Texas Could Get Even Friendlier for Gun Owners Dec. 15, 2014 2:22pm, Zach Noble
Gun-loving Texans, rejoice: 2015 could be a banner year for guns in the Lone Star State.
A proposed sales tax holiday for firearms purchases is part of a slew of gun bills poised to come before Texas lawmakers starting next month. As Reuters noted, the increasingly conservative, Republican-dominated state legislature is set to push forward with more pro-gun legislation after the GOP’s big wins in November.
The tax holiday bill would establish March 2, Texas’ independence day, as a day in which guns can be purchased tax-free.
Hunting supplies — defined in the bill’s language as “ammunition, archery equipment, hunting blinds and stands, hunting decoys, firearm cleaning supplies, gun cases and gun safes, and hunting optics” — would also be exempted from taxation on the holiday.
The unlicensed open carry of handguns could also be high on the list of legal changes. Texans currently need a permit to carry a concealed handgun.
“We have so many gun bills that have been filed that we can’t have anything but an open carry law passed next year,” C.J. Grisham, founder of Open Carry Texas, told Reuters.
While gun rights tend to be a Republican issue, Texas’ pro-gun action is a bipartisan affair.
Earlier this month, Rep. Ryan Guillen (D-Rio Grande City) filed a “Pop-Tart bill” that would protect students in public elementary schools from being punished for making gun shapes with their fingers, drawing guns or — as has happened before — being suspended for chewing their toaster pastries into the shape of a gun.
“Texas students shouldn’t lose instruction time for holding gun-shaped Pop-Tart snacks at school,” Guillen told the Houston Chronicle. “This bill will fix this.”
Other proposed Texas legislation, Reuters noted, could ban cities from restricting gun rights and nullify federal gun restrictions.
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