Two of Houston's Most Popular Tex-Mex chains won't allow open carry. Craig Hlavaty, Chron.com
One of the area's most popular Tex-Mex chains announced this week that it wouldn't allow the "open carry" of firearms in its locations across the Houston area.
The legal counsel for Gringo's Mexican Kitchen made it known that his client would not welcome patrons seeking to carry firearms openly.
Open carry becomes legal in Texas on Friday for firearms owners with concealed handgun licenses. State and local officials are trying to determine what recent changes in state law mean for the carrying of firearms in government buildings, but private businesses still can choose whether to permit weapons on the premises.
The chain's owner, Russell Ybarra, also owns the Jimmy Changas chain of family Tex-Mex eateries. It also will also not allow patrons to carry firearms openly.
A number of other eateries have already decided against allowing open carry.
Good for them. As private entities they have the absolute right to bar any and all firearms from their premises. Just as people have the right to choose whether or not to eat there. This is not a problem, nor is it a crisis, nor is it somehow proof that the open-carry laws are ill-thought out or ill-founded.
While the Chronicle would have you believe that HEB, the Galleria, Gringos or Jimmy Changas making individual decisions is somehow a protest toward the law itself, in fact, it's not that at all.
(Full disclosure, my wife's favorite Tex-Mex chain has been, and will remain, Jimmy Changas so I'll be eating there)
Nor does this mean that Russell Ybarra is some left-wing revolutionary. If anything, he's friends with Michael Berry and is not a fan of government over regulation he might almost be considered conservative in his political leanings.
The point is this: Despite efforts to the contrary, the ideals behind open carry laws are not as insane as many in the TLSPM make them out to be. In fact, it's reasonable opposition to them, as in the case of Mr. Ybarra, to oppose them in urban, or crowded, public settings while still supporting the legislation overall. While I'm positively disposed to pro-gun legislation I find it perfectly reasonable for private establishments to choose to not have weapons on public display where people are eating, drinking and shopping.
The second point is this: The law "allowing" open carry did not "grant" Texans the right to do so. It removed a restriction on the right that the State had imposed due to the powers it received from the Federal Government. The State has this power due to the much-maligned 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Until January 1st, the State of Texas had not-recognized the right of citizens to carry firearms openly, it now does.
The idea that States (or, specifically, "the" State) "grant(s)" rights to citizens is a misnomer, an erroneous idea that's grown into orthodoxy in local, state and federal government.
Of course, there are also rights we set aside as the cost of living in a free and secure society. Often, the debate surrounding these rights (the NSAs metadata collection for example) can get just as heated because the arguments made generate from the same faulty logic. But that is a different matter.
Carried to its logical conclusion that idea leads to the same faulty logic that led to US Senate Democrats trying to "take away" the right of free speech, or to "strip the public" of the right to bear arms. The State did not grant these rights, and it cannot take them away minus the due process of law due to an act that would constitute (per the rules of civil society) someone losing those rights. That is, unless we LET them.
Private business owners on the other hand, can do this as a condition of being on their property, barring discrimination of protected classes per the dictate of the State. Until we understand the basic nature of Rights of the people vs. Powers of the State we are never going to get this debate back in the rational realm. Stupidity breeds stupidity after all. And when you consider both who wrote the law, and who is reporting on it, it's probably not all that surprising that we find ourselves where we are in regards to the debate over guns.
