Gun restrictions in Texas unlikely
Activism in wake of Fla. massacre is not replicated
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas has more than 1.2 million licensed handgun owners who can openly carry their weapons in public. The state hosted the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting two weeks ago.
And until Monday, the governor’s re-election website was raffling off a shotgun.
Guns are so hard-wired into
Texas culture that last week’s deadly rampage at Santa Fe High School is considered unlikely to result in any significant restrictions on access to weapons in the Lone Star State.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott reacted to the killings of eight students and two teachers by calling for a series of roundtable discussions on school safety.
But the state’s 20-year dominance by the Republican Party all but guarantees that the meetings will be dominated by calls to boost school security and “harden” campuses, said Cal Jillson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University.
That’s in sharp contrast to the response to the Feb. 14 shooting rampage at a high school in Parkland, Florida. 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.
“The difference in Texas is the Republican Party is in complete control. It is unchallenged at the state level,” Jillson said. “Even the young people from Santa Fe are not full-throated advocates of gun control.”
In fact, at a church service Sunday, Santa Fe High student Monica Bracknell, who survived the shooting, told the governor the attack should not be turned into a battle over gun control.
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.
Abbott has said he wants the roundtable discussions to include lawmakers, educators, students, parents, gun rights advocates and survivors of the November church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, which killed two dozen people.
Texas holds primary runoffs Tuesday, meanwhile, and the Santa Fe shooting is not expected to be a deciding factor in any major race.
And it’s not just Republicans. Former Dallas County Sherriff Lupe Valdez, who is favored to win Tuesday’s Democratic gubernatorial runoff and face Abbott in November, has called for stricter background checks and closing of the so-called gun sale loophole.
But she was quick to add: “That doesn’t mean I’m against guns. I’ve worn a gun over 40 years. It means I’m against stupidity.”