Out In The Open

How do you prepare for the New Year? Some of us make a list of resolutions, goals to achieve as we turn the page on the calendar. Others look back and reflect on the way things went in the year just completed. There are those who gather together to celebrate both what was and what will be. Opportunities await for those who wish to gain perspective. If you're a law enforcement officer in Texas, you might possibly take this moment in time to reflect: wouldn't it be easier to do their job in a state where everybody wasn't carrying a gun.
In 2016, Texas will become the forty-fifth state to make it legal to to carry a pistol in plain sight. Interesting, since you might have expected that the Lone Star state would be pioneering the rights of its gun toters. It should be noted that after initial concerns were expressed, officers won't press the issue when it comes to asking residents if they have a license to carry that gun. In plain sight. They aren't doing this out of laziness. They're doing it to avoid harassment lawsuits. "Hey, mister? I don't want to be hassling you or anything, but is that semi-automatic pistol you're carrying on your hip accompanied with the proper paperwork? Or are you just glad to see me?"
A little law enforcement humor there. There are still five states that that continue to ban open-carry: California, New York, South Carolina, Illinois and Florida. Texas will be the biggest state to allow its citizens to pack visible heat. In 2014, there were eight hundred twenty-six thousand concealed permit holders. To get that open-carry permit, applicants will have to complete the same requirements as those with concealed permits: be twenty-one years old, have clear arrest and psychological records, and complete a training and shooting course. Totally worth it, right? Especially since officers won't be hassling you about the paperwork, since Tea Party types fretted about the Second Amendment, and Democrats worried about racial profiling. Law enforcement has quietly agreed to avoid such entanglements by letting those they have sworn to serve and protect to help them out by not shooting up the place. Sure, they can ask, but you never can tell.
How do you know when somebody is driving without a license? Usually it's after they've run into a tree. Or another car. Let's hope for all their sakes that this will be easier to enforce. And less dangerous.