TexasCHLforum.com

Texas isn't Oklahoma.

That's true for barbecue. That's true for country music. And it's true, law enforcement and legal experts say, for open carry, the new law that will let licensed gun owners in Texas publicly tote their pistols come January.

State legislators here touted the Sooner State's open carry law as the exemplar, noting there have been no major problems in its implementation in the last few years.

But this is Texas. It's bigger, its cities are more populous than most of the other 45 states that allow some type of open carry and it has witnessed an active, aggressive political movement supportive of the new law that has clashed with local police.

With those factors in mind, police and the lawyers who train them said they cannot predict how Texas' open carry law will be enforced or received. What they do know is the greatest challenges likely will be with how law enforcement agencies interpret the law.