From USA Today:

En garde! Texas open carry sword law takes effect Friday

SAN ANGELO, Texas — The phrase “everything’s bigger in Texas” is about to become even more clear-cut.

On Friday, Texans will legally be allowed to carry blades longer than 5.5 inches in most — but not all — places.

Good for Texas. Laws like these, especially in big hunting and outdoor recreation states states like Texas is common sense. Five and a half inches in not a terribly big knife. The almost ubiquitous Buck 119 has a six inch blade and can be found at just about every Wal-Mart in America that has a camping section. Laws like this allow hunters and outdoors enthusiasts to walk into a gas station or sandwich shop with their knife still on their belt and not break the law.

This includes openly carrying the famous Jim Bowie knife, as well as daggers, dirks, throwing knives, stilettos, poniards, swords, machetes and spears.

“Bowie knife” is the original “assault weapon.” There is no specific details of the original Bowie knife made by James Black for Jim Bowie. It is usually described as a large butcher knife. The only reason it is so famous or infamous is that Jim Bowie used it as his famed sandbar fight. The term Bowie knife pretty much means “a big fucking knife that scares Liberals.” Daggers, stilettos, dirks are similar. Yes, those have slightly more technical descriptions, but are people really carrying around 18th century double edge knives designed for ship to ship boarding parties in large numbers?

The new law was introduced by Republican state Rep. John Frullo this year but met resistance after a student was killed and three others were wounded at the University of Texas by a suspect wielding a hunting knife.

Some kid ran over students in a car attack on a campus in Ohio. That might as well be an argument for banning cars on campus. Good for Texas overcoming hysteria to pass good law.

It will still be illegal to carry a knife over 5.5 inches at:

• Bars and restaurants that derive 51% or more of their income from the sale or service of alcoholic beverages for on-premise consumption.

• Schools and universities.

• Polling places.

• Secure areas of airports.

• Racetracks.

• High school, collegiate or professional sporting events (unless the person is a participant in the event and a location-restricted knife is used in the event).

• Correctional facilities.

• Hospitals, nursing homes and mental hospitals (unless written authorization is given).

• Amusement parks.

• Churches, synagogues or other established places of religious worship. Also, people under age 18 will not be allowed to carry such blades if not directly supervised by a parent or guardian.

Eh… I don’t foresee a lot of people EDCing a full size Kabar so this doesn’t seem very restrictive to me.

The two wisest comments I saw on this topic are:

“I carry a pocket knife on my hip everyday. Have forever. Never killed myself or anyone else with it. Doubt I would if I chose to carry something bigger.”

– Charles Hodges

Totally reasonable. Under 99% of circumstances I agree. If I’m going on a fishing trip with the Boy Scouts, I might carry a bait knife with a blade longer than six inches. It’s all situationally dependent.

“Not too worried about it. Everyone made a big stink about open carry and I have not seen people going around shooting up people left and right like so many people said would happen. This won’t be any different.”

– Sandy Seidel

100% spot on.

Of course there were plenty of comments about how guys with tiny penises will Cary big knives or “who needs to carry a machete on them?” These are exactly the same arguments made against CCW and just like Sandy said above, none of that blood in the streets ever materialized.

Way to go Texas for expanding knife rights. Especially while so many other places are restricting them.