Introduction

It is a little-known fact that Texas had some of the strictest gun regulations in the country during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Scholars today refer to these as “public carry laws” because they specified the circumstances in which people could publicly carry pistols, bowie knives, brass knuckles, and other small weapons. These laws did not magically appear, though. State legislatures spent a lot of time deciding what the policy should look like and how it should work. Representatives and senators in the Texas legislature introduced numerous bills about public carry, most of which ended in failure. Follow the process of turning a bright idea into a statewide law.