan who feels disturbed by the fact that it’s legal for virtually anyone with a car to keep a loaded Uzi with a fifty-round ammunition magazine under the front seat, I sympathize. But you’ll probably have to adapt or move someplace else.
    Our primary question, though, is what Texas does to the rest of us. And the gun thing doesn’t stop at the border. Consider sales. California has the most stringent gun laws in the country, and it makes a huge effort to restrict sales in ways that keep weapons from getting into the hands of criminals. Texas doesn’t, and in 2010 law enforcement officials tracked 368 weapons used to commit crimes in California back to gun dealers in Texas. In the same year, ninety-three Texas guns were used in crimes far away in New York. And nearly 15,000 guns sold in Texas wound up being used in crimes in Mexico, which is not part of the United States but certainly doesn’t need the extra firepower.
    When it comes to guns, Texas loses its obsession with states’ rights. Most of its congressional delegation supports a “national concealed carry” law that would force states to honor concealed weapons permits granted anywhere in the country. That would pose a terrible problem for a place like New York, which has been very successful in controlling crime by controlling guns. It’s very hard to get a concealed weapon permit in New York, and New Yorkers like it that way. Allowing people from states that hand out permits like bingo cards to walk around with pistols under their coats “would be a disaster,” said police commissioner Ray Kelly. But advocates of the bill are indifferent to the issue of local control. “ Studies show that carrying concealed weapons reduces violent crime rates by deterring would-be assailants and by allowing law-abiding citizens to defend themselves,” claimed House Judiciary chairman Lamar Smith of Texas, when his committee approved the bill in 2011.
    “States’ Rights! States’ Rights! States’ Rights!”
    Guns aside, Texas has been obsessed with states’ rights forever. It began, at least in mythology, with that pre-independence period when Mexico ran the land, and sometimes ran it very badly. (On the other hand, Mexico did allow American settlers to come into its territory, granted them large tracts of free land, and showed a certain amount of patience when the newcomers engaged in smuggling and ignored all the immigration laws. But we’re