Patrick Promises Constitutional Carry Vote in Senate

[Elderberry]

Texas Scorecard by Brandon Waltens April 29, 2021

“It’s rare that I do this. Usually, if you don’t have the votes for a bill, you don’t bring up a bill that’s going to lose, but this is an important issue.”

Constitutional carry legislation could soon come to the floor of the Texas Senate, according to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, even as some Republican senators are hesitant to support the proposal.

“We’re gonna come out with a strong bill, and I believe we’ll pass it,” Patrick said on Thursday at the same time the newly formed Senate Committee on Constitutional Issues was hearing testimony on the proposal.

Patrick made the comments during an interview with Dana Loesch on Thursday in reference to House Bill 1927, a priority of the Republican Party of Texas that would remove the requirement of individuals to hold a gun permit from the state.

That legislation was passed by a bipartisan vote in the Texas House earlier this month but has since been met with resistance in the Senate, as Patrick said last week that the bill did not have enough support to be debated in the chamber.

Patrick says he still believes that is the case, with it currently only having the support of 12 or 13 of the chamber’s 31 members. He added that while he is working to create more support, the legislation will reach the floor for a vote regardless.

“It’s rare that I do this. Usually, if you don’t have the votes for a bill, you don’t bring up a bill that’s going to lose, but this is an important issue,” said Patrick.

Indeed, it is tradition in the Senate that bill authors must prove they have votes committed towards their piece of legislation in order for the bill to even be brought up for debate.

More: https://texasscorecard.com/state/patrick-promises-constitutional-carry-vote-in-senate/

[Elderberry]

Bill allowing permitless carrying of handguns advances to Texas Senate floor, where its fate remains uncertain

Texas Tribune by Shawn Mulcahy April 29, 2021

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/04/29/texas-permitless-carry-handguns-legislature/

A Texas bill that would allow people to carry handguns without a permit quickly sailed Thursday out of a state Senate committee recently created to specifically tackle the legislation.

The move marks a significant step for the controversial proposal that for years struggled to gain momentum in either chamber of the Texas Legislature. But it remains to be seen whether the measure — already passed by the Texas House — has enough support to make it out of the Senate and to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott.

The Senate Special Committee on Constitutional Issues voted 5-2 along party lines to advance the measure to the Senate floor Thursday. The Texas House gave its approval to House Bill 1927 earlier this month, marking a win for gun rights activists who have for years pushed the measure at the Legislature. But the lower chamber’s approval was also a blow to some Democrats who have been fighting for gun safety measures since the 2019 massacre in El Paso.

“We cannot allow another session to come and go where we pay lip service to the Second Amendment, while failing to fully restore and protect the God given rights to our citizens,” said state Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, the bill’s sponsor in the Senate.

[Elderberry]

Texas permitless carry bill advances out of Special Senate committee

https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/texas-permitless-carry-bill-advances-out-of-special-senate-committee

A bill aiming to make Texas a permitless handgun carry state passed in a Special Senate Committee after over 10 hours of public testimony.

“It’s now been 150 years since Texans lost their constitutional right to carry. Let 2021 be the year that right is restored,” said one Texan supporter of HB 1927.

When Texas was the national leader in gun control

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/12/when-texas-was-national-leader-gun-control/

Texas joined the United States as a state with lax gun laws. Before the Civil War, the state’s only gun-control laws were those that prohibited slaves from carrying weapons without their masters’ permission.

Things began to change in 1866, when former Confederates (calling themselves Conservatives) briefly controlled Texas. Gov. James Throckmorton called upon the legislature to tax the carrying of any pistol or knife in public. He had spent the war years as a Confederate officer policing the state’s northern and western borders, a region filled with well-armed deserters and desperados. He had little use for the “men and boys, vagabonds and vagrants” who “have arms about their people on all occasions.” Lawmakers’ fear of disarming poor whites, many of whom were Civil War veterans, derailed his weapon-tax proposal, but it became a harbinger of things to come.

Reconstruction brought military occupation, a new state constitution and a government in Austin controlled by the fledgling Republican Party. Texas Republicans were a biracial coalition of white Unionists and black freedmen led by Union veteran Edmund J. Davis of Corpus Christi. As governor, Davis promised to restore law and order to the state, which had gone from being pestered by criminal gangs to being terrorized by pro-Confederate vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan. As the primary targets of Klan violence, Republicans strongly believed laws limiting the carrying of weapons in public were necessary to restore peace in Texas.

Davis called upon the legislature to do something about “the universal habit of carrying arms,” which “is largely to be attributed the frequency of homicides in this state.” Lawmakers responded in 1870 with a prohibition of all weapons (including rifles and shotguns) at key public gatherings like polling places, church services and entertainment events.

More at link.