TX; Repeal of Knife Ban Passes House

HB 3884, which repeals the Texas prohibition on many popular knives, has passed the Texas house.  It is clear that knives, especially knives such as Bowie knives, swords, and daggers, are arms protected under the second amendment.  But these arms were banned from carry in Texas, along with handguns, during the carpetbagger government takeover of Texas after the Civil War, or War between the States, if you prefer.  When the Texas legislature reformed the law with shall issue concealed carry permits, they did not include knives.

The law was very selectively enforced.   One correspondent from Texas, reported a conversation with a San Antonio police officer, about their knife law.   From freerepublic.com, Resolute Conservative writes:

Don’t get me started. I asked a San Antonio cop about this when I heard about it, and the response was, “Oh, we just got that passed so we could jack up the gangbangers - but we wouldn’t enforce it against YOU...”
May have been born at night, but it wasn’t LAST night...

It appears that the Texas legislature is willing to address the issue, especially given the events in Baltimore, where the Freddy Grey case rests, in part, on the vauge wording of a Baltimore knife ordinance.

Before the Civil War, Texas had one of the strongest protections of the right to keep and bear arms of any state.   It even extended the protection to slaves.  Yes, unlike most slave states, in Texas, slaves had the right to be armed.

HB3884 has passed the House, as has a companion bill for knife preemption, HB  905.

The bills still need to pass the Texas Senate, and there is not much time left in this legislative session.  Still, it seems that Texas is close to enacting significant reform of its archaic knife laws.

©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included. Link to Gun Watch