Things that make Moms Demand Attention spokescreatures sad…

…are bound to bring a smile to my face.

“Today’s vote to allow the open carry of handguns is not at all surprising — this session has been an alarming show of politicking that caters to a gun lobby agenda rather than listening to the majority of Texans and law enforcement who oppose the open carry of handguns,” Sandy Chasse, a volunteer with the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said in a statement. “There is no evidence to show the open carry of handguns makes Texas safer.”

Or more dangerous, for that matter, but we can just take your lies on that score as given. Can’t we, dearie?

Yes, Texas has gone – if not constitutional carry, at least the next best thing. No doubt there will be blood in the streets immediately, or at least no doubt some yammerhead will predict it.

I spent several years in the Texas panhandle, many years ago. I loved it immoderately and for quite a while expected to spend my life there, rather like the way I expect to die here many many years from now. But I did find the state to be kind of schizophrenic on the subject of gun rights. Up in the Panhandle there was simply no problem with guns and the law: Don’t flash it around, don’t cause trouble, [ahem: don’t be the wrong ethnic type; it wasn’t Utopia,] and even though unlicensed carry was technically illegal nobody would ever give a damn. And a lot of people took advantage of it: armed people were extremely common, and it had a palpable effect on the experience of living there – but not in a way an MDA flack would ever admit to.

Elsewhere in the state, though, attitudes and assumptions formed in the panhandle could get a fellow into trouble. Any big southern city had strict gun laws that were actually enforced. A place like Austin was damn near indistinguishable from San Francisco. It was weird.

Anyway, it’s good to see some Texas lawmakers actually coming around to the viewpoint of their constituents. For a change.