AUSTIN, Texas -- There are more visible signs of stepped-up security at the Texas State Capitol Building starting this week.
All Texas Department of Public Safety Troopers assigned to the Capitol will soon be carrying M4 semi-automatic rifles on the job.
The enhanced security move came after a January shooting on the grounds of the Capitol Building. Fausto Cardenas, 24, was arrested with a handgun and a knife after he fired at least six shots outside the Capitol.
In May, Capitol security installed metal detectors at the south entrance.
On Monday,only one state trooper at the Capitol was carrying an M4. Several more troopers will be armed with the new weapons in the very near future.
Tourists at the Texas Capitol who got a glance of the lone trooper with an M4 on Monday told KVUE the weapons may take some getting used to.
“When they have those guns like that, I feel like they're about to have to do something to somebody. Something's about to happen,” said Michael Lee, a young man from Galveston touring the Capitol with his family.
“I can understand it being behind the scenes, but if they're openly carrying it, then it might be a little off-putting to some of the visitors,” added Vincent Verduzco a tourist from El Paso.
Jim Orr, the owner of G.T. Distributors, Inc., the North Austin company which sold DPS the weapons, says the state agency purchased 3,400 M4s several years ago for all troopers, except for those at the State Capitol. According to Orr, DPS is in the process of buying 300-400 more, weapons which cost about $900 apiece.
Orr adds that the M4 semi-automatic rifle now used by Capitol troopers is much more safe and more accurate than the .357s still in use by Capitol DPS.
“Really, it's a safer round to use inside a building than actually the trooper’s handguns," Orr said. "There’s a lot less penetration. it's much more accurate than the trooper's service handgun. They can engage targets at a greater distance. They can also engage closer targets with more accuracy, therefore they're not hitting unintended targets. The differences between the military M4 and the D.P.S. M4 [is that the trooper's weapon] is semi-automatic. It's not fully automatic and it has a civilian legal barrel length.”
No one from the Department of Public Safety wanted to talk about the enhanced security measures. However, a spokesperson for the agency said she hopes the M4s are more of a deterrent to crime.
