ifanyonecan wrote:Do I have a background check and/or waiting period for buying a shotgun? Or can I walk in and walk out that day with it?
With all due respect, if you are a native Texan and you don't know the answer to that very basic question, then maybe pursuing your project at this time is not a very good idea. Wait until you are better informed about the state's gun laws. By then, you might have acquired the wisdom to believe that it is a uniquely bad idea.
I don't mean to denigrate you, and your passion for the RKBA is admirable. But it is worth pointing out that other OC activists, in California for instance, are mostly older than you, and have spent years familiarizing themselves with the laws of the state as well as the federal laws before entering into open carry activism. It doesn't sound to me like you've made that investment in time yet to be that familiar with the gun laws in Texas. If you were, the above question of yours would not need asking.
ifanyonecan wrote:SwimFan85 wrote:ifanyonecan you can. BUT DON'T DO IT PLEASE!
Every business in Austin will post signs prohibiting guns if you open carry.
I find this hard to believe. Besides, it's unlikely they'll post enforceable 30.06 signs. Lucky for CHL holders, business owners are generally ignorant on that matter.
You find it hard to believe based on what? Years of experience? Historical research?
As to enforceable 30.06 signs, business owners are not going to remain ignorant (to the extent that they actually
are ignorant; that's a dangerous assumption) for very long if you rub their noses in it. Sooner or later, one of them will ask a cop, "How can I keep people who are carrying concealed pistols from coming into my store?" And the cop will tell them to just put up a 30.06 sign. It won't take a lot of research for these folks to learn the correct wording and other specifications, and to put the signs up.
Here's the problem. You make an assumption that that business owners are stupid. For the most part, they are not, including the one typing these words on my laptop. For the most part, business owners are smarter and harder working than your average Joe, because that is what it takes to be self-employed. No, they are not stupid. What they
ARE is generally
uninformed about gun laws — unless they are themselves gun owners and CHLers. But while stupid is generally not a reversible condition, ignorance
is.
Parading around with an unloaded pistol, which presumably only
you know is unloaded, is behavior calculated, whether deliberately or not, to cause alarm in the average observer. When you cause enough alarm in enough people, watch how fast those 30.06 compliant signs will go up. When
that happens,
you will have had a direct hand in seeing to it that lawful CHL holders are barred from entering those business establishments.
It is a time tested axiom in the CHL community that it is better not to inform a business owner that their sign is not compliant. It is a corollary that it is better not to inform them that they even have the option of putting up a 30.06 sign. When you push them, anti-gun businesspeople
will push back, and it is nothing more than whistling past the graveyard to assume that they are either stupid, or they won't.
