Open carry the new rule at the Alamo
Rick Smith
Austin (TX) American-Statesman
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
COMMENTARY
Open carry comes to Cradle of Texas Liberty
By Ken Herman - American-Statesman Staff
It’s been a landmark year for San Antonio’s most famous landmark. Several big changes were announced. Another one kicks in Friday as the new year begins.
You are hereby duly impaneled as a one-person jury to pass judgment on that latter change. Your options are good or bad, smart or dumb, necessary or are-you-out-of-your-mind nuts.
We’re talking, as we often seem to be, about guns. As of Jan. 1, thanks to a change in state law, and a decision by Land Commissioner George P. Bush, holders of concealed handgun licenses will be allowed to openly pack holstered heat in the Alamo.
And what’s more inviting at a tourist attraction than openly armed tourists?
(Side note: Open carry also will be legal in state parks not leased from the feds. Thursday’s American-Statesman will have a handy Q-and-A about the open carry law that takes effect Friday. Read it. Learn it. Live it.)
First, a quick review of the positive changes in the Alamo’s future as a result of efforts by Bush, whose agency runs the place. In early December, the state bought three buildings near the Alamo, property that could become part of a master plan the state and city of San Antonio are working toward to improve the feel of the Alamo part of the Alamo city. Among the buildings’ tenants are Ripley’s Haunted Adventure, 3D Tomb raider and an assortment of other tourist kitsch that don’t exactly scream sacred place in Texas history.
We’ll see how this redevelopment develops, but it sure looks positive. Thanks, commish, for helping to make it happen.
Bush’s agency also had to make a decision on the open carrying of guns at the Alamo, where the policy will differ from that in place at San Antonio’s other four historic missions, which are National Park Service facilities.
Greg Smith, the Park Service’s chief ranger at the other four missions, says concealed handgun license holders are allowed to carry concealed guns (and openly carried guns starting Friday) on the grounds, but not inside the missions. As churches, the missions are exempt from the Texas concealed handgun law, which governs where open carry will be permitted.
Unlike the other San Antonio missions, the Alamo isn’t a church.
“The Alamo’s current and future policy is to allow visitors to carry in accordance with state law,” Bush spokeswoman Brittany Eck said. “Therefore, the General Land Office will not impose any restrictions on the carrying of firearms or other weapons beyond those mandated by the Texas Legislature. Accordingly, those licensed to carry a handgun openly or concealed may do so in accordance with state law.”
I’ve heard from within the General Land Office that the open carry decision was the subject of some internal discussion. There’s probably someone at the agency who had some practical reservations about the wisdom of open carry at a popular tourist attraction. There’s also probably a GOP land commissioner at the agency who had some political reservations about the wisdom of doing anything that looks anti-gun-ish.
“Commissioner Bush is a handgun license holder himself,” Eck said. “He staunchly supports the Second Amendment and the rights of all law-abiding citizens to carry at the Alamo, the birthplace of Texas’ independence.”
It looks like there might have been no other choice about open carry at the Alamo.
My reading of the law (as always, I must disclose that I’m three years of law school short of a law degree) finds nothing that would allow barring of open carry at the Alamo. The law bars licensed holders from carrying — open or concealed — guns at a variety of places, including sporting events, jails, prisons, hospitals, nursing homes, amusement parks, places of religious worship and businesses that get at least 51 percent of their income from on-premises booze imbibery. Private businesses also can bar concealed or open carry of guns. (FYI: amusement parks, health-care facilities and places of worship that want to prohibit open or concealed carry must post signs doing so.)
The law makes no mention of government-owned cradles of liberty featured in at least two feature films in which David Crockett is played by either John Wayne or Billy Bob Thornton.
Former Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, a leading gun rights advocate (as a state senator, he sponsored the concealed handgun license law), told me, “There’s no way under the law (the General Land Office) can stop concealed carry or open carry at the Alamo. I know for a fact they had their attorneys researching if they could ban concealed and open carry, and I suspect the attorneys concluded correctly they couldn’t.”
FYI, there was a time in recent years when concealed carry was banned at the Alamo.
“We changed that, along with rescinding the alcohol ban in the reception hall. It’s on Alamo grounds but not within the footprint of the original Alamo compound,” Patterson said. “There was whisky and guns in the Alamo when Bowie, Crockett and Travis were there, and open carry was the norm.”
I doubt that open carry is about to again be the norm at the Alamo. But, come Friday, it will be legal.
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