I get the worry, I really do, but… how? The way you carry a sword is in a sheath. How would you attach a naked blade to your belt? No sword I’ve ever seen had anything you could loop a belt through. I mean I guess you could thread a belt or a piece of string through a swept-hilt rapier but that’s never staying on. I guess you could hold it in your hand unsheated and walk around, but I’m pretty sure that’s illegal from a ‘endangering public safety’ standpoint in much the same way that, even if open carry is legal, you can’t go around pointing that gun at people as your method of carrying it.
Also, a happy coincidence is that most swords bought by idiots are stainless steel replica swords which are remarkably useless in a fight. I won’t say they can’t hurt someone, but given a choice between a slab of stainless steel shaped like some spiky fantasy nonsense or a crowbar in a fight, I’d go for the crowbar every time.
I mean I’d lose because I have the coordination of a bag of marshmallows, but I’d be better armed all the same.
Yeah, well, that is the problem with association one thing as “bad”. Rationally, someone with a weapon is unlikely to hurt someone. Hell, the cop with the gun has a percentage likelihood of killing someone, but most people don’t see them as “bad” and avoid them or have it cause them stress (note, some do.)
You could do the same thing with “spot the criminal”. Granted you don’t know if they are armed or not, but your perception that certain people are “bad” by the way they dress, tattoos, race, etc is where discrimination crops up.
Actually there is a knife lobby. I assume it applies to swords too… dunno.
For handguns i can assume if i were to see someone carrying it they have a permit to do so, though i would not be thrilled. But my particular line of thought is states that allow for open carry of other things besides handguns, rifles and the like. In that case if i were to see someone walking around with it my initial thought wouldn’t be “That guy has his wits about him and probably is open carrying”.
This one is really bonkers. I live in Texas and I’m used to having a legislature that puts a truly insane amount of attention into ridiculous non-issues, and this one has me and everyone else I know scratching their heads. I know a lot of people all across the political spectrum and at many levels of economic class, and nobody could see any sense in why the hell they did this. Or at least, until this morning. A guy said they didn’t want to deal with that stupid “bathroom law” that they fear will be political poison, so they used this as a way of occupying their time during the regular session, so they could say they were too busy to get to the bathroom law before they took their break. But of course that pinhead governor Abbot, who has an unhealthy obsession with thinking about people going to the bathroom, maybe because he can’t, called a special session to force them to go back to Austin and actually spend time acting like they care about who pees in a urinal. This is the kind of law you get when your governor is an emotional cripple as well as a real cripple.
The letter of the law isn’t everything. Where I live, open carry is legal, but not culturally acceptable. If you do it, you don’t fit in, and you will be hassled by the police. While carrying a rifle in public is legal, I expect that most folks would assume the worst if they saw you walking down a city street with one. When the police inevitably get called on you, you may end up very dead very quickly.
Drive two hours into the countryside, and nobody will bat an eye. If it’s hunting season, folks may get downright chatty.
[quote=“anon61221983, post:39, topic:104459, full:true”]
Well, they can’t spend ALL their time making sure women can’t get abortions and that kids learn that slavery wasn’t so bad, now, can they? /s
[/quote]Priorities.
It was also legal to openly carry handguns, until a bunch of open-carry idiots annoyed enough people the state government banned it in 2012. So the idiots switched to openly carrying long guns, which annoyed enough people the state banned that. As I’ve said before and will likely have cause to say again: the subset of gun owners who are entitled morons are REALLY GOOD at getting more restrictive gun laws passed. The tale in three news articles: One, two, three.
I suspect it is legal to o-penly carry a “knife or sword” is because an illegal knife was defined elsewhere in Texas law as anything over 5 and half inches. And yet, 5 and half inches is on the shorter side for a Bowie knife. Also, it was never previously illegal to openly carry a knife, so it otherwise doesn’t make sense to re-legalize such carrying.
One of the late night talk shows, years ago, back when Walking Dead was a relatively new show. It was a parody of him (meaning Norman Reedus) “learning” how to use the crossbow.
