Gov. Greg Abbot signed the Texas constitutional carry bill into law. Now, Texas residents can carry their guns in peace without jumping through all the hoops previously required–and unlike some constitutional carry states, Texas actually had some hoops you had to jump through beyond just applying for a permit and maybe getting fingerprinted.
It’s good for gun rights.
However, there was also a shooting in Austin not too long ago, and it seems Abbott’s timing is a problem, based on headlines like this: “After Austin mass shooting, Gov. Abbott signs into law suite of gun rights bills”
Of course, the text of the report isn’t much better.
Less than a week after a fatal mass shooting on Sixth Street and amid rising concerns about violent gun crime, state Republican leaders and gun lobbyists gathered for a celebratory press conference, where Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law seven bills expanding gun rights, including one allowing permitless carry.
In other words, all pro-gun movement must cease in the wake of a mass shooting, on the anniversary of a mass shooting, or really any time anti-gunners think it’s insensitive to expand a basic constitutional right.
Yeah, I’m going to call BS on that one.
I mean, I might be willing to let it slide if both sides played by the same rules, but they don’t. The very people decrying Abbot’s timing would celebrate it if he’d signed a gun control bill. The timing wouldn’t have been insensitive in their minds, it would have been perfect.
See, they expect us to stand perfectly still anytime there’s anything they want to call a mass shooting, yet they won’t do the same. For them, it’s perfectly acceptable to start talking about gun control measures even before the facts are known. How many times have we seen them on CNN or MSNBC talking about how we need an assault weapon ban as part o the initial coverage of a mass shooting, only to find out later the gunman used a handgun?
All the damn time.
But that’s perfectly acceptable. They can do that because of their self-righteous thinking, the idea that they are on the side of the angels while we all knowingly work to advance the forces of evil.
Seriously, that’s not even really hyperbole. They really think that we really know gun control works and that it will save all kinds of lives and opt to stand against it because we’re either evil or brainwashed.
Yet because of that thinking, they believe they’re entitled to do anything at all they want and that we should be shackled. This is something Abbott clearly doesn’t agree with.
However, there are other Republicans who apparently do. They seem to think that if they play by the “rules,” they’ll be liked. Never mind that the rules are stacked in the favor of those who wish to oppose our constitutional rights. That simply doesn’t matter, because what matters is that we play nice.
Meanwhile, gun control activists can stand around and push for any legislation they want and the timing is completely irrelevant.
Look, I’d be fine with some kind of moratorium on talking politics in the wake of a mass shooting. I don’t like talking about the political issues surrounding these horrible events while those events are still taking place. Plus, we don’t have all the facts anyway, so why not wait until we do?
But I’m not going to play a rigged game. Especially when human lives really are on the line.
Abbott did nothing wrong by signing the bill when he did. Hell, he could have signed it on the very day of the shooting, just hours afterward, and he still would have done nothing wrong.
Frankly, if anti-gunners want to claim that timing somehow matters, then we should start holding them to their own rules. I doubt they’d enjoy it very much.
