Enforcement of Public Carry Restrictions: Texas as a Case Study

Abstract

In ongoing conversations about public carry, many scholars make references to the enforcement of public carry laws. These references tend to claim that such laws were enforced in a racially discriminatory way, or perhaps not at all. This article presents data-driven conclusions about the enforcement of the 1871 deadly weapon law of Texas, the state’s primary public carry law which prohibited the open and concealed carrying of pistols, knives, and some other small weapons. The author collected this data from the extant criminal misdemeanor records of four sample counties, relying upon archival research rather than digital repositories to identify cases.