A distraught Uvalde community spent last week grieving at the first funerals of children slaughtered in their classroom. Republican elected officials did what they always do after a mass shooting.
Nothing.
Oh sure, Republicans in Congress and the Texas Legislature condemned the Uvalde shooting, while pointing fingers at video games and too many school doors and a lack of mental health services. Some advocated for arming teachers and “hardening” schools. Gov. Greg Abbott resisted calls for a special session and instead called for legislative committees to study school safety. But few, if any, Republican politicians were honest enough to admit that it’s easy-to-access, ferociously powerful guns that are causing so much death and anguish in our communities.
As frightened, exasperated Americans once again demand at least modest gun reforms to help prevent more mass shootings, and as Uvalde continues to bury its children, Republican lawmakers say they’ll do nothing about guns because guns aren’t the problem.
We can’t let them get away with that. If elected officials won’t answer to the American people, we must vote them out. Clearly, Americans, and yes, even Texans, want modest gun restrictions like universal background checks, a higher minimum age for gun purchases and limits on magazine size. So what’s the holdup? At least some Republicans are bold enough to admit that their intransigence is a cold political calculation. Asked why he won’t budge on gun control after Uvalde, Congressman Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said Republican voters would “probably throw me out of office.”
That’s an infuriating thing to say when polls show widespread support for reforms, even among Republicans and gun owners, both nationally and in Texas. Americans are dying in mass shootings with maddening frequency, but timid Republicans won’t stand up to their base, blocking even the most modest proposals for reform.
Abbott, running for reelection in November, bellowed outrage at a news conference the day after the Uvalde massacre. Afterward, however, he rebuffed calls for a special session on gun reform. We applaud Democrats in the Texas House and Senate who are leading calls for the legislature to reconvene and address one of the most urgent issues of our time.
Abbott called special sessions last year to deal with voting restrictions and transgender kids in sports. Are the senseless, violent deaths of innocent Texans not as important? Texas has had more school shootings than any state. We’ve seen six such massacres during Abbott’s eight years in office, resulting in 92 innocent lives snuffed out. But instead of tightening access to guns, Abbott last year proudly signed a law allowing anyone over 18 to carry one without training or a permit.
Texans don’t need more studies. We don’t need more committees or roundtables like the one the governor convened — and then ignored — after the 2019 El Paso mass shooting. Gov. Abbott, call a special session immediately so lawmakers can hammer out a common-sense, bipartisan proposal to help keep our kids safe from gun violence.
Most Texans don’t want to ban guns; they just want sensible safeguards. A majority of Texans support raising the legal age to buy an assault rifle from 18 to 21. They also support red flag laws to allow seizure of guns from those a court deems dangerous. These and other proposals would cost far less than the billions it would take to turn our schools into fortresses, as Sen. Ted Cruz has advocated.
“The elites who dominate our culture, tell us that firearms lie at the root of the problem,” Cruz said during a dreadful speech to the NRA conference in Houston four days after the Uvalde massacre. “It’s a lot easier to moralize about guns and to shriek about those you disagree with politically, but it’s never been about guns.”
Does Cruz think Americans are stupid? Of course, it’s about guns.
The NRA and Republicans like Cruz dishonestly characterize every call for gun reform as an attack on the 2nd Amendment. They’re coming to take your guns, they say. Nonsense. Our elected officials can approve moderate gun restrictions without touching the Constitution. Congressional Republicans could come to the negotiating table with Democrats to enact at least some common-sense reforms before November.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn is at least willing to discuss gun reform and is leading Senate Republicans in early discussions with Democrats. That’s a small step in the right direction.
Texas lawmakers can do their part. Abbott should lead and call a special session, and lawmakers should adjourn only when gun reforms are enacted. Our lives, and the lives of our children and grandchildren, could depend on it.
Austin American-Statesman
