En garde! Texas open carry sword law takes effect Friday

[Elderberry]

USA Today by John Tufts 8/30/2017

The phrase "everything's bigger in Texas" is about to become even more clear-cut.

On Friday, Texans will legally be allowed to carry blades longer than 5.5 inches in most — but not all — places.

This includes openly carrying the famous Jim Bowie knife, as well as daggers, dirks, throwing knives, stilettos, poniards, swords, machetes and spears.

The new law was introduced by Republican state Rep. John Frullo this year but met resistance after a student was killed and three others were wounded at the University of Texas by a suspect wielding a hunting knife.

As a compromise, the measure passed by changing the wording describing the blades from "illegal" to "location-restricted."

So although Texans will be allowed to walk down the street carrying a katana, it's illegal to take blades exceeding 5.5 inches to the following places:

More: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/08/30/en-garde-texas-open-carry-sword-law-takes-effect-friday/619064001/#

[roamer_1]

USA Today by John Tufts 8/30/2017

The phrase "everything's bigger in Texas" is about to become even more clear-cut.

On Friday, Texans will legally be allowed to carry blades longer than 5.5 inches in most — but not all — places.

This includes openly carrying the famous Jim Bowie knife, as well as daggers, dirks, throwing knives, stilettos, poniards, swords, machetes and spears.

The new law was introduced by Republican state Rep. John Frullo this year but met resistance after a student was killed and three others were wounded at the University of Texas by a suspect wielding a hunting knife.

As a compromise, the measure passed by changing the wording describing the blades from "illegal" to "location-restricted."

So although Texans will be allowed to walk down the street carrying a katana, it's illegal to take blades exceeding 5.5 inches to the following places:

More: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/08/30/en-garde-texas-open-carry-sword-law-takes-effect-friday/619064001/#

Well that fixes things some. I can't even imagine how y'all got to a place where carrying a Bowie became illegal. Can't say as I have carried a sword, but a Bowie, or a machete wouldn't even raise an eyebrow around these parts.

[Elderberry]

Well that fixes things some. I can't even imagine how y'all got to a place where carrying a Bowie became illegal. Can't say as I have carried a sword, but a Bowie, or a machete wouldn't even raise an eyebrow around these parts.

http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/5-things-to-know-about-new-knife-laws-in-texas-9573461

Gov. Greg Abbott signed HB 1935 into law this month, changing the term “illegal knife” to “location-restricted knife.” Changes will take effect Sept. 1.

It's a move that knife advocates hail as lifting a nearly 150-year ban because it allows Texans to carry location-restricted knives almost anywhere in Texas.

Texas experienced lawlessness after the end of the Civil War. Armed organizations known locally as Pale Face, Knights of the White Camellia and the White Brotherhood — better known as the Ku Klux Klan — operated east of the Trinity River with their own brand of justice.

Outlawing the knife named after Jim Bowie followed in the footsteps of the passage of an 1856 act that doubled the punishment for assault with intent to murder if a “Bowie knife or dagger” was used, according to Stephen Halbrook, a lawyer and noted authority on the history of gun policy in Texas. He wrote about the laws in a paper titled “The Right to Bear Arms in Texas: The Intent of the Framers of the Bills of Rights,” which was published in the Baylor Law Review.

Halbrook said in his paper that the Bowie knife was originally used as “the main eating implement, to cut limbs from trees, and to skin and butcher game." But Texas lawmakers, determined to bring order and justice to the Texas frontier, outlawed all blades longer than 5½ inches, he said.