Last week, Open Carry Texas posted this alarming “educational” video showing a confrontation between armed open carry activists and law enforcement in Abilene, Texas. The officer, who was responding to a call by private property owners questioning the armed individuals standing on their property, remained calm as C.J Grisham cursed, yelled, and argued. His two fellow patriots were also armed with AR-15s.

Mr. Grisham, the leader of Open Carry Texas, and his band of open carry brethren continue to be astonished that the general public does not welcome their behavior. Fully 75% of law enforcement leaders and associations, and two-thirds of the general population in Texas are opposed to the open carry of handguns. Note: the unlicensed open carry of long guns such as AR-15s and AK-47s is already perfectly legal – natch.

Mr Grisham’s response to the ruckus, posted on Facebook? “The more these cops push us, the more we are going to push back. Eventually the pushing won’t be enough and people are going to get hurt. The people will only accept so much tyranny.”

YouTube video

I have lived in Texas since birth — I’m one of “The People” he mentions — and I’m pretty confident that Texas is not suffering from Tyranny, but our lawmakers are gladly suffering some seriously dangerous fools. Despite a growing collection of video footage showing armed men threatening officers and interfering with their duties as a part of “Cop Watches,” and despite overwhelming opposition from pretty much everyone in Texas, lawmakers have passed legislation allowing the licensed open carry of handguns. The bill was signed Saturday by Governor Abbott, probably with a fountain pen/pocket knife combo that came with his N.R.A. membership.

The problem here is that lawmakers are deliberately blinding themselves to the hard truth in Mr. Grisham’s statement: “… people are going to get hurt.” Extremists are still outraged that the new law requires a license, because their notion of freedom leans towards anarchy. It seems to me like lawmakers are catering to a small group of people that are looking for a very dangerous fight.

I’m a gun owner myself. I believe in my right to bear arms and am confident in my right and ability to defend my person. But this outrageous behavior is dangerous and unjustifiable. I don’t want my kids walking down the street when Grisham’s statement about “someone getting hurt” becomes truth. Not on my watch. As a member of the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, I watched closely this session as lawmakers deliberately, and with great intention, created and passed this new law. And I’ll be watching closely, along with all of the other mothers, next session as well.

Lawmakers have been fully informed about the potential dangers of open carry by experts, laymen, moms, police chiefs, students, gun violence survivors, and now by none other than C.J Grisham. People are going to get hurt. It’s time they listen.

*Featured/top image: Alamo Plaza packed with people, guns, flags and slogans during an anti-gun law rally. Photo by Iris Dimmick.

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Angela Turner is a Texas gun owner, mother of three, and communications professional from San Antonio. She testified multiple times this legislative session in opposition to dangerous gun lobby-backed...

28 replies on “Mom Against Open Carry Law”

  1. Bravo! Well said. Until like-minded individuals force these ignorant elected officials responsible for passage of this insane bill, to roll it back–or elect new folks that will, people are going to get hurt.

  3. The only difference between Texas before this law and Texas now, is you can pick your targets better because you can see the weapons on their hips. And when those sheep voluntarily register for yet anther permit, cops will be able to add more gun owners to the list of armed citizens that will need special attention when it’s decided regular citizens should not be armed.

    Don’t think for an instant you aren’t surrounded by concealed firearms everywhere you go regardless. And rightly so. I won’t be gunned down like a dog in a Luby’s cafeteria because my pistol is in my glove compartment outside.

    Open carry just brings those handguns into the light so to speak, if the individuals carrying them are stupid enough to not care about losing the element of surprise.

    So unbunch your mom panties. They appear to be all twisted up over nothing worth enduring such a super huge wedgie for.

    Perhaps you would be better off fighting for health care reform to deal with all the mental illness that is the true cause of violence, instead of jousting this windmill.

  6. Once again provincial people in Texas are unaware that Texas is in the minority on this issue. The wild west histrionics were pulled out when concealed carry was going to be allowed with the same results as in all the other states that came before.

  7. You act like this open carry in Texas is for anyone who owns a firearm. Not once do you mention that it is for CHL holders only. You imply that everyone is going to run arround with pistols on their hips and it will be like the wild west again. There are over 30 states where open carry of a pistol without a license is completely legal. Fear mongering at it’s best.

    1. When those who are not cool-headed carry a gun, there are problems. Grisham seems to be very immature minded.

  8. Jackson Browne says it best and for me, I’m on his side.

    The Long Way Around Jackson Browne

    I don’t know what to say about these days
    I’m seeing people changing in the strangest ways
    Even in the richer neighborhoods
    People don’t know when they got it good
    They got the envy and they got it bad

    When I was a kid everything I did was trying to be free
    running up and down tinsel town with the fire inside of me
    my planets all in retrograde the best of all my plans got made
    I made my breaks and some mistakes
    Just not the ones people think I made

    I’m a long way gone down this wild road I’m on
    It’s gonna take me where I’m bound
    It’s a long way around

    It’s a little hard keeping track of what’s gone wrong
    The covenant unravels and the news just rolls along
    I can feel my memory letting go some two or three disasters ago
    It’s hard to say what did more ill,
    Citizens United or the Gulf Oil Spill

    I’m a long way gone down this wild road I’m on
    It’s gonna take me where I’m bound
    It’s a long way around

    It’s never been that hard to buy a gun
    Now they’ll sell a Glock 19 to just about anyone
    The seeds of tragedy are there and what we feel we have the right to bear
    and watch our children come to harm
    There in the safety of our arms
    We all disagree about
    The passions burn, heart goes out

    We’re a long way gone
    Down this wild road we’re on
    It’s going to take us where we’re bound
    It’s just the long way around

  11. Michael, I believe the general public knows it is for CHL holders.
    I have my CHL. My problem is with open carry. Texas will be the most populated state with open carry. My concern is a person with the credentials to carry a pistol gets it taken away by a crazy person in a crazy situation. This video shows, how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys. Wonder if those were bad guys hanging around? We grew up thinking the good guys carrying guns were in uniform. Maybe if we could get the good guys to wear white hats and the bad guys to wear black hats.
    Let’s wait and see, like you said, 30 other states have open carry.
    We are on the same side.

  12. White man with gun mouths off for five minutes to cop. Black man with gun? Dead in less time than it takes to write this. Who’s more dangerous, a black kid with a toy gun or a self-aggrandizing nutcase who is threatening violence if authorities don’t leave him alone to walk around with a killing weapon?

  13. So the guy with a camera is just a douche! He feels threatened when police show up with guns but no one else should feel threatened cause he is walking around town with his. He was looking for attention and he got it. I’m embarrassed to be a gun owner now.

    1. Christian, I don’t understand your point.
      I think the open-carry guy was behaving outrageously — he was yelling, we was constantly interrupting the cop, he sounded rather hysterical, he was obviously behaving in a way he felt would be effective in his video for later use. So I see him behaving outrageously while exercising several Constitutional rights: bearing arms, speaking freely, maybe even assembly? Yes, outrageousness is legal, but what purpose was his outrageousness serving?
      I think wearing drag simply falls under the First Amendment. And why must drag be justified? A lot of people choose the clothes they wear because they like how they look or feel or the attention they attract.
      But comparing rowdy drag queens to a rowdy guy with a gun……really?
      I’ve never heard of a child accidentally killing himself or another while playing with daddy’s drag, but we’ve all heard of numerous children accidentally killing themselves and others while playing with one of daddy’s loaded guns.

  17. I’m glad cj and Oct do this around the state and educate people on the rights they never knew they had and educate law enforcement on upholding the law and enacting policy changes within the department’s.

  18. I see a gun i run…out of stores and restaurants or businesses without paying. When you secure my safety, i will come and pay you. If those rights are more important than my expectation of safety, then you dont get paid for the food left half eaten. You can empty my grocery cart. You can forget the business i came to conduct. Kick them out, or i am out.

  19. Wow, so the Abilene Police apologizes and uses this video to train forces on how to act when a group of law abiding citizens exercise their right to bear arms, but when minority teens in bikinis are in a pool party, oh no that was a mob…

  23. What you see in this video is a person, me, standing up to cops pointing assault rifles at law abiding citizens on PUBLIC property. As a combat veteran, I don’t take kindly or peacefully people pointing Guns at me (or anyone) without cause. The Abilene PD is well aware of who we are. They have seen our events in the past. There was no excuse for this type of “swatting” that most likely came from Angela Turner’s Bloomberg funded, Gun hate group. This incident was the result of poorly trained or overly aggressive officers. The land we were on turned out to be exactly what I thought – public, not private land. It was a closed visitors Center. When I talk about someone getting hurt, which will eventually happen, I’m talking cops or some of the ignorant people in this thread shooting law abiding citizens because they’re either too trigger happy or too ignorant to get over their irrational, emotional instability.

    I will NEVER idly stand by when my rights or the rights of others are being trampled. I fought and nearly died in defense of those rights. Angela is sad, distraught, and upset that her feeble attempts at “gun sense” failed this session. Texas saw through her lies about being “pro gun” and “caring about safety.” Open carry is a right and the ultimate tactical advantage. I’d rather have the element of “don’t even think about it” than the element of responding to a crime in progress.

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