Permitless handgun carry in Texas nearly law, after Senate OKs bill

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas would allow people to carry a handgun without a license, and the background check and training that go with it, under a measure approved by the state Senate on Wednesday.

The Senate approved the Republican-led effort in a 18-13 vote, less than a week after it sailed out of a committee created to specifically to tackle the legislation.

Texas already has some of the loosest gun laws in the country and has more than 1.6 million handgun license holders. Lawmakers have reduced classroom and shooting range training requirements over the last decade, but had been reluctant to eliminate the license requirement altogether.

That changed over the past few weeks with a push from the right wing of the Legislature’s Republican majority over the objections of law enforcement and gun control groups. If it becomes law, Texas would join nearly two dozen states that allow some form of unregulated carry of a handgun but it would be the most populous by far.

The state House has already passed a similar version of the bill and the two chambers will have to negotiate differences before sending it to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has said he’ll sign it into law.

The Senate added several provisions Wednesday, including enhanced penalties for felons caught carrying guns illegally, and barring permitless carry for someone convicted of making a terroristic threat or disorderly conduct with a firearm.

Texas already allows rifles to be carried in public without a license. The proposed bill would allow anyone 21 or older to carry a handgun provided they had no violent crime convictions or some other legal prohibition in their background. But there would be no way to weed them out without the state background check.

The bill would not prevent businesses from banning guns on their property, and federal background checks for some gun purchases would remain in place. Texas has no state restrictions on private gun sales.

Supporters of the bill say it would allow Texans to better defend themselves in public while abolishing unnecessary hurdles to the Constitutional right to carry a gun.

“This bill, to me, is a restoration of the belief in and trust of our citizens,” said state Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, who carried the legislation in the upper chamber. “We cannot allow another session to come and go where we pay lip service for the Second Amendment by failing to fully restore and protect the rights of citizens granted by the Constitution.”

Law enforcement groups warn that eliminating the license requirement and its background check will make the streets more dangerous.

Several Senate Democrats noted the state’s recent history with mass shootings, most notably at an El Paso Walmart, a high school outside of Houston and a church in Sutherland Springs.

"Today's passage of House Bill 1927, the Permitless Carry Bill, does a great disservice to El Paso and every community and family impacted by gun violence. By doing away with current background checks and safety training requirements to carry handguns in Texas, our communities will not be any safer," said state Sen. Caesar Blanco, an El Paso Democrat.

"After the mass shootings in El Paso, Odessa, and several other communities in Texas, we should have been focused on solutions to prevent future gun violence. This feels personal to me because I attended nearly every funeral and memorial after the El Paso mass shooting, I mourned with those families and my community, listened to their stories, and committed to myself to solutions," he added.

Senators rejected a number of amendments by Blanco that would've codified gun safety provisions Abbott proposed after the 2019 shooting in his hometown by requiring background checks for gun sales between strangers and requiring courts to notify criminals that they may no longer possess a firearm, among other changes.

Earlier in the day, Blanco said such amendments were necessary “so we're making sure if we're going to go down this road … we're keeping guns out of the hands of actual criminals.”

A solid majority of Texas voters don't think permitless carry should be allowed, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll.