Gun Permit Allows Visitors Quick Access to Texas Capitol

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Source: Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas -- Everyone from lobbyists to lawyers and journalists is rushing to get permits to carry guns inside the Texas Capitol, where legislators already often tote pistols in boots and purses or stow them away inside their desks.

A unique loophole in a new security procedure means a gun permit is like a special-access pass into the domed building, allowing people who are certified to carry a gun to bypass lines at the metal detectors that were set up after a shooting incident earlier this year.
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There's now a frenzy for folks to get trained and licensed to carry a firearm, especially before the legislative session begins in January. It's not required that people have a gun to enter the Capitol through the express lane. Merely holding a valid permit, and presenting it at the entrance, will get them expedited entry.
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Texas law allows people to carry a weapon if they have a permit and as long as the gun is concealed. A separate lane for license-holders had to be created so gun-toters could enter without having to pull out their weapons -- or unconceal them -- along with their wallets and keys.
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"Where's the security come from if you can still get in with a gun?" asked Canadian tourist Clyde Ducharme, who went through the metal detectors one recent morning.

Lobbyist Michelle Wittenburg, who recently received her gun permit and has been signing up her colleagues so they can do the same, said the security at the Capitol is still strong because permit-holders aren't the ones who would pose any threat.

"If you do have a CHL (gun permit) then that shows you have gone through a background check and you've been vetted, so to speak," Wittenburg said. "I don't think those are the people that are going to cause your problems in the Capitol."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/19/gun-permit-allows-visitors-quick-access-texas-capitol/

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No, it'll be those people with those darn flowers in their hair who'll be causing problems.

[onehandle]

1. 'Perfectly Normal.' nt

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[GreenStormCloud]

9. Sound pretty forward and common sense to me.

If a person is willing to be fingerprinted, background investigated and cleared by FBI, take appropriate safety course, then they are no threat to anyone. So why not let pre-cleared people on through in an express lane. Why make others wait while you uselessly check a person who already has a clearance?

[PavePusher]

16. New Hampshire must be too...

as they allowed the same up until some deluded, elitist politician had a Chicken Little snit-fit and pushed through a change in the law.

And yet no-one could demonstrate how it had ever been a problem.

I guess some pigs really is more equal than other pigs....

[proteus_lives]

18. State-bashing makes you look ignorant.

[Doctor_J]

3. foxnews.com

:banghead:

DU ain't what it used to be.

[GreenStormCloud]

10. Are you saying that Texas isn't doing as the news story says? N/T

[Doctor_J]

15. I am saying that everything that comes from Fox "News" is slanted by

the ultra-right wing, including the NRA. It is mind boggling that someone who identifies as a Dem would read/listen to fascist swill like that.

[GreenStormCloud]

20. Please point out any specific inaccuracies in the referenced article.

Please remember that I am speaking about this specific article, not some other article.

[oneshooter]

22. So you don't believe the story

unless it comes out of YOUR preferred source?

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas


By the way, the story is accurate.

[Hoopla Phil]

26. Foxnews reports. 2+2=4. Doctor_J is in disbelief. Film at 10:00

[sui generis]

4. welcome to the wild wild west

it's all fun and paranoia until someone loses an innocent bystander . . . or even a guilty one.

[GreenStormCloud]

8. 41 states with shall issue, and Wild Wild West hasn't happened yet. N/T

[Glassunion]

12. Actually, the wild west didn't happen even in wild west.

[Katya Mullethov]

19. Its happening in Chicago

Right now .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=330395&mesg_id=330395

[SteveM]

32. Wasn't there an old T.V. show named that? That your source? nt

[louis-t]

5. This comes from the NRA rhetoric that once you buy a gun

you automatically become a "law 'bidin' cit-zen".
edit to add: :crazy:

[GreenStormCloud]

7. Please document where the NRA says that. They don't. N/T

[Doctor_J]

14. Actually it's for the wing nuts to distract from the real situation there

On Friday Amy Goodman had on a journalist who covers AZ politics. That state is completely broke. Their entire legislature is right-wingers who won't vote to increase taxes under any circumstances. In order to hide the fact that the state is circling the bowl, they make a big show of useless right-wing decrees (Professors can now pack heat in class - it's a great day for Arizona).

Today's news from TX sounds like more of the same.

[GreenStormCloud]

21. You are deflecting. The topic is one specific law in TX, not AZ.

There is no fanfare about that law in TX. It isn't headlines. How can it be a distraction in TX if it isn't big news? Perhaps you should know more of that which you speak about.

[Bonhomme Richard]

6. This one I like. n/t

[slackmaster]

11. BLOOD WILL RUN IN THE HALLWAYS!

:rofl:

[SteveM]

33. It'll drip from the dome!!

[Glassunion]

13. Actually my firearm gives me quick access to other places outside of Texas.

In my state I get preferential treatment when entering a courthouse. When I declare to a deputy before security that I need to check a firearm, I quickly bypass security, check my firearm and have my own personal X-ray machine for my belongings.

In an airport when I check my firearm, I get my own TSA person who scans my bag. Not to mention that I can put a real lock on it, not one of those shitty TSA locks that everyone has a key to. Then at the end of the flight my bag is always one of the first to come off the plane. And if they lose my bag you would be surprised how fast they find it when you tell them it has a firearm in it.

[east texas lib]

31. Cool!

A CHL in Texas allows you to bypass the background check and waiting period when you purchase a firearm. You are in essence pre-approved and can take your new popgun home immediately.

[DonP]

17. Big Deal! In Chicago only the Aldermen are armed in the City Council.

In a city that bans all handguns, every alderman is allowed to carry concealed, even into the city council chambers.

Several years ago Alderman Dorothy Tillman, involved in a heated debate with other aldermen, pulled a loaded S&W J Frame out of her purse on the floor of the city council waved it above her head and said "she wasn't afraid of anybody".

Since we have had 26 aldermen go to prison in the past 7 or 8 years, obviously some are criminals. What are you so concerned about in Texas?

Dorothy didn't shoot anyone ... that time anyway. She was arrested several years later for carrying in Mississippi or Alabama without a permit, can't recall which.

[Hoopla Phil]

23. So WHY would you have to go through a metal detector and gun screening when

you CAN carry a gun there with proper background check and testing and license in hand? It doesn't make any sense to have to stand in that line.

[rrneck]

24. Enough with whining about the link to the article.

If anyone here thinks the article is in error, do some research and prove it. It's starting to sound like a bunch of kids in a goddamn sandbox around here.


http://www.securityinfowatch.com/node/1316887

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/politics/071910-Gun-Permit-Allows-Quick-Access-to-Capitol

http://www.startribune.com/nation/98756624.html?elr=KArks:DCiUMEaPc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

http://www.kristv.com/news/guns-in-texas-capitol

http://www.pantagraph.com/news/national/article_c2cf5c7e-9355-11df-b65a-001cc4c002e0.html

http://www.live5news.com/Global/story.asp?S=12830377

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-07-19-Texas-Capitol-guns_N.htm

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/69623

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/politics/gun-permit%3F-get-quick-access-to-capitol

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/98747934.html

http://www.cftktv.com/news/56/1173691

http://www.oaoa.com/news/permit-50193-access-quick.html

http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/072010dntexgunpermits.155470533.html

http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2010/jul/19/bc-us--texas-capitol-guns-2nd-ld-writethru0771/


Google shows 240 articles: http://news.google.com/news/story?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=texas+gun+permits&ncl=dyWeLq3xb_KnCPMffoRt6ToKlfi8M&cf=all&scoring=d&start=0

[Hoopla Phil]

25. Ha Ha Ha. You do know how to make a point. Kudos.

[SteveM]

34. Carpet bombing.

[Glassunion]

27. Enough with your right-wing rhetoric...

1 of your links goes to fox (RW GOP funded newzsource)
2 of your links go to NBC affiliates (RW GOP funded newzsources)
1 of your links go to CBS and CW respectively (RW GOP funded newzsource)
Several go to Newspaper websites and we all know newspapers and reading are only for the GOP fundies (RW GOP funded newzsources)
USA Today? Really?... Practically a front for the entire racist Tea Party organization.

I'm surprised you did not quote Mine Kampf.

If it ain't the Huffington Post, it's GOP controlled.

[rrneck]

29. LOL!

I guess NPR doesn't give a flying fuck about Texas!

At least you took the trouble to look at them.

[Katya Mullethov]

28. Lol ...Welcome to May eh ?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x319244
Looks like they started another cycle on this story , this morning .

[rrneck]

30. Deja Vu all over again. nt