eli5: Texas Rangers

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I’m watching a documentary and the Texas Rangers are a big part of it. I only vaguely know about them from other docs and pop culture and now I’m curious-

Why are the Texas Rangers a thing? And why aren’t there similar, uh, I guess… departments? Services? like them in other states?

In: 0

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The Texas Rangers are an MLB baseball team, I guess you don’t mean that.

The Texas Ranger Division is a state law enforcement organization, which employes law enforcement people it calls Texas Rangers. It’s the investigative arms of what would be called the “state police” in any other state.

Texas has a separate State Police, because it used to be a country and these Texas Rangers were the FBI agents of that country. Texas loves opportunities to show it’s “special” in that it used to be a country, so the naming confusion is “a feature”.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The Texas Rangers are different for a few reasons, but the main one is that when the Rangers were created as Texas was an independent nation, the Republic of Texas, not a state. Texas was initially part of Mexico, until they seceded in 1835. The Texas Rangers had existed somewhat informally before then, but 1835 is the year they were formally created as a permanent agency. As a result the Texas Rangers are more like a federal law enforcement agency than a state one. I would say the closest comparison would be the United States Marshals Service, though that’s not really an exact one. Texas kept the Rangers around when they joined the United States in 1845. The reason that there isn’t a similar entity in another state is because no other state was an independent nation for that length of time (other than Vermont and Hawaii).

EDIT: Completely forgot about Hawaii and Vermont

0 views

I’m watching a documentary and the Texas Rangers are a big part of it. I only vaguely know about them from other docs and pop culture and now I’m curious-

Why are the Texas Rangers a thing? And why aren’t there similar, uh, I guess… departments? Services? like them in other states?

In: 0

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The Texas Rangers are an MLB baseball team, I guess you don’t mean that.

The Texas Ranger Division is a state law enforcement organization, which employes law enforcement people it calls Texas Rangers. It’s the investigative arms of what would be called the “state police” in any other state.

Texas has a separate State Police, because it used to be a country and these Texas Rangers were the FBI agents of that country. Texas loves opportunities to show it’s “special” in that it used to be a country, so the naming confusion is “a feature”.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The Texas Rangers are different for a few reasons, but the main one is that when the Rangers were created as Texas was an independent nation, the Republic of Texas, not a state. Texas was initially part of Mexico, until they seceded in 1835. The Texas Rangers had existed somewhat informally before then, but 1835 is the year they were formally created as a permanent agency. As a result the Texas Rangers are more like a federal law enforcement agency than a state one. I would say the closest comparison would be the United States Marshals Service, though that’s not really an exact one. Texas kept the Rangers around when they joined the United States in 1845. The reason that there isn’t a similar entity in another state is because no other state was an independent nation for that length of time (other than Vermont and Hawaii).

EDIT: Completely forgot about Hawaii and Vermont