The Texas legislature will debate at least three possible open carry bills when they convene in 2015, but the gun prohibitionists of Moms Demand Action say they will fight any attempts to bring the Lone State State in line with the majority states which recognize some form of open carry.

House Bill 106 and HB 164 are similar bills that would grant anyone with a concealed carry permit the option of carrying a handgun openly or concealed, and seem to have the greatest base of support.

House Bill 195 is a more radical suggestion, doing away with the current concealed carry system entirely and allow citizens to carry the firearm of their choice either open or concealed without permits in a practice called “constitutional carry.”

Constitutional carry is currently practiced in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Vermont. Wyoming has constitutional carry for residents, but requires either open carry or a concealed carry permit for non-residents. Oklahoma recognizes constitutional carry rights for residents of the preceding states via reciprocity, as long as that person has valid photo ID identifying them as residents of those states.

While many gun owners would prefer constitutional carry, there are many others who feel that allowing the carrying of firearms without a minimum of legal training or firearms competency testing could contribute to both accidents and more gun crime. Concealed carry instructors also have an obvious financial interest in the concealed carry expansion models offered by HB 106 and HB 164.

WOAI reports that Moms Demand Action will fight any attempt to modernize Texas carry laws.

Several bills have been introduced to allow ‘open carry,’ in Texas and Governor-Elect Greg Abbott says he is ready to sign an open carry bill. Meanwhile, the well organized, Bloomberg-funded group ‘Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America’ says it is prepared to fight Open Carry legislation, saying it will make it a lot tougher for police to tell the ‘good guys’ from the ‘bad guys’ on city streets.

Moms Demand Action has made the same tired ” can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys” argument as they’ve attempted to convince a number of retailers to ban lawful carry of firearms in their stores, including their current campaign against Kroger.

Moms Demand Action’s argument is also simple to debunk. Why?

Criminals simply do not open carry firearms.

Criminals largely rely on the element of surprise in addition to any weapons they may have to carry out their crimes. This applies evenly to career criminals who do not want to draw attention to themselves for fear of drawing the attention of law enforcement, and to mass and spree killers who endeavor to keep their weapons hidden up until the moment they attack.

What Mom Demand Action is actually campaigning against is the normalization of firearms in society on any level, because such normalization makes their goal of restricting the constitutional rights of Americans that much more difficult.