Texas Neglect of mentally ill and loosening gun laws.

NRA logic says more crazies would mean more guns are needed to protect yourself, therefore Abbott deserves an A rating for doing his American duty preserving the 2nd.


More poor people? Moar guns solves that too!

Less talky of big government and more acty buying guns to protect yers!!!!

 

Texas shouldn’t host the NCAA’s Final Fours until it fixes its gun laws

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/02/ncaa-texas-championships-gun-laws/

excerpt:

If the NCAA had any moral standards, it would move next year’s Men’s and Women’s Final Fours — one scheduled for Houston, one slated for Dallas — out of Texas. It would move all of its other championships from the state, too. And it would vow not to return until Texas reforms its gun laws.

This is a moment to put the usual excuse-making aside and do something that affects more than the wallets of NCAA members. Decisive action — demanding legislation that might help prevent tragedies like the one in Uvalde — could get the attention of Gov. Greg Abbott (R), the state legislature and the corporations (notably hotels) that would stand to lose millions of dollars if the Final Fours were taken away. At the least, it would send a message about what the organization stands for.

There is precedent and evidence that the NCAA can leverage the impact of its events to protest political action — or inaction — and play a role in bringing about meaningful change. In 2001, when lawmakers in South Carolina refused to remove the Confederate flag from the state Capitol grounds, the NCAA announced it would not place any pre-scheduled events in the state until the flag was gone. In 2015, the flag was finally taken down and the NCAA began scheduling events there again.
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more at the link

 

I grew up in a different time, went to high school in a small Missouri town of ~15k souls. I was a weird, geeky kid, angst ridden, and unhappy with family, friends, and school, with divorced parents, one of whom was an alcoholic. Guns were everywhere, including in our house, handguns, rifles, and shotguns.

in 9th grade shop, our second project was building a gun rack (after the obligatory pig-shaped cutting board for mom). That gun rack, and a 22 rifle, 410 shotgun, and a 16 gauge pump, lived on my bedroom wall throughout high school. shells and bullets were kept in a separate closet, but still in my room.

Hunting was also a way of life, and we'd often go duck or dove hunting early mornings before school. We'd then roll up to the high school parking lot, strip off our hunting cammo, hang the guns in the gun rack in the back window of the pickup, and go to class. no-one thought anything of it.

I'm sure my experience was not unique, but if we are to accept now that guns are the problem with school shootings, we have to accept that they weren't a problem in schools 40-50 years ago. So something has changed. One can argue that semi-auto weapons are more pervasive now, but I'd counter that plenty of damage could have been wrought with a 12 or 16 gauge pump.

In many of the recent attacks, the perpetrators were known to LE or mental health officials. Better access to mental healthcare has to be part of any solution, as must reflag laws.

But what are we to do when those charged with the duty to protect our children are derelict?

 

I'm a middle aged man. My family didn't own firearms but I grew up around many who did including families that didn't properly secure their firearms. I remember as a teenager close friends taking me and showing off weapons from their families gun closet.

When I was 17 a good friend of mine got a shotgun for Christmas. A few weeks later he took his own life with that shotgun.

I can't say for sure whether he would've taken his own life if he had that shotgun or not but it certainly made it easier for him to do so.

School shootings happened before the 2000's. People in Texas should know that one of the worst campus shootings happened in 1966 at the UT. People have dired from easy access to firearms for a long time.

 

Survivor bias

 

There Have Been 13 Mass School Shootings Since 1966, Not 27 This Year
Don't conflate mass shootings with school shootings.

https://reason.com/2022/05/26/uvalde-texas-mass-shooting-statistics-gun-crimes-misleading/

 

True the problem has gotten worse but the idea that there weren’t school shootings before isn’t the case. Perhaps the internet, video game and lack of mental health treatment is a cause to the problem but when firearms are easily available there will be shootings.

Also again other countries have access to the internet, have access to video game and mental health problems.