Lubbock Council Rejects Bans on Guns in Public Meetings
The Lubbock City Council chamber is actually pretty small and it is always crowded during meetings. The chief of police and at least 4 armed officers are always present during meetings. How in hell are they going to pick out the “bad guy with a gun” if a dozen or more “good guys with guns” start blasting away at the first shot? Why do ammosexuals have so little confidence in the police, who, again, are RIGHT THERE in the room?
When Texas’ open carry law begins at the beginning of 2016, Lubbockites can openly carry handguns inside the council chambers during council meetings and all public meetings. After several hours of hearing citizens’ comments at Thursday’s council meeting, city leaders voted to reject two resolutions aimed at disallowing concealed and open carry during council meetings. The two resolutions were presented by Councilwoman Latrelle Joy, and both failed by a vote of 5-2.
The City Council also rejected Mayor Glen Robertson’s resolution that would have ended the city’s current policy requiring city employees with a concealed handgun license wishing to carry at work to fill out an application for approval.
Lubbock is not the only city taking up this decision on guns at meetings. Under Texas’ concealed carry law, local governments have the option to ban concealed guns in rooms when public meetings are being held. It does not include all public meetings, but rather public meetings for which prior notice is required under the Open Meetings Act According to their respective news outlets, San Marcos passed a resolution banning open carry, but not concealed carry, at its City Council meeting this week.
A group of cities in East Texas wishing to ban open carry first wrote a letter this week seeking an opinion from the Texas Attorney General’s Office on where exactly they can ban open carry inside City Hall. Major cities like Dallas, Austin and Houston will not allow open carry. Lubbock Councilman Victor Hernandez said after the meeting he had staff look at what other cities were allowing open carry, and said they came across one city other than Lubbock that will allow it.
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