By NATHAN KOPPEL
AUSTIN, Texas—On a sidewalk outside the Texas capitol Tuesday, where state lawmakers gathered to commemorate the start of the legislative session, a group pushing for relaxed gun laws staged a provocative demonstration: It was making a firearm.
Come and Take it Texas used a small machine that milled metal into the lower portion of a rifle, which group members planned to later assemble into a usable gun. The act was designed to illustrate the group’s view that the state is deluded in thinking it can completely control guns, said co-founder Phoenix Horton.
“This helps bring attention to our cause,” Mr. Horton said.
The protest, which even some gun-rights advocates criticized, was part of a larger rally at the capitol that attracted dozens of citizens wielding rifles and calling for a change to state “open-carry” laws. It foreshadowed the many hot-button issues likely to be debated in coming months by Texas legislators, who meet every other year and are poised this session to also tackle debates over immigrant rights and education funding, among other topics.
Texas has relatively few restrictions on the acquisition of firearms, but it is one of only six states that doesn’t allow people to openly carry legally owned handguns. Texas residents can openly display rifles and other long guns, however, which is why dozens of people at the capitol on Tuesday proudly toted rifles. Andre Esparza, a 43-year-old stay-at-home dad who traveled four hours from a town north of Dallas, carried a loaded shotgun on his back and a holster armed with a banana, to illustrate the point….
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