Not necessarily the hats in general. It's the fact that there's a lot of pride involved(so I've been told) for Texan's wearing those hats in law enforcement, rangers, whatnot representing courage etc and all that type of stuff.
So it's more those with the hats on and not just the hats, when seeing the ones wearing them are basically front of the camera almost every news report standing there trying to be viewed as men of courage, pride etc when in fact it was they many of them showed the exact opposite and are being labeled as cowards, liars etc..