Texas open carry is shooting itself in the foot

“Could Texans soon walk around carrying loaded handguns in plain sight?”

So began a Star-Telegram article published in June 2008.

More than six years later, that question remains open.

It’s also top-of-mind for many Texans, including a number of incoming policymakers who have prefiled open-carry bills for consideration during the legislative session that begins in January.

The open carry movement has a particularly strong voice in Tarrant County. In Arlington, members of the group Open Carry Texas have been fighting a city ordinance — with some success so far — that prohibits them from distributing literature at major intersections.

But the group also earned national, albeit negative, publicity when earlier this year several of its members entered fast food restaurants with their long guns, prompting some customers to call police and eventually spurring businesses to adopt policies that prevent patrons from bringing such firearms on the premises.

The fast food incidents also revealed a growing rift in the movement. The National Rifle Association denounced Open Carry Texas’ tactics, calling the display of firearms as a means to attract attention to their cause “downright scary.”

That’s a perspective shared by some of the more moderate Second Amendment groups in Texas that have for years lobbied to allow licensed handgun owners to carry their firearms in public.

Lobbying is less confrontational and usually better-received, although in this case it’s been equally ineffective.

Still, in what is a naked attempt to appeal to the extreme elements of the movement, state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, has filed his own legislation to allow the open carry of handguns without a license.

No surprise, that position has the support of Open Carry’s leadership, which also believes that anything less than full, unlicensed open carry significantly compromises constitutional rights.

The all-or-nothing approach is splintering the movement — good news for its opponents.

Even without the movement’s self-destruction, garnering enough support to pass an open-carry bill seems unlikely.

But it doesn’t hurt that its proponents are shooting themselves in the foot.

This story was originally published December 11, 2014 at 5:39 PM with the headline "Texas open carry is shooting itself in the foot."