You Can Officially Bring A Gun Into Texas Psychiatric Hospitals

Gun owners can now bring their firearms into Texas’ 10 state psychiatric hospitals.

Read that last sentence one more time.

Prior to open carry being the law of the land in Texas, guns were banned in state psychiatric facilities. No one — visitors, deliverymen, et cetera — could bring firearms on the campuses. Even local law enforcement officers, who were already allowed to bring their weapons into the facilities, regularly locked up their guns before entering Austin State Hospital. You know, just in case.

As of June 2016 visitors can bring guns into the buildings where patients live. Employees are still prohibited from bringing them on campus. Which makes sense, right? Someone visiting a facility literally filled with mentally unstable people can bring a loaded firearm in. But if that firearm is taken and used by one of the mentally ill or emotionally disturbed people in that facility, no one actually working there (let’s call them targets) could defend themselves.