Bullies: I Told You So!

The Texas Concealed Handgun License Law passed in 1995 and became effective January 1996. It seems to me that we are working now with almost 10 years of experience and data from the Concealed Handgun Law and yet we have not seen any real use of the legislation where a concealed carrier has throttled a threat of any major nature. We also have seen very little abuse of the system—proof that by enlarge most licensed concealed carriers are law abiding citizens—a compliment to the license screening conducted by the State.

I felt very against the provision when it was initially debated and still feel the same way. Those that pushed through the legislation in the 90s were one contingent, but those pushing the further extension of the provisions are of another nature entirely—bullies! They have divided both the Texas Senate and the House of Representatives right along party lines—the votes dramatize this phenomenon very well. How else does one explain this?

These Republicans cannot be that much smarter than their Democrat colleagues—if they were, they would be in business making real money instead of living in Austin for 140 days every other year.

The Bullies have taken over the Texas Senate and quite possibly the House of Representatives. What bills pass routinely do so on a party split vote 20 to 11 (Republicans over Democrats). I don’t think ether groups have their finger on the pulse of their constituents at all. It’s always the same few “fringers” who demonstrate and show up when the need arises. We saw that earlier this year with the questionable actions of those guys up in the Ft. Worth area—their stories quickly changed when the microscope was applied.

Here’s the two questions I ask myself when the original legislation was proposed:

(1)   What if something does happen and some CHL holder helps stop the threat? Those pushing the legislation will proudly step forward and say: “I told you so!”

(2)   What if the legislation is not passed and down the road something does happen and nobody is there to help stop the threat? Those pushing the legislation will proudly step forward and say: “I told you so!”

After almost ten years, the “fringers” haven’t been able to point to a single Texas situation that really proves the need for their cause—a solution still in search of a problem. Oh, there have been the here and there problems around the country, in general, that have taken place and there remains doubts that a single hand gun in the area would have made anything but a marginal difference.

My original questions remain the same today as back in 1995. The question needs to be put in front of the everyday Texan. Of course there is no hope of that happening because the Repubs draw the voter boundaries and remain elected in spite of their records and value to Texas.

I wrote earlier about putting this in the hands of the people conducting business and their life in the public sector:

“I am not going to sit in a crowded restaurant with some yahoo who has a gun strapped to his belt (or shoulder) with my family. I am going to calmly get up and exit the establishment and never return until the owner recognizes that he has a business problem and does something about it.

I call on every right thinking Texan to let the businesses where they conduct their lives to know how they feel about guns in their surroundings.”

(See Guns, Guns Everywhere – 20 March 15 below)

Additionally, I would propose that we start proliferating our message using the HashTags: #OpenCarryDoNotGoThere and #OpenCarryDoNotGoHere

The message needs to get out.

Guns, Guns Everywhere

I’m watching these debates that have taken place over the last couple of days in the Senate Chamber (& over the last several years) and I still wonder when will the cooler heads prevail?

The Senate is supposed to be the “more mature” chamber, but it looks like this is no longer the case.

The Gun Legislation is a bad deal. I don’t know if this will make one iota of a difference in the landscape of the safety in Texas; it doesn’t seem to have so far with the CHL license.

From a practical point of view, I wonder what is going to happen when patrons of business establishments (of all kinds) will do when they start losing business because people start walking for the door when they notice gun totters enter a business.

I am not going to sit in a crowded restaurant with some yahoo who has a gun strapped to his belt (or shoulder) with my family. I am going to calmly get up and exit the establishment and never return until the owner recognizes that he has a business problem and does something about it.

I call on every right thinking Texan to let the businesses where they conduct their lives to know how they feel about guns in their surroundings.

I have been a lifelong hunter and gun owner and have always known there are some out there that will stretch the beliefs as far as they can chunk them. Nobody in their right mind sees a problem here needing a solution—one should spend a little time considering why the Senate Members think this is the solution. If they are spending their day being threatened by their surroundings, they have not been doing the job we sent them to Austin to do.

Where is Texas headed?

While the current Texas Governor is in court defending his bully tactics, the newly elected governor is out letting the fringe know that he will take them where they want to go.

I caught just a short video on the news where supposedly the Texas Governor-elect Greg Abbott validated what his priorities would be in his first term at the wheels of the Texas Government.

I did not personally see the news conference, but read about it in several papers and on even more internet websites. Evidently, Abbott listed his three priorities as jobs, border security and Texas schools. If this is truly the case, then how did the twist happen in what was reported?

The lead of nearly every article or web-post centered on Abbott’s comment: “If Open Carry is good enough for Massachusetts, it’s good enough for Texas.”

There seems to be some link to a campaign promise that Abbott had made to the “Gun Lobby” during his run for the office. This may or may not be true, I don’t know and that’s not really my problem here.

My problem here comes from either one of two sources:

(1)   The newly elected Governor is lying about his stated priorities

Or

(2)   The news media is more concerned about drubbing up exciting outcomes regardless of what is actually said

I have a hard time trying to find anyone in Politics that can tell the truth most of the time. I always read those PolitiFact articles and it seems anytime they challenge a member of the political network of our fine state, the “Truth-O-Meter" always comes out with a rating of Half-True to Mostly-False to False to Pants-ON-Fire.

Checking today’s PolitiFact web page the ratings came out like this:

True                 4

Mostly True     2

Half-True        4

Mostly False    4

False                6

Today’s Total  20

If you group the True & Mostly True together, that leaves 14 of the 20 ratings as some level of false or 70%.

How can a state as smart as ours keep putting liars into office? For that matter, one might ask the same question of our nation.

So, what does this have to do with our governor-elect? It just seems to me that the priorities stated in his first post-election interview shows that not much has changed. There seems to be a new opportunity to tell the truth at every split in the road, but hardly anybody seems to take the truth road.

Maybe, it is the media (print, TV, cable and the internet) that is really the problem. I can’t tell. I thought I used to be able, but that seems to no longer be the case.