The Deadly Weapon Laws of Texas

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The Deadly Weapon Laws of Texas

The Deadly Weapon Laws of Texas

Presented by the Fort Worth Public Library and The Center for Texas Studies at TCU, these workshops are aimed at increasing the historical awareness of the community. The series is designed to make the public aware of the important, yet often overlooked historical resources around them, and how to preserve them for posterity. The goal of the workshops is to prove that “every person is a historian,” and that they can, by their deeds and actions, preserve a small part of the cultural and historical fabric of this region. Register for the virtual events here: http://fortworthtexas.gov/library/programs/community-history/

November 7, 2020 – The Deadly Weapon Laws of Texas

Brennan Gardner Rivas, Ph.D.

Lecturer, TCU

How do you picture Texans protecting themselves in public when much of the state was still a frontier? Contrary to popular stereotypes, Texas had some of the strictest weapon regulations in the country during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this period, Texas enacted a series of regulations commonly referred to as deadly weapon laws. These laws prohibited the carrying in public of concealable weapons such as pistols, bowie knives, and brass knuckles. Drawing from a wealth of county criminal records, Rivas will discuss why the laws were put in place, how the laws were enforced, and what happened to people who violated these laws.

Brennan Gardner Rivas is currently a lecturer at Texas Christian University. She received her Ph.D. from TCU in 2019. Her article “An Unequal Right to Bear Arms: State Weapons Laws and White Supremacy in Texas, 1836-1900” was published in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly in January 2018. She recently received the Bill & Rita Clements Fellowship for the Study of Southwestern America for the 2020-2021 academic year.