'Nothing scary about Open Carry' rally directed at Acevedo

Long guns, black powder pistols...anything that is currently legal to carry openly here in Texas was fair game for the "Nothing scary about Open Carry: Chief Acevedo education rally" at APD Wednesday.

"I don't have a problem with APD troops. Or officers on the street. I have a problem with their police Chief," said Open Carry President CJ Grisham.

Grisham held the protest against the backdrop of the bullet-ridden APD headquarters...still in disrepair after a gunman fired on the building last November.

"There are pot marks in the concrete! Bullet holes all over the place! Really, Art? Are we keeping guns out of the hands of criminals? Is keeping me from having an open carried pistol going to prevent that in the future?" Grisham said in his speech at the rally.

Grisham has a problem with the Chief's public statements on open carry. So he read many of them aloud.

Like what the Chief told Fox 7 last month after an amendment was added to the House version of the Open Carry bill prohibiting peace officers from stopping and questioning someone based solely on the fact the person is openly carrying a handgun in their holster.

"Open Carry in a situation where law enforcement can't even ask...I think is a recipe to allow anybody...whether they're drug cartel members here that are from part of Mexico or you know gang members or anybody that wants to...to walk around with guns. And law enforcement, there's not a thing they can do about it as long as they just have it holstered and...can't even ask a question," Acevedo told us last month.

"And I say 'great!'' Because I don't see law enforcement coming out here demanding to see that I can lawfully carry these rifles. So what's so different about a handgun?" Grisham said.

One of the speakers who only wants to go by "David" is from West Virginia, an Open Carry state.

"It's important for the people of Texas to know that when people carry modern handguns around town, it doesn't cause alarm. Nobody notices it. No one cares about it. No one calls the police about it. And the police are just fine with it as well," he said.

Chief Acevedo says he's not against Open Carry. But he says it makes more sense in rural areas...not in heavily populated cities like Austin.

CJ Grisham says gun owners shouldn't have to surrender their rights when they cross an imaginary boundary to an area that has more buildings than out in the country where he lives.