We had an excellent legislative session this year for gun bills.  I can think of some possibilities for bills next session.  For starters, how about:

1) Licensed carry for all 18-20 year-olds, not just active-duty and veterans.

2) Unlicensed carry for all 18-20 year-olds.  It might be too much of a stretch to go for unlicensed carry for them right away, so maybe licensed first in 2023 and then unlicensed in 2025?

3) Create a separate license for 18-20 year-olds to fix to fix a reciprocity problem.  CA, OR, IL, DC, MD, HI, NJ, NY, MA, CT, and RI have no reciprocity provision in their carry laws, so there's nothing we can do about them at the state level.  NH and ME don't recognize a Texas LTC but have unlicensed carry, so they're not really a concern.  Every other state recognizes a Texas LTC, except for WA and MN.  The reason WA and MN don't recognize a Texas LTC is that WA and MN law restrict recognition to licenses which can only be issued to licensees over 21.  Apparently it's too difficult for them to look at the birthdate on a license and do the math to determine if an individual licensee is over 21 years old and therefore valid to carry in their state.  If another state's license could be issued to someone under 21 then that totally prevents them from recognizing a state's license at all.

However, ID and KS have found a way around this problem.  Both states issue two legally-distinct types of carry licenses, only one of which is issuable to 18-20 year-olds.  This means that WA and MN both recognize the ID and KS licenses for >21 year-olds, and don't recognize the license for 18-20 year-olds.  If Texas goes to licensed carry for 18-20 year-olds then it would be a good opportunity to implement a separate license for them (call it a "class 1" LTC or something), and then a license for those over 21 (call it a "class 2" LTC).  Then WA and MN would be able to recognize our class 2 LTC, since 18-20 year-olds wouldn't be eligible for it.  We'd gain reciprocity with two more states for class 2 licensees by just rewording our laws a little bit.

4) Remove more banned locations: sports venues, elementary/junior/senior high schools, voting locations, etc.  Technically I guess a HS senior might be 18 (or even 19) for part of their senior year, so if you don't want them to be able to legally carry at school where they could be a student, but still allow most other licensees to do so, then having a separate carry license for 18-20 year-olds as I proposed in #3 makes it a relatively simple law to write.

5) Raise the 51% percentage to a higher percentage, or remove it as a banned location.  If bars don't want people carrying they always have 30.05/30.06/30.07.

6) Fix the issue with 51% areas where an alcohol vendor is not the only business at a location.  It's a relatively uncommon issue right now where if multiple businesses have the same address, and if any one of those businesses makes >51% of their revenue at that location, then carry is banned at the location.  For example, let's say business #1 and business #2 both have the same premises.  Business #1 makes $1,000,000 in revenue every year, and none of it from alcohol.  Business #2 makes $50,000 in revenue every year, with >51% of it from alcohol.  Because business #2 makes >51% of revenue from alcohol, its premises (which are the same as business #1) make it a banned location, even though alcohol sales only make at most just under 5% of revenue of both businesses.  I'm not sure how to fix this though, as I don't think TABC has the power to look at the books of any business which isn't licensed for alcohol sales, to determine revenue percentages.

So why do we need to fix this problem?  Because it's a loophole the anti-gunners are using to ban carry where they shouldn't be able to ban carry.  Someone else posted recently in another thread that either the Ft. Worth or Dallas Zoo is using this as a pretext to ban carry, by getting vendors licensed for alcohol sales, which bans carry for the whole of the licensed premises, even though the revenue from the zoo itself dwarfs the alcohol vendor's revenue.  Also, if the law is ever changed to remove sporting venues as banned locations, not fixing this problem will mean that carry at many/most sporting venues would still be banned because of alcohol sales.

7) A constitutional amendment to rewrite Article 1 Section 23 of the Texas Constitution so that it reads "Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State.; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime."  Make it harder to ever make carry illegal again.

I'm sure there's some other possible changes I'm not thinking of.  Any suggestions, or objections to mine?

I have thought of instead of 51% make it very strict on being under the influence while carrying. Also under the influence needs a number on it. Either .08 like driving, or .04 like a commercial license has to follow. This was one problem I saw with a senate amendment on HB 1927, without a number it is up to the officer to say you are under the influence.

One problem I do see with doing alway with 51% is carrying in a 51% business is a felony, while violating 30.05/30.06/30.07 is a class C misdemeanor.

One thing I do think needs to be done with 51% signs is they must be clearly visible before you walk in the door(s).

Good and well thought out list.

I like the idea of 18-21 with a separate LTC, and putting the military age types into this category, opening up MN and WA as you say to the over 21 LTC.

Yes, reduce the number of places where you can't carry by law.  There's really no reason not to be able to carry at nursing homes and hospitals - what's different about them such that the LTC holder who's trusted to carry everyplace else, all of a sudden loses his mind there?  Especially for hospitals, which can be in questionable locations, and coming / going at all hours of the night.  So people both are unarmed while going to and from the parking lot, as well as having to leave their handgun in the car, which bad practice (and could be one of the talking points about why this is needed, as was done with hotel carry).

Same for voting locations, racetracks, and other vestiges of the CHL law, where there wasn't yet a track record of good behavior from those carrying.  

Bar carry has been passed elsewhere, and could be a guide to how to pitch the change and what to change it to.  And yes, a number for being intoxicated, otherwise it's like a speed side that says "Safe Speed".

Other states have lots of fancy words in their state constitution about guns, and yet it never seems to matter when gun grabbing bills are passed.  

We could de-criminalize SBR's and SBS's too, as has been done with suppressors, so if ATF decides all of a sudden that pistol braces are stocks, law violations are at the Federal level not state as well.  

How about get rid of the useless blue laws.

You mean you could go buy a beer at HEB while a Baptists is in church?

There'll never be a pro-gun bill passed where afterwards the antis will just give up and say "Well, I guess they really mean this time, guess we better take our ball and go home."  But I want to push the ball so far down their side of the field so that even if there's referees making bad calls, that we'll still be in as advantageous a position as possible.

Yeah I think that would be relatively easy to pass.  If we're feeling really sporty maybe try for taking machine guns out too.

No objection from me, but I'm really only talking about gun laws ITT.

I think any constitutional amendment needs to be passed by the voters as well, so we'd have to decide if the benefit from having it passed (if any, as said, it's shocking what type of language is in various state's constitution for the RKBA, only to have it ignored by judges), would be outweighed by it almost being a "must pass" otherwise it'll be a big PR win for the grabbers.  

SBR and SBS does sound good to me the more I think about it, and the more it looks like ATF will try to make NFA items that they themselves said were OK a few years ago.

Holy crap, yes.  Louisiana would be a fine model for alcohol laws.

Just look at the great booze and beer that Texas is making after those laws were loosened.  Time to loosen the laws on the consumer end of things!

If we're talking non gun related, get rid of the bullshit called vehicle inspections and front license plates. That's some low hanging fruit.

Now that’s a smart one! It’s A victimless crime and even though I’m against most major forms of taxation the state could get some good revenue from it.

Hell yes. It's time the entire liquor laws for the state were rewritten. What wasn't first established during reconstruction after the civil war and then added to during prohibition need to be scrapped and modernized.

yep

.08% is just the level where a person is presumed to be intoxicated. It is not a "legal limit" for anything.  It is not necessary to convict a person of DWI. It could be used to today to convict a person of carrying while intoxicated, but who is going to volunteer to submit to a breath or blood test when a result less than. 08% does not mean you are not intoxicated?  

There is plenty of case law on what intoxication looks like.

Nursing homes are not off limits unless the qualify as a hospital, and that is a pretty specific definition. Nursing homes are not separately listed as off limit places.

Blood alcohol levels addressed above

Make proof of IQ over 125 required to vote.

Didn't the Dallas zoo also try to say they were a teaching environment and therefore could be posted as a classroom? They got it posted as an amusement park did they not?

The main thing they may need to clean up is the mess the signage issue is going to create. When businesses learn that one sign will stop citizens from carrying in their establishments, two years may not be enough time to hurt their bottom line by going elsewhere.

It was one 30/06 sign for years and years to keep CHL'er out.  I'm not worried about the sign issue - things will work out.

They don't meet the requirements for a school, but they appear to meet the definition for an amusement park.


I've never been there, but Wikipedia says they have pony rides and a monorail, which would seem to me to meet the "amusement ride" requirement.  Dallas County's population is 2.3 million.  Wikipedia says the zoo is 106 acres.  It requires a ticket for admission.  I assume that it's open often enough and has security guards, so I don't see anything that would indicate they don't meet the requirements.  But there's no such thing as being "posted as an amusement park."  You're just supposed to know.

It's complicated. I think it was also run by the city of Dallas at the time which throws another layer on this.
https://www.uslawshield.com/attorney-general-allows-dallas-zoo-to-prohibit-carry/

Repeal Texas Penal Code 46.02.

Add an exception to the application of 46.03 for LTC licensees, same as peace officers (ideally repeal it too, but I'll accept a smaller step in the name of strategy).

Add significant corporate and personal liability for any offense of TCP 19 or 22 (murder and assault) for any premises that bans possession of an effective means of self defense (i.e. post a no guns sign, someone gets beat up, both you and the perp go to jail).

Add significant corporate and personal liability for post 30.05, 30.06, 30.07 on any premises owned or leased by the state or a political subdivision of the state, and require the AG pursue charges (same as we have now, except with teeth).