It might be good to contact governor Perry.

From today's Houston Chronicle:

June 5, 2003, 9:04AM

Recently passed bill ends gun ban at city facilities
By MATT SCHWARTZ
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

Smiley N. Pool / Chronicle
A sign at Houston City Hall warns against carrying weapons.

Starting Sept. 1, citizens may be able to bring more than their ire to City Hall. They could bring a gun.

City and county parks, libraries and police stations, as well as other government facilities, would all be open to people carrying legally concealed handguns under a bill awaiting Gov. Rick Perry's signature.

The bill is among about 1,200 still under legal and policy review by the governor's office, a Perry spokesman said Wednesday.

Deputy Press Secretary Gene Acuna said the governor has given no indication of whether he will sign the bill, which gives local governments a second chance to lobby against it.

The bill is renewing a long-running dispute over where concealed handgun licensees should be allowed to carry their weapons.

The original law, passed in 1995, outlined specific exceptions to the concealed carry permit. Among them are schools and school events, courtrooms, hospitals, amusement parks, churches, bars, and sporting events. It also outlaws concealed handguns at government meetings.

The law also allows private businesses to bar weapons from their premises.

Local governments began to adopt similar bans for their facilities, citing safety concerns about allowing weapons into buildings where public sentiment sometimes collides with public policy. The result was a proliferation of warning signs at the entrances of most government buildings.

Concealed handgun law advocates have complained ever since that the resulting patchwork of rules is too confusing and inconvenient for license holders complying with the law.

State Sen. Kenneth Armbrister, D-Victoria, said his bill was intended to provide statewide uniformity to the existing concealed carry law, so that a permit holder from, say, Beaumont could travel to El Paso without worrying about violating ordinances in differing jurisdictions.

If signed, the bill would effectively strip local governments of an already disputed ability to bar concealed handguns on their premises.

Armbrister and supporters, including lobbyists for the National Rifle Association, said the authority to regulate concealed handguns rests solely with the state, not local governments.

Armbrister's bill would effectively deny local governments agencies the ability to enforce bans on concealed weapons in their public buildings by granting an exception to state trespassing laws for concealed carry permit holders.

Frank Sturzl, executive director of the Texas Municipal League, blasted the bill.

"It's a long way to say we have lost our authority to prohibit the carrying of handguns on city premises," Sturzl said.

He said the bill's supporters are ignoring Texas attorney general opinions that support the authority of local government to ban weapons on their premises.

According to the last such opinion, issued by former Attorney General John Cornyn in January 2001, a government entity has the authority to bar concealed handguns from its property by providing verbal notice or erecting a sign detailing the ban under criminal trespass laws.

Harris County Attorney Mike Stafford said Armbrister's bill obviously would hinder prosecutions of those charged with violating bans on concealed weapons in government buildings. But he added that Commissioners Court has the authority to make policies controlling the courthouses and county administration building.

Houston Police Chief C.O. Bradford said that if the governor signs the bill, the ramifications would go beyond City Hall and the county administration building to other public facilities, such as police stations and parks.

"Some libraries have a lot of children in them," Bradford said. "Do we want concealed handguns in libraries?"

Conroe City Administrator Craig Lonon said he was surprised lawmakers would revise the gun regulation "without very much debate."

Baytown City Manager Gary Jackson said he will discuss with Baytown Mayor Pete Alfaro the possibility of lobbying the governor against signing the bill.

However, Humble City Manager James Baker said, "Bad folks are always carrying guns."

If the law allows guns, then the law needs to be enforced, he said.

Houston City Councilman Michael Berry was similarly unmoved. "They're still prohibited from entering a meeting of a governmental entity," he said. "The question is, what's the governing jurisdiction? And that's the state of Texas. Whether we like it or not, we have to follow the law."

Armbrister said opponents were missing the bottom line.

"These people that go through all of the trouble to get a license, keep a license and the training and the proficiency, they're not the bad guys. They're not the ones some mayor or city council is going to have to worry about."

I think this is definitely a good thing.  Carrying a handgun should be a RIGHT, but in these times... At least having a CHL, you can tell those anti weenies all of the hoops you have to go through to get one, and that it means that you're so many times LESS likely than the average Texan, to commit a crime.  

There are still those weenies that think that gun=bad under any circumstances, but the numbers speak for themselves.  You can't confuse those people with facts!  

It makes sense to me.  The "No Firearms" rules for selected locations seem to be mysteriously ignored by those who are bent on criminal activity.

We're trying to go in this direction in SC, too.

It feels weird to agree with a guy with a D after his name.

He's a [u]Texas[/u] D.

TS
[b][u]Did you post this in the Texas Hometown forum?[/b][/u]

What I don't understand is the firearms dealer who doesn't allow CC in the shop.  Seems very much like an oxymoron.

TS