Uvalde and Austin, Texas – At the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association (NRA), thousands of gun enthusiasts loudly applauded Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz as he encouraged the crowd to stand up for their politicians. liberals whose “real goal is the disarmament of America’s nuclear weapons”.
“The problem is not the gun, it’s the evil,” Cruz said.
Cruz was speaking three days after an 18-year-old man killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers in the southern Texas town of Uvalde – the deadliest school shooting in a decade in a county where the Such tragedies have become all too common.
Texas leads the nation in gun matters death according to the most recent data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 4,100 people die from guns in 2020 – from suicides, homicides and mass shootings. Over the past five years, a series of horrific mass shootings have rocked the state of Texas.
Massacre after massacre after massacre, including Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde on Tuesday.
“Texas has repeatedly seen the face of evil. I was on the ground after these tragedies. I was in Dallas in 2016, in Sutherland Springs in 2017, in Santa Fe in 2018, in El Paso and Midland-Odessa in 2019, and now in Uvalde,” Cruz said, listing the row-by-day shootings. recent series in Texas.
Despite the murders, Texas’ gun laws were only relaxed during that time because NRA and politicians like Cruz.
If Texas is the epicenter of gun violence in the United States, then Cruz may be the pro-gun movement’s most prominent standard-bearer – one who represents one side of the polarizing gun debate in the United States. , a view that gun advocates say is grounded in the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, which in part says “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”.
‘Good man with a gun’
Exile Firearms, a gun shop in Uvalde, is located in an almost treeless industrial area about 200 meters from a US Border Patrol station.
On Friday, a longtime Uvalde resident briefed one side of the political debate about guns in America as he sat in a pickup truck outside a gun store. (The Uvalde rifleman bought his gun at another store in town.)
Any restrictions on guns, including raising the legal age to buy a rifle – Texas allows 18-year-olds to buy AR-15 rifles – would be a slippery road to more and more restrictions , said the 24-year-old resident. He asked to remain anonymous, citing his employer’s policy.
“Gun restrictions will not stop this. Methamphetamine is illegal and people still get it,” he said.
“The only way to stop a bad guy from having a gun is for a good guy to have a gun,” the man added, echoing a commonly used NRA tactic.
In an online statement the day after the Uvalde shootings, the NRA said it would “pray for the victims, recognize our patriotic members, and pledge to redouble our commitment to ensuring the safety of our loved ones.” our school”.
NRA has used money and its effects Nicole Golden, executive director of Texas Gun Sense, a bipartisan non-profit against gun violence.
The NRA has donated at least $442,000 to Cruz’s political campaigns, according to OpenSecrets, a government transparency group. The gun group has also spent more than $2 million over the past five years lobbying Texas lawmakers as they relax gun restrictions in the state.
And the organization has been successful in promoting the notion that guns actually make people safer, Golden said.
A 2021 University of Texas / Texas Tribune Opinion poll shows 61% of Republicans in Texas, an overwhelmingly Republican state where a Democrat has not been elected to statewide office in nearly three decades, believe the United States would be safer with more more gunmen. But public opinion about gun rights and gun control in Texas is not a monolith, Golden said.
“I’ve been in this business for 10 years and there are a lot of gun owners in Texas who don’t care about fear-based narratives,” said Golden. “They pride themselves on being responsible gun owners. They understand there’s a problem and they’re not against conventional gun regulations. “
By midday Saturday, cars and pickup trucks filled the parking lot of The Range in Austin, a shooting range and gun store in Austin, Texas, about 260km (160 miles) from Uvalde. In a series of interviews, patrons have expressed concern about potential gun restrictions in the wake of the Uvalde mass shooting.
‘Can’t adjust the madness’
Adrian Ramirez, 28, an Austin resident who works for the shipping company DHL, went to The Range to take pictures with friends.
“I believe in the Second Amendment, and we need to be careful about any new gun restrictions,” Ramirez said. When asked about the possibility of raising the age to buy rifles from 18 to 21, Ramirez looked at his friends.
“That’s something we can look at,” he said.
That would be wrong, says Michael Cargill, 53, owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin. “Are you 18 years old in [Uvalde] people who work on farms and people who need rifles for wild boars and things like that,” said Cargill.
“A madman walks into an elementary school and kills babies. Changing the law will do nothing,” he added. “You can’t regulate the madness.”
Advocates like Golden say the common denominator in recent mass shootings is easy access to guns and high rates of gun ownership in the Lone Star State. estimated 46 percent Texans live in a household with a gun – dismissing the story about the nice guy with a gun.
During the Uvalde shooting, up to 19 armed members of law enforcement were in the hallways of Robb Primary School while the shooter was in a classroom with teachers and students, some of live, said Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department. on Public Safety, during Friday’s press conference.
‘Politics and theater’
After the recent mass shootings, Cruz and other Texas Republican politicians continued to double down on “solutions” that didn’t seem to work — namely, looser gun laws and more guns. After signing legislation in 2021 easing gun restrictions, Governor Greg Abbott remained defiant.
He said in a Press Release.
One of the measures, the so-called no-carry bill, allows Texans to openly carry handguns without any training or permits. Texas adults were able to carry long guns without a permit. Another measure allows guests to store guns in hotel rooms. Another legalized gun silencer.
“You could say I signed into law today some legislation that protects gun rights,” Abbott said as he signed the no-carry bill in June 2021. “But today, I signed it. documents that give freedom to the Lone Star State.”
Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, said Abbott doesn’t believe Republican rhetoric about guns, but “he was threatened and he knew he had to support it. it to be re-elected”. NRA has[%7B1%7Cgro=c-r-ot,d-eid” target=”_blank”>donated about $11,000 to Abbott’s political campaigns.
“The NRA has gotten Republican voters to believe guns are critically important to protect themselves from others and from their own government,” Jillson said. As for Cruz, “he always thinking about the political ramifications of what he might say. For him it’s politics and theatre”.
‘Is this the moment?’
The day after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in this predominately Latino town of about 16,000, Cruz attended a prayer vigil at the Uvalde County Fairplex, a venue usually home to rodeos and bull riding. A scrum of reporters surrounded the senator as he was leaving and peppered him with questions.
“Is this the moment to reform gun laws?” a reporter asked.
“It’s easy to go to politics,” Cruz responded. “I get that that’s where the media likes to go.”
The reporter continued to pressure the senator. “Why does this only happen in your country? I just want to understand why you do not think that guns are the problem.”
Cruz said: “You know what … this kind of politicisation … why is it that people come from all over the world to America? Because it’s the freest, most prosperous, safest country on Earth.”
The senator pointed his finger towards the reporter’s chest. “And stop being a propagandist.”
