It has been stated before, but it warrants repeating -
The only power that the Texas legislature has relating to the RTKBA is to regulate the wearing of arms- whether it be the category of arms worn, the manner/style of arms worn , the location in which they are worn, the day/hour they are worn, or WHO may NOT wear them.
For 119 years the Texas Legislature did not regulate the above aspects of the actual "wearing" of arms, but chose rather to regulate particular classes of arms ( handgun, "illegal" knives, clubs, etc- all readily concealable)
Public possession of a handgun still remains a statutory criminal offense subject only to certain specified exceptions in Texas( CHL, sporting, traveling) even though the legislature has no legitimate constitutional power to regulate anything beyond the aforementioned "wearing" of a handgun- which "wearing" has of course been defined by Texas courts to be possession on, or about one's person- whether actually "worn" or not.
So in 1995 the Legislature voted in favor of a licensing program to allow for the CONCEALED wearing of handguns - even though there was and still is no State statute expressly prohibiting the wearing of a CONCEALED handgun - only a statute prohibiting the "wearing" of a handgun at all except under certain specific circumstances.
My point is this - the CHL is a license allowing a person to do something that the Texas Constitution says they can already do. What the CHL really does is restrict that "something" a person already has a lawful right to do- by mandating that the "something" be hidden from public observation. This essentially stands the intent of Article 1, Section 23 of the 1876 Texas Constitution completely on its head.
I guess I feel compelled to regurgitate the above thoughts every so often in the hope that someone will "turn the lights on " in the Texas Capitol in January 2013.