Texas Allows Open Carry Handguns

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(Newswire.net — January 2, 2016) — Texas Harris County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Friday: “New Open Carry Law goes into effect today. Please read through our brochures for further information on the new law”.

Now, Texas is the 45th US state that allows carrying weapons openly, and it is the largest state where it is allowed. In California, Florida, Illinois, New York and South Carolina, it is banned.

Legal experts say that Texas has a really big problem with the new gun law, because the law is not written very well.

It is not clear now who the police can stop on the street, whether they are free to stop and ask anyone who they suspect of carrying a weapon without a license.

Answers to these questions are different.

It is not clear whether people have the right to refuse to show their permission.

According to the Dallas Morning News, there is no penalty for license holders who refuse to do so.

“It’s kind of like a Catch 22”, said to Fusion Geoffrey Corn, a professor of law at the South Texas College of Law in Houston.

He explained why the new open carry law is nearly impossible to enforce.

“Carrying weapons without a license is illegal, but there’s no clear way for police to investigate if the person does have a license to open carry or not”, said professor Geoffrey Corn.

Nonetheless, the law has now come into force, and Texas is already preparing for people with guns.

Airports are posting signs that gun owners with properly licensed guns can have their gun only in their baggage. This means that the law still prohibits carrying weapons in certain places, including airports.

If somebody has a license, they cannot carry a gun through security screening, while boarding an aircraft or in any air operations area.

Open carry is not allowed in schools or any other educational institutions as well.

President Barack Obama is preparing to take an executive action on gun control, including expanding background checks on buyers, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The White House representative said that President Obama plans to meet Monday with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, to discuss gun-related executive actions. The US president already pulled the presidential executive action to bypass Congress on issues from immigration to climate change, and “has no choice” but to do it again in the matter of gun control.

“I get too many letters from parents, and teachers, and kids to sit around and do nothing,” President Obama said.

In his weekly address, President Obama said that no measure could stop every act of violence, the Wall street journal reported. However, President Obama added that things might change if “Congress will do something – anything,” to protect children from gun violence.