At a news conference in Uvalde last Wednesday that felt all too familiar and hopeless, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick implored Texans to pray for the families of the 19 children and two teachers murdered last week at Robb Elementary School.
As Patrick said, “So, no matter what your thoughts are today, pray for these families, pray for this community. Give us wisdom. Give us wisdom. Right now, let’s focus on the families. They deserve it. They need our love. They need our prayers.”
“When you get 10 pro-Second Amendment bills to the governor, and he signs them all,” an NRA lobbyist crowed at the time to the Dallas Morning News, “I would rank it up there with one of the most successful sessions we’ve had since I’ve been doing this.”
And when mass shootings happened again in 2019 — first in El Paso and then in Odessa and Midland — Abbott still failed to act.
NRA-backed gun laws have failed to keep Texans, including our most precious and most vulnerable constituency — our children — safe. But they’ve thrilled the constituencies that truly matter in Republican primary politics: Second Amendment extremists and the gun lobby.
Founded to represent the interests of hunters and marksmen, and known for decades for expertise in gun safety, the National Rifle Association has morphed in recent decades into a morally, and fiscally, bankrupt lobbying apparatus in service to mostly gun manufacturers, opposing everything from background checks to research on gun crime.
There is room for loving the Second Amendment and for reasonable gun control. The late Antonin Scalia knew that. President George W. Bush knew that. Heck, even Trump knew that, when he ever-so-briefly challenged his party’s thralldom to the NRA and when he ordered the DOJ to ban sale of bump stocks. Gun control by itself may well not be enough to address the kind of madness these shootings represent. But it is an essential part of any reasonable response.
We call on Abbott, whose campaign war chest is comfortably overflowing in his reelection bid against Democrat Beto O’Rourke, to replenish his bankrupt conscience and do something, anything, to stop the blood of children and the tears of parents.
We call on O’Rourke as well to demonstrate the kind of leadership, passion and gun reform policy ideas that we’ve lost faith Abbott can provide.
And we call on ordinary Texans, some of whom will be watching the news and hugging their own babies tight, to take action.
Don’t just sit there and say, “My God, I have no words.”
Oh yes you do.
Go vote. Go fight. Those are all the words you need.
San Antonio Express-News
