Texas to allow unlicensed carrying of handguns – By BBC Newsroom (BBC) / May 25 2021
Texas legislators have passed a bill which would allow most people to carry concealed handguns without a permit.
Current state rules require those carrying handguns to have a licence, training and background checks.
But Texas’s Republican-run senate has voted to drop the restrictions.
The bill has been sent to Governor Greg Abbott, who has said he will sign it into law – despite warnings from gun control groups that it could endanger the public.
Texas has some of the loosest gun laws in the US and already allows rifles to be carried in public without a licence.
The new measure would allow anyone aged 21 or older to carry a handgun unless they have past criminal convictions or legal restrictions on them.
Supporters of the new rules, often known as “constitutional carry”, say they would allow Texans to better defend themselves in public and abolish unnecessary limits on the constitutional right to bear arms.
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