A group of more than 250 self-declared conservative and Republican gun enthusiasts signed an open letter in favor of congressional action on gun law reform. The open letter was turned into a full-page ad in Sunday’s Dallas Morning News. The letter has three suggestions for gun law reform – create “red flag” laws, expand background checks, and raise the age to purchase a gun to 21.
If all of this sounds familiar, it is because it is. After the 2018 school shooting at Santa Fe High School, outside Houston, all of those suggestions were supported by Governor Abbott and other lawmakers. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick supported them, too, yet when the Legislature last met, the suggestions for gun law reform fell by the wayside. Instead, lawmakers passed a law that allows Texans to carry a handgun without a license or training. After the 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High school, there were mass shootings in El Paso and in Midland-Odessa in 2019.
Abbott supported red flag laws until he didn’t. These laws allow local officials to take a person’s guns if a judge declares them to be a danger, usually due to mental health issues. He ended up dropping the idea when he came under pressure from Republicans. In 2019, Dan Patrick said he was “willing to take an arrow” from the National Rifle Association and support expanding background checks. That idea also went by the wayside when the last legislative session was held.
Now the focus is on mental health issues and hardening schools. The two senators from Texas support some changes.
On the federal level, both Cornyn and Sen. Ted Cruz have A+ ratings from the NRA and are top Senate recipients of gun industry donations. But they’ve taken differing tacks in response to the shooting in Uvalde.
Cruz said in the wake of the massacre that passing laws that restrict gun access “doesn’t work. It’s not effective. It doesn’t prevent crime.” But Cornyn has shown a willingness, now and in the past, to support some bipartisan gun legislation.
The open letter ad was paid for my a major donor to Republicans. He was moved to take action after the mass shooting in Uvalde.
The ad was paid for by Todd Maclin, a former senior executive at J.P. Morgan Chase who now runs the Dallas-based finance firm Maclin Management. Maclin said he is a conservative gun owner who has been stirred to action by the shooting in Uvalde. He supports Senator Cornyn’s role in bipartisan talks in the Senate.
“These events have really motivated me and really gotten under my skin and encouraged me to support the effort that’s underway,” Maclin told The Texas Tribune. “I just felt like I needed to do something, and I also believe that there are reasonable things that can be done.”
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He said he is still hearing from more conservative gun owners who are feeling a “great sense of urgency and a great need to support [Cornyn] as he does his best to address these issues.”
Maclin said the group is focusing on federal legislation, which he believes is the best avenue to passing gun safety laws and ensuring they are applied uniformly across the country. He declined to comment on the state response to the shooting or gun legislation, except to say that he hopes any federal plan led by Cornyn and passed with conservative support would be embraced by state governments.
Among the signatories are deep-pocketed Abbott supporters, including billionaires Robert Rowling, whose holding company owns Omni Hotels, and Ray L. Hunt, executive chair of Hunt Consolidated Inc.
A call for federal legislation is something conservatives usually shy away from. A founding belief of the Republican Party is that government closest to the people is best. It’s Democrats who go for federal control over Americans, as opposed to state laws governing the people. Senator Cornyn was a good choice for Mitch McConnell to make as the lead Republican in bipartisan discussions. After the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting outside San Antonio, Cornyn worked on improving background checks with Democrats. He introduced the Fix NICS Act in the Senate, along with Senator Rick Scott and Democrats Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal. It improved the background check system and record-keeping, especially for people with felonies and domestic violence on their records. Federal agencies who do not keep records current are held accountable.
Cornyn has also said that he does not want to see the shooting used as a way to infringe on gun rights.
“There’s a whole list of things that we can consider, but I think particularly mental health, access to mental health treatment is high on that list,” he said, adding, “I think we need to be open to whatever, wherever the evidence leads us. I would say that this is not an excuse to infringe the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens doing that will do nothing to fix tragedies like this.”
This is a tough issue. However, there is some hope that Democrats finally may realize that they will not be able to do anything seen as extreme by Second Amendment supporters. Democrats need 10 Republicans to vote with them and that won’t happen with some of their more aggressive ideas. Even Democrat Senator Chris Murphy acknowledged on a Sunday morning political show that there will be no talk of banning “assault weapons” in current negotiations. He says many Republicans are willing to be a part of the conversation.
“I’ve never been part of negotiations as serious as these,” Murphy said. “There are more Republicans at the table talking about changing our gun laws and investing in mental health than at any time since Sandy Hook.”
We’ll see what happens. It’s going to take restraint on the part of Democrats to work with Republicans on gun laws and we know that Democrats aren’t generally predisposed to showing restraint these days – including the Big Guy in the White House. The Sunday show hosts were all quick to suggest it’s Republicans that are the problem, dutifully spouting DNC talking points. That’s not a serious way to start.
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