Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
Don’t mess with Texas.
Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is a law-and-order man who opposes the killing of the unborn and illegal immigration and supports free speech and the Second Amendment. When the Texas legislature passed gun-rights bills, it was a guarantee the governor would sign them into law.
Gov. Abbott has signed into law a bill that blocked taxpayers’ money from going to the sheriff’s office in “sanctuary city” Travis County. He signed a bill to protect unborn babies born during botched abortions. He signed bills to ban local governments in his state from using taxpayers’ money on abortions and to protect students’ right to free speech on college campuses.
Gov. Abbott also signed a bill to bar the government from discriminating against Christian businesses like Chick-fil-A based on where the businesses donate money.
Christian Headlines reported on the new pro-gun bills the governor signed before the recent mass shootings. The laws go into effect in September. An excerpt about two of the bills (emphases added):
According to House Bill 2363, foster parents are permitted to possess a firearm for personal protection purposes. The bill asserts that foster parents who own guns will no longer be required to store their weapon and ammunition separately. The bill amends this requirement to allow the weapon and munitions to be stored together in the same locked location.
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Senate Bill 535 also loosens restrictions on guns by amending the law to allow those lawfully possessing a firearm to carry it in “a church, synagogue, or other established place of religious worship.” According to the law, the goal of allowing gun owners to carry their firearms in places of worship was to clarify that places of worship are to be treated like other privately-owned property. The law does specify, however, that churches do have the right to determine whether people will be allowed to carry guns on their property.
Texas has the nation’s most far-reaching “open carry” and “concealed-carry” guns laws. Of the estimated 3,000 people at the El Paso Walmart, 500 persons reportedly had a gun with them that awful day. They could not help prevent the slaughter.
First I’ve heard of those numbers! Your source?
3000 people in the shopping space of a 260,000 sq ft Super Center would be 1 person per the footprint of two sheets of plywood. That only happens on Black Friday if that any more.
Say 1/3 of the 3000 are adult males (the ones most likely to be carrying a weapon) and I’m assuming here, that means something approaching 1/2 of the men in a mostly Hispanic Walmart were armed? I’m ready to wager against that assumption.
Manager of that Walmart suggested that at least 3,000 people come through those doors each day.
While I did see one news report of 3000 people being in the El Paso Walmart at the time of the killinhg, fewer than about 180 would possibly have had a License To Carry (LTC).
In August, 2018, the Crime Prevention Research Center reported that only 6.57% of adult Texas had an LTC.
https://crimeresearch.org/2018/08/new-study-17-25-million-concealed-handgun-permits-biggest-increases-for-women-and-minorities/
Of those having a license, maybe half would actually carry. Of those having a license, less than 1% would have taken any training on using their handgun. The LTC class is not training.
http://blog.krtraining.com/beyond-the-one-percent-part-1/
So, maybe 2 adults present that day were legally carrying and had any training. It is very unlikely that they would have been in a position to engage the killer.
We each must decide for ourselves which risks we are willing to manage and which benefits matter most to us. The adults in my family have an LTC, have training, and do carry.