Abbott calls for ideas that can end shootings
With a sense of urgency, Gov. Greg Abbott called Friday for state officials and affected parties to begin discussions next week to find ways to ensure the school shooting in Santa Fe that claimed 10 lives is not repeated.
“We need to do more than just pray for the victims and their families,” Abbott said at a news conference in Santa Fe hours after the shootings. “It’s time in Texas that we take action to step up and make sure this tragedy is never repeated, ever again in the history of the state of Texas.”
“I’m going to be working with members of the Texas Legislature, but also with members of our communities from across the state of Texas to begin with roundtable discussions beginning next week where we will assemble all stakeholders to begin to work immediately on swift solutions to prevent
tragedies like this from ever happening again,” Abbott said.
“We want to hear from parents, we want to hear from students, we want to hear from educators, we want to hear from concerned citizens, we want to hear from those who hold the Second Amendment right in high esteem, and we want to hear from everybody who has an interest in what has happened today so we can work together on putting together laws that will protect Second Amendment rights but at the same make sure our communities and especially our schools are safer places,” Abbott said.
The governor, who was joined by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick at the news conference, provided reporters with details about the police investigation of the shooting. Abbott said he had been planning the roll-out of gun safety recommendations in the next week or two — probably in the context of his re-election campaign. He mentioned a familiar litany of ideas, including speeding up background checks, developing strategies to keep guns out the hands of dangerous individuals, providing schools with more resources for safety personnel and paying more attention to links between mental illness and gun violence.
The most daring element of what Abbott said Friday was calling for an open discussion of gun reform with broad participation and uncertain results.
Abbott’s fierce defense of gun rights is central to his political persona.
In 2015 he tweeted, “I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let’s pick up the pace Texans.”
Speaking at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Dallas two weeks ago, Abbott declared, “The answer to gun violence is not to take guns away, the answer is to strengthen the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. The problem is not guns, it’s hearts without God.”
After a shooter killed 26 people in a Sutherland Springs church in November, state Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas, called for Abbott, Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus to create a commission to study the causes of gun violence in Texas, but he said he never heard back from them. Villalba was defeated for re-election in a Republican primary in March.
Texas Democrats said Abbott’s proposal for gun safety discussions was a good first step to address what they called the public health and public safety crisis of gun violence.
“We welcome that discussion. We’ve been ready to have it for a long time,” said state Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie, head of the House Democratic Caucus. “We welcome our seat at the table to have serious conversations about solutions to the gun violence epidemic in Texas and across this country.”
Straus, who is not seeking re-election, said he hoped school safety would be a priority in the Legislature’s next session.
Abbott said the roundtables will include two members of the Texas Senate and two members of the Texas House, to be named by Patrick and Straus, and a broad array of other interested parties, including victims and relatives of victims of gun violence, in schools and elsewhere, educators and gun rights advocates.
Patrick called for reducing the number of entrances and exits in schools to make it easier to police people’s comings and goings, and for retrofitting schools to make them more secure. He said it was time to think creatively and outside the box to come up with what he said are potentially expensive solutions to secure schools.
Patrick also pleaded with parents to make sure their legal firearms are locked away and not accessible to children. Abbott said the Santa Fe shooter used his father’s legal weapons.