You may remember that last week, members of the Tarrant County (Fort Worth/Arlington) chapter of Open Carry Texas showed up at a Fort Worth Jack in the Box armed to the teeth. Workers there were so frightened they hid in a freezer while calling the police to report what they thought was a robbery. Well, apparently that was too much for the statewide organization. Late today, Open Carry Texas decided to cut ties with the Tarrant County group.
C. J. Grisham, the president of Open Carry Texas, says what the group did was in clear violation of their bylaws (one of which is to contact police before a protest), so they’ve cut off all ties with the Tarrant County chapter.
“It’s one of those things that we’ve been in discussions with them about since the Arlington ordeal with the city council. I think the Jack in the Box incident was probably the [culmination] of that discussion,” says Grisham. “It’s two different groups, we wish them the best but we just had to make that distinction.”
Grisham subsequently told KRLD in Dallas that the split was a mutual decision of both the state and county chapters. But from the looks of it, this split wasn't at all voluntary.
It's hard to give Open Carry Texas much credit for this. After all, this is the same group that has recently begun taking the numbers of anyone who calls 911 to complain about their demonstrations and plastering them on YouTube--something which at best is illegal witness intimidation and at worst borders on stochastic terrorism. So what message is Grisham sending when he pushes out a chapter that doesn't call the police about its protests, but does nothing about his members putting 911 callers in danger? Not one I'd want to be associated with.