AUSTIN — Texas is a hair’s breadth away from legalizing the licensed open carry of handguns after the state Senate late Friday approved the legislation following hours spent arguing over a controversial amendment that would limit cops’ ability to detain gun owners.

The Senate approved House Bill 910, which would allow properly licensed gun owners to openly carry their handguns in shoulder or hip holsters. The bill passed by a final vote of 19-12 and now heads back to the House, where that chamber’s members will have to agree with the Senate’s changes.

Debate was prolonged late into the evening after Dallas Republican Don Huffines proposed an amendment that would bar police from stopping someone solely for openly carrying a handgun in public. The emotional, heated and often personal debate was an unusual turn of events in the Senate, in which debate is normally highly scripted. An unusual coalition of Democrats and some Republicans banded together to oppose the amendment, saying it would tie the hands of law enforcement and put the public in danger.

Read more@Texas Senate OKs open-carry legislation – Houston Chronicle

Just a little closer

-GM