Lost in all the news about Houston is some good news in Texas.  As of September 1st, Texas will allow the open carry of larger knives.

The bipedal sphincters at CNN, having no personal or journalistic integrity what-so-ever, wrote about this back in July with the headline Soon you’ll be able to openly carry a sword in Texas.

The issue was that the carry of knives with blades larger than 4 inches was Illegal.  The new statute “as a compromise, the measure passed by changing the wording describing the blades from ‘illegal’ to ‘location-restricted.'”

Meaning that if you are out an about in a place where you might benefit from say, a 6 inch fixed blade, it’s perfectly reasonable to have one.

Working odd hours in rural Indiana and South Dakota, it was normal during certain times of the year to see guys come into the gas station or Wal Mart with hunting knives on their belts… because they were on their way out to the deer stand.

That is now legal in Texas.

I support the reduction on restrictions on knives.  They, like guns, are tools and the best tool for the job should be decided by the user not a bureaucracy.

In general, the places that are most restrictive to guns are also the most restrictive to knives, like in NYC where the city prides itself on arresting construction workers and electricians for carrying useful tools.

But, because people are stupid and the media is filled with assholes, rather than frame the new law as being situational dependent, to prevent people from being punished unnecessarily (the fisherman who stops for a burger with a filet knife on his hip) it goes straight to “there will be sword fights in the streets.”