Open Carry Of Knives And Swords In Texas
BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 4 months ago
AUSTIN, Texas (KTRK) —In less than two months, Texas will enact a new open carry law for knives and swords.
Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 1935 into law.
Starting Sept. 1, it will be legal for adults in Texas to open carry knives, daggers and swords.
The law bans long knives from being carried into schools, colleges, churches and bars.
Well good, but only sort of. As I’ve pointed out, every man carries a knife everywhere. Or at least he should. But what’s up with this continued prohibition of knives into places of worship? As if somehow one is safe from wicked men who would do harm while they are worshipping.
In fact, if you ponder for a moment what’s happening in most Christian worship services, you are likely at your most vulnerable, both you and your family. You are in a crowd, there is limited ingress and egress, your attention is focused somewhere else other than threat assessment, and so on.
It’s the same silliness that pervades lawmakers’ prohibition of guns in worship. Ignore it, and while open carry of guns is now legal in Texas, we need to continue to make changes in the law obviating the requirement to have a permit at all, and minimizing the number of businesses that post against open carry (I know, I made a recent visit to Texas). It’s especially bad in Austin.
There is more work to do. In the mean time, if you live in Texas, carry a large fixed blade knife with you (like a Ka-Bar) and send me a picture whenever this becomes legal. Or before.
On July 13, 2017 at 3:33 pm, Towser said:
Knives. Huh. I was thinking about the semi-prohibition of guns in churches in this state the other day. What I wondered was, given a church is private property, what gives a state any authority to regulate it? Of course, there are so many examples of governments overstepping the authority they are granted, such points are essentially moot. Then again, this slippery slope all began when a government was somehow allowed to pass the first “reasonable” restriction on a law-abiding citizen’s God-given right to keep and bear arms.
On July 13, 2017 at 3:52 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Good points, all.
On July 14, 2017 at 12:36 pm, 1 With a Bullet said:
In Texas, knives are and have been legal to carry, even switchblades (as of a few years ago). The new law corrects most of the archaic language that prohibited “illegal knives” which included “Bowie knives, dirks, stilettos, poniards” as well as a restriction that blades be under 5 1/2″ long. Effectively, as of September 1st, 2017 the restriction on blade length will be removed except for a few places, but we’re working on that too. I’m unsure about the church restriction because as it stands we can carry firearms either concealed or openly (with permit) in church unless a church specifically has posted 30.06 or 30.07 signs that any private property can post.
So yeah, it restores carry for Bowie knives.
https://kniferights.org/legislative-update/action-alert-knife-rights-texas-illegal-knife-repeal-bill-hearing/