U.S. Texas goes permitless on guns, police face armed public: NYT

People participate in a demonstration to seek age raise for AR-15 sales in Austin, Texas, the United States, Aug. 27, 2022. (Photo by Bo Lee/Xinhua)

Texas is the most populous state in the country to do away with handgun permit requirements.

NEW YORK, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- Far from an outlier, the U.S. state of Texas, with its new law, joined what has been an expanding effort to remove nearly all restrictions on carrying handguns, reported The New York Times (NYT) on Wednesday.

"When Alabama's 'permitless carry' law goes into effect in January, half of the states in the nation, from Maine to Arizona, will not require a license to carry a handgun," said the report.

The state-by-state legislative push has coincided with a federal judiciary that has increasingly ruled in favor of carrying guns and against state efforts to regulate them, it noted.

"But Texas is the most populous state to do away with handgun permit requirements. Five of the nation's 15 biggest cities are in Texas, making the permitless approach to handguns a new fact of life in urban areas to an extent not seen in other states," it said.

Many sheriffs, police leaders and district attorneys in urban areas of Texas say there has been an increase in people carrying weapons and in spur-of-the-moment gunfire in the year since the state began allowing most adults 21 or over to carry a handgun without a license, it added.