Faith leaders across North Texas have two weeks to decide whether to allow members of their congregations to openly carry firearms inside places of worship.
The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, gives businesses the option to prohibit open carry.
"We have decided that we are not going to allow anyone to openly carry firearms on our campus, especially during church activities," said Ben Lovvorn, executive pastor of operations at First Baptist Church in Dallas.
First Baptist does allow its members to carry concealed handguns, and Lovvorn said the church knows who is armed. Instead of posting the necessary signage to ban open carry at the church, Lovvorn believes parishioners will comply with the church's request to conceal their firearms.
"We just recognized that if anybody comes in and they're openly carrying a firearm, that's going to be a distraction from worship. We're not putting up the signs because we don't want the signs to be a distraction," he said.
The Catholic Diocese of Dallas is going a step further and will post signs stating that openly carrying firearms is prohibited at it 75 member churches.
"Bishop (Kevin) Farrell along with the Catholic bishops around the country have made the decision that our churches are houses of worship. They believe that there is not a place in our churches for guns or weapons," said Catholic Diocese of Dallas spokeswoman Annette Gonzales Taylor.
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The Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth and Shearith Israel, one of Dallas' largest Jewish congregations, have yet to determine an open carry policy.
Open Carry Texas, a statewide activist group that helped push the open carry law through the state legislature, has asked churches not to post signs banning firearms. The organization believes advertising that a congregation is unarmed could make it a target, though the group's president, C.J. Grisham, has asked that gun owners conceal-carry while at church.
While gun advocates believe open carry increases safety, Taylor said the diocese does not want parishioners to feel uncomfortable.
"We have heard from parishioners who have said that they believe they would feel uneasy if they did see people with guns openly displayed," she said. "We've asked our pastors to assess their security plans and to have a heightened awareness, and most of our parishes do have off duty police officers, law enforcement, that serve as security during their services."
