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148588 tn?1465778809

Guns permitted in Texas state psychiatric hospitals under open carry law

This is going to go well. Visitors to prisons can't carry, but visitors to maximum security psychiatric hospitals can. I wonder who they think is housed at those facilities.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/guns-permitted-texas-state-psychiatric-hospitals-article-1.2490274


"Guns are allowed for licensed visitors to state-run psychiatric hospitals under the new Texas open carry law, according to a report.

The law, which went into effect Jan. 1, gives the state’s roughly 900,000 gun permit holders the right to carry their firearms openly in belt and shoulder holsters, according to Governing magazine.

Visitors but not employees at 10 psychiatric facilities operated by the Texas Department of State Health Services can bring guns into the buildings where patients live, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

“I don’t know who concocted this idea, who thought this would be a rational policy for the State of Texas,” said Beth Mitchell with Disability Rights Texas. “It’s only going to going to create fear among the patients themselves.”

The hospitals provide both residential and inpatient psychiatric care for children and adults, and two of them house maximum security patients. The law prohibits both concealed and open carrying of guns at correctional facilities.

“With the new law in effect, we are putting up signs asking licensed gun holders to conceal their firearms or leave them safely in their vehicles before going into our state mental health hospitals," Health Services spokeswoman Carrie Williams said in a statement to the Daily News. "While licensed visitors are legally permitted to carry on our hospital campuses, our patients are being actively treated for psychiatric conditions and generally it’s best not to expose them to weapons of any kind."
2 Responses
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1029273 tn?1472231494
When I first read the title of your topic, I thought it was a joke. This is such a terrible idea...
Helpful - 0
163305 tn?1333668571
Wholly Moley, life gets crazier all the time.
Helpful - 0
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