Hikers should always wear bells and carry bear spray when enjoying such areas, but they should know what kind of bear they’re dealing with. Black bears are generally smaller bears, their fur can go from brown to black, and their scat is small, uniform, round balls of feces.
Grizzly bears, on the other hand, are large, usually much larger than the standard black bear. Their fur varies between a golden brown and a dark brown, and their scat is small, round balls of feces interspersed with cans of bear spray and bells.
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Of course. Gun Nuts would happily let the state take over ALL private property if it meant they could carry their guns everywhere.
so we will see state-run bars and restaurants in Texas so open carry can be combined with a beer and a steak?
Hahhaha - no they wouldn’t.
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I’m not sure that’s true - I am not a gun carrying Texas rancher, but I can imagine many situations where it would be very wise for such a person to casually carry a gun. Especially if that person is not capable of unarmed combat with a feral hog, wolf or alligator - which most people quite frankly aren’t.
You might enjoy Roald Dahl’s anteater poem, then. I am quite surprised that Google didn’t show you any dangerous Texas animals, though.
I can only say it seemed like a good idea at the time, given the post I was responding to.
Well, that’s good. Some days it’s a victory just to avoid offending anyone 
Yeah, I know a fair few farmers. Cattle farmers. They don’t carry guns. Or own a gun on the farm. For lots of reasons. Among them:
They make you a target for thieves who will then turn it on you
Terrorists could steal them
Or general armed robbers
Or any desperate preson
They are, it turns out, completely fucking unnecessary for a farmer carrying out their job of farming and husbanding the cattle.
Last time I was up visiting one came in, a cattle farmer all his life, who had had to kill during birth of a calf. He was pretty upset about it. It’s something you really don’t want to do. It’s kind of an important part of the job, keeping animals alive.
I don’t live in Texas obviously.
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so perfect. i need to figure out the image embed 
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I’ll add a little context…yes, I live in Chicago, but the bulk of my work is in Texas. And the bulk of my relatives are ranchers, and virtually every single person in my extended family owns multiple guns.
I really get sick and tired of how everyone has to be immediately labeled as team red or team blue.
To get back to the actual topic, the point is that TEXANS aren’t happy with open carry rights, now that they’ve had a chance to see some of the consequences.
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But that’s not the issue here. There aren’t rattlesnakes inside the McDonalds, or wolves in Bed Bath and Beyond. Open carry isn’t about having a lethal defense ready-to-hand while being the only human on thousands of acres of land.
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I’m down with that.
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Also, unless they’re sick or protecting young cubs, black bears will run away if they see you. Grizzlies with rip you into bite sized pieces if they feel like it.
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Which is impossible in an era of $1500 CNC machines, 3D printers and big box hardware stores- Unless you want every maker, craftsman, and homeowner on a watch list.
A few gun owners and CC license holders around here (Houston area) whom I have talked to don’t like the new law. They think it’s silly. But they, and I, have also remarked to each other that we have not seen a sidearm visible when out and about. When I do, I’ll report back. I see LEO’s with sidearms all the time, but none on regular citizens.
Yeah, the new OC law was designed to empower the gun fondlers, not the ranchers.
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That was @shaddack 's argument also. It seems specious to me that people can’t outlaw something based upon it being possible to do. If it wasn’t possible, it wouldn’t need to be illegal! Why should there be laws criminalizing robbery, rape, or murder if a person could simply choose to do it anyway? The fact that it would obviously still be possible to manufacture firearms is beside the point.
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The primary goal of banning firearm production isn’t to target individual craftsmen or makers. Instead it’s to ideally stem the huge tide of guns being produced at scale by major manufacturers. Individually, there’s no need for anything as Orwellian as a watch list, or as pre-crime-y as surveilling the internet for people looking at 3d models of firearms; just like current laws stating that all-plastic firearms are illegal (because they can’t be picked up by metal detectors, unless Congress has inexplicably let that infinitesimal degree of regulation lapse as well), if you get caught with one, you’re in for a world of legal hurt.
If you’ll indulge me delving briefly into a Sagan impression, I worry that our ability to democratize the levers of production for virtually anything under the sun is outpacing our development as socially responsible beings. The internet, 3d printing, and other technological advancements offer nearly endless promise if used responsibly, but they offer an equal portion of peril if used recklessly. It sometimes feels like we’re flying bass-ackwards into a Rodenberrian dystopia at a million miles an hour, eliminating the barriers to entry and production in all kinds of fields without removing society’s reliance on those same barriers for its basic operation (that is to say, we’re likely to have replicators and tri-cobalt explosives available at Best Buy long before we get rid of social and financial inequality).
I’m not advocating we take the Luddite road and just stop everything, but there are some pretty deep underlying social problems that we’re going to have to address at some point that are only going to be exacerbated by our accelerating technological development.
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As I am equally (perhaps more) unsure about the true potential and immediacy of threats from hog, wolf, or gator. Like you, I can imagine them, but that doesn’t make them probable.
I did enjoy that poem! Now I do like you.
I hope we’ve both learned something.
Yeah, I totally get the some days victory thing.
Cheers.
EDIT: I just wanted to be fair clear: Your link did show me some dangerous animals, (along with the ant, anteater, and some perfectly harmless reptiles) but not as many as you’d think. But still, none that warrant an armed, open-carry response.
Most LEO are not “highly trained in the use of firearms”. The standards to “pass” are remarkably low.
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I’m sitting here in silicon valley where even the topic of guns is borderline illegal. So I’m getting a kick.
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