Good morning, 

Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Brandon Waltens 

Monday, January 18, 2021
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• Last week, the National Rifle Association made headlines when it announced it intends to flee New York State and move operations to Texas. The announcement came after Gov. Greg Abbott said in an interview that he wanted to make Texas a “Second Amendment sanctuary.”
   
• Certainly, New York is a hostile place for gun owners. But is Texas really leading the way?

• The last major victory for gun rights in Texas came in 2015, when open carry (with a permit) and campus carry were passed. At the time, Texas was the 45th state to allow some form of open carry—hardly a pioneer.
   
• Since then, lawmakers have made little progress on expanding on that victory. Instead, Texans have largely been forced to play defense.
   
• In 2018, Abbott briefly flirted with the idea of red-flag laws, which would allow firearms to be confiscated without due process. He later dropped this proposal after backlash from Texas gun owners.
   
• In 2019, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick went to war with the NRA over his support of expanded background checks on gun owners. At the time, the NRA compared Patrick’s proposals to “the same broken, Bloomberg-funded failures that were attempted under the Obama administration.” Patrick said their refusal to compromise would “only hurt our long-term defense of the Second Amendment.”

• And what about constitutional carry? Despite being a top priority for the Republican Party of Texas and gun owners across the Lone Star State for over a decade, efforts to eliminate the requirement of a state gun permit have been killed repeatedly in the Texas Legislature.
   
• During the most recent legislative session, constitutional carry legislation wasn’t even filed in the Texas Senate. In the House, it was sent to a committee led by a liberal Democrat, where it wasn’t given a hearing.
   
• Last week, Republicans in the Texas House had the opportunity to prevent Democrats from once again chairing House committees, but they voted the proposal down. The new Texas House speaker, Dade Phelan, has indicated that he will appoint Democrats to lead committees, but he has not yet revealed which ones.

• State Rep. Kyle Biedermann (R–Fredericksburg) has promised to file a constitutional carry bill in the House this session. Newly elected State Sen. Drew Springer (R–Muenster) filed a constitutional carry bill in the House while campaigning for his Senate seat, indicating he may file similar legislation now that he has moved to the other chamber.
   
• With the Legislature now officially gaveled in, the clock is ticking for lawmakers to deliver and determine whether Texas will live up to its national reputation as a Second Amendment haven or continue to lag behind the rest of the country.

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