School shooting unlikely to bring gun restrictions

AUSTIN — Texas Governor Greg Abbott has vowed to address school violence and safety in the wake of another mass school shooting. But Abbott's call to do "more than just pray" for the victims comes in a state that has fully embraced its gun culture and resisted previous attempts to scale it back.

Earlier this month at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Dallas, Abbott himself said, "The problem is not guns. The problem is hearts without God. It is homes without discipline and communities without values."

The killing of eight students and two teachers last week at Santa Fe High School prompted the governor to call a series of roundtable discussions on school safety, starting Tuesday in Austin. Abbott said the discussions will include lawmakers, educators, students, parents, gun-rights advocates and shooting survivors.

"I am seeking the best solutions to make our schools more secure and to keep our communities safe," Abbott said. But few expect the meetings to result in any major push for new gun restrictions, especially in a state where more than 1.2 million people are licensed to carry handguns and are allowed to openly carry them in public if they wish.

The state's 20-year dominance by the Republican Party all but guarantees the meetings will be dominated by calls to boost school security and "harden" campuses — an idea backed by the NRA — instead of demands for gun restrictions, said Cal Jillson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University.

That's in sharp contrast to the response to the February 14 shooting rampage at a high school in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead. Three weeks after the bloodbath, Florida politicians defied the NRA and passed a gun control package after a lobbying campaign led by student survivors of the attack.

Gun control advocates around the country have long pressed for expanded background checks and a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, but such measures would probably have had no effect on the Santa Fe High shooting.