Posted on 09/04/2019 10:56:30 AM PDT by Black_Rifle_Gunsmith
Texas Loosens Gun Laws after Shootings, Media Questions Why
Hours after shooting rampage, Texas gun laws loosened.
New Texas laws loosening gun control draw outrage from advocates after Odessa shooting.
Texas Allows Guns in Churches, Schools After Firearm Access Laws Expanded.
These are news headlines recently published by major outlets. CBS, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal mainstream media publications and journalists are crying foul of the Texas state legislatures decision to loosen gun laws in the wake two shootings in Odessa on August 31, and in El Paso on August 4. Many of these publications question why, in the face of mass gun violence, any politician or agency would reduce the restrictions placed on guns.
Yet this very question illustrates why the mainstream media is ignorant to the concepts of public gun safety and Second Amendment rights. To illustrate, lets dive into some of the new gun laws Texas just passed:
HB 1387 removes limitations on the number of faculty and staff that can be designated as armed school marshals per campus. Previously, just one marshal was allowed for every 200 students, or one per school. SB 535 clarifies that religious places of worship and other private properties must give notice to gun owners that firearms are banned on their premises. HB 1177 allows citizens to carry firearms without a license for one full week after a declared state of emergency. The law also instructs disaster shelters to accommodate gun owners. HB 302 prohibits landlords from banning tenants firearms in rental properties. SB 741 carries the prohibitions against home owners associations. HB 121 allows concealed-carry permit holders to leave a property that prohibits guns on the premises without legal action, if they promptly leave when asked.
The mainstream media like to claim that new, pro-2A laws like these only further increase the chances of gun violence. Journalists argue these laws show gun owners, Republican-controlled states, and Second Amendment advocates are desensitized to gun violence, that they dont care about mass shootings. Yet these laws seek to bolster the publics ability to respond to acts of gun violence. HB 1387 provides more protection for schools via trained and armed security, a natural deterrent to any threat. SB 535 and HB 121 provide greater regulation and written notice to concealed-carry permit holders, reducing the chances of altercations and armed trespassing incidents. HB 302 and SB 741 guarantee basic Second Amendment rights are protected for renting gun owners and homeowners who dont wish to be homeless.
Anti-Gunners Dont Get Why Restrictive Laws Arent Passed
Anti-gun advocates dont seem to understand why more restrictive gun laws arent being passed in the wake of public shootings. A monstrously anti-Second Amendment bill, H. R. 7115, was introduced in Congress in November 2018. It was quickly shelved. The bill explicitly calls for:
[prohibiting] the sale, acquisition, distribution in commerce, or import into the United States of certain firearm receiver castings or blanks, assault weapon parts kits, and machinegun parts kits and the marketing or advertising of such castings or blanks and kits on any medium of electronic communications, to require homemade firearms to have serial numbers, and for other purposes.
This bill would effectively ban most AR-15 kits and gun-making parts, including the black rifles recently popularized 80 lower receiver. Why wasnt it passed? The data show Americans dont want more gun bans. A Gallup poll conducted in fall 2018 showed that just 40% of Americans favor a ban on assault weapons.
Americans See Gun Control as Ineffective (Theyre Right)
Anecdotal evidence and surveys both show many Americans dont support new gun control, like the assault weapons ban. The reason is quite simple, but its a tired statement that must be reiterated: Criminal really do not follow gun laws. The Department of Justice reported that of 290,000 criminals who were in illegal possession of a firearm, 6% stole the gun. Seven percent found the firearm at the scene of another crime, and a whopping 43% bought their firearms on the black market. Just 0.% of criminals purchased their weapons at a gun show.
Another study led by Dr. Philip J. Cook of Duke University looked at the duration of the last link the elapsed time from the transaction that actually provided the offender with the gun in question. The survey interviewed 221 felons in Chicago, convicted of firearm-related offenses. The results are quite clear: More than two-thirds of the men obtained their primary gun within the last six months of their arrest (68%), while 19.3% possessed their gun for five or fewer days. Almost a quarter of respondents (22.6%) had never owned a gun six months before their current arrest. Of those who had, a majority acquired their primary gunthe one they possessed during their arrestthrough a purchase or trade (54.3%) and from a friend or acquaintance (56.9%).
More importantly: Respondents were almost all barred from purchasing a gun from a gun store because of their prior criminal recordas a result, their guns were obtained by illegal transactions with friends, relatives, and the underground market.
Indeed, extensive data does show that the gun control many politicians and anti-gunners advocate for would do little to quell gun violence. It is not an opinion that mass shootings shouldn't be normalized. They aren't normal. But what those opposed to gun rights fail to see is that restricting Americans' access to guns won't reduce violence. Those who carry out such acts will do so outside the law. The latest Texas shooter was legally barred from buying guns. He was judged to be mentally unfit for firearm ownership. Yet he carried out his shooting by illegally buying a gun "off the books". At this time, no anti-gun advocate has come forth describing a single gun law which would have prevented this shooting.
Maybe Texas is right to give more law-abiding Americans greater access to the Second Amendment.
The “media” is full of pinkos and perverts. Nobody gives a rat’s patootie what it thinks.
I see that you only post your own material.
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:blackriflegunsmith/index?tab=articles
Why is that?
I am from Texas! Yeah!!!!!
If more people had concealed carry, no sane person would risk their life in an exercise dealing with guns.
Hold on a minute, HG. There’s no link, no pmping, and no excerpting. So the usual assignations of error do not apply here, yes?
Why? Because we wanted it loosened.
Why? Because there would have been fewer if no deaths if someone there were carrying.
Perhaps the Constitution?
The laws were passed and signed months ago. Texas is not a dictatorship, that can cancel legitimately passed laws on an instant whim.
I didn't mention any of that.
I simply noted that he posts only his own material and asked him why.
Seems a perfectly valid observation and subsequent question to me.
This is great material. Thanks for posting.
The simple fact is that there are probably at least 1/2 billion guns in this country, and more are being bought every day. They are NOT going away, no matter how much in the way of registration schemes and effective bans the hoplophobes enact and try to enforce. This is particularly true with CAD/CAM and 3-D printing really coming into their own for individuals, even those with few of the traditional skills of metal workers.
As such, the best that society can do is to allow good and decent people to protect themselves from your common street criminal, and also the mentally-deficient who try (and often succeed) in carrying out a mass murder. It’d be nice if those taking psychotropic drugs, or those who clearly need them and who aren’t doing so, were reported by family members to medical and law-enforcement authorities for a quick examination/evaluation (without guns being seized), but that isn’t going to be effective over the long-run - people don’t take such reports seriously, and there are just too many of them. Perhaps another solution is to require every person taking psychotropic drugs to be examined by a psychiatrist every week or two, on the chance that they are the one in 100,000 or 1 in 1,000,000 who are made more violent by these drugs.
But truly the only solution is to not restrict the rights of innocent citizens to own firearms for their protection and that of their liberties. That’s what the 2nd Amendment is about (the latter, actually - defense against street criminals is a fringe benefit), and if we actually lived it across the country there would be a vast reduction in crime after an initial spurt when a lot of criminals would be given a dirt nap.
Guns aren’t going away, and the antis had better get used to that fact.
Oh, and I’m VERY glad to be living in Texas, rather than the dark and fascist Peoples Republik of New Jersey where I grew up. People in government are sane regarding firearms. You can even carry in the Statehouse!
They also choose to be ignorant of the Texas law-making process.
These laws only just now took effect - they had been voted on, passed and signed months ago.
I guess ignorance serves their purpose better...
How dare a state enable their citizens to defend themselves against the demon rats’/deepstate’s/left’s/media’s favorite helpers! /sarc
Texas, it’s like a whole different country. Don’t mess with Texas....or Texans.
An armed society is a polite society.
Because the ones we already have don't work.
More laws for the criminals to ignore are not going to change things.
Texas sayin’: there’s more men need killin’ than horses need stealin’.
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