Judson Robinson III is the president and chief executive of the Houston Area Urban League.

One of the more dangerous trends for firearms safety has been the increasing number of laws enacted to let licensed gun owners holster their weapons in public.

But when you see someone in a public space with a firearm in a shoulder holster or on their hip, you really don’t know whether that person is licensed. If police are called, they won’t know whether or not it’s a bad guy who needs to be challenged quickly. Racial profiling will likely lead to the unnecessary confrontations with minorities in many places, possibly endangering them.

Police won't know who the bad guys are and in high-crime neighborhoods fears could lead to confrontations.

And people openly carrying a firearm can become victims of their own hasty decisions which puts themselves and others at risk. Texas and 44 other states allow open carry. That’s a lot of people.

That means gun homicides will rise in poor, high-crime neighborhoods. It will become common for people to testify in court that they had to use their guns because they feared for their safety from someone else’s gun.

A measure intended to let people defend themselves could end up leaving more people dead.



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