Dallas Police Chief Criticizes Texas Gun Laws, Calls Lawmakers to Act

On Monday Dallas Police chief David Brown criticized Texas laws that allow the open carry of rifles and said lawmakers must “do something on guns.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, Brown said, “We’re trying as best we can as a law enforcement community to make it work so that citizens can express their 2nd Amendment rights. But it’s increasingly challenging when people have AR-15s slung over their shoulder and they’re in a crowd. We don’t know who the good guy is versus the bad guy when everyone starts shooting.”

Proponents of open carry of rifles disagreed with Brown, pointing to the fact that open carriers were not the ones shooting, rather, they were the ones being compliant with police in the aftermath of the shooting carried out by a man determined to kill white officers. Because of this, one open carrier said, “The fact is that there is ample evidence on social media that law enforcement was not confused during the shooting about who was a good guy and who was a bad guy with a gun.”

It must be noted that it has been legal to openly carry rifles in Texas for decades. Yet the decades’ old law was also criticized by President Obama and Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings (D).

Breitbart News reported that President Obama criticized Texas open carry laws on July 9, thereafter tying police safety to gun control. And on July 9, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings (D) also criticized laws allowing Texans to openly carry rifles on their persons.

After calling lawmakers to “do something on guns,” Chief Brown said he does not want to get into the gun control debate “and get swallowed up by both sides who are entrenched in their positions.”

During the July 10 airing of Armed American Radio, host Mark Walters posed a question: “Would a ban on the open carry of rifles have prevented the Dallas Police ambush?” To ask the question is to answer it.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.