Lax Texas Gun Laws, the NRA and Another Horrendous Deadly Mass Shooting
A gunman opened fire on Sunday during a service at a small Baptist church in the tiny town of Sutherland, Texas, killing at least 26 people and wounding close to 30 more.
The mass shooting, taking place just a month after the deadly Las Vegas shooting that killed 58 people and injured 500 more, joins an already long list of mass shootings that take place in the United States each year. According to a database by the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are killed or injured, the Sutherland shooting marks the 307th mass shooting so far in 2017.
Following the shooting, messages of support and heartbreak—including the predictable “thoughts and prayers” mantra—flooded social media. One organization, however, has remained silent on the tragedy: the NRA. The gun lobby’s silence is deafening and revealing, particularly given that Texas’ lax gun control regulations likely aided the gunman in obtaining his firearms.
A database by Slate of gun regulations state-by-state gave Texas an "F" rating. Texas currently has no laws requiring background checks for private sales, no regulating of firearm registration and no ban on the purchase of assault weapons. The state does not have any restrictions on magazine capacity, nor does it have any mental illness restrictions for firearm ownership. Texas also allows open carry with a permit and, recently, concealed carry on college campuses.
Texas’ relaxed gun control laws are the result of a majority-Republican legislature that shares views with the NRA on guns and gun regulation. Donations from the powerful gun lobby to these Republicans suggest that support for little-to-no gun control came with persistent nudges and bankrolling from the NRA itself.
In total, the NRA has given a combined $73,900 in campaign contributions to members of the Texas state delegation, with an overwhelming majority of the money going to Republican lawmakers. And, according to Texas Monthly in 2013, 27 out of 33 members of the Texas congressional delegation have received a grade of an A- or higher from the NRA. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz received an A+ from the NRA and has taken about $9,900 in campaign contributions from the organization.
Despite the NRA’s staunchly held belief that more guns equals safer communities, the statistics of gun violence in the U.S. paint a different picture. To start, the U.S. stands out from other developed countries when it comes to violence: according to the United Nations, the U.S. has 29.7 firearm deaths per 1 million people, the highest rate in any developed country. And within the U.S., the number of gun deaths varies state to state. Much of this variation is due to the strength or weakness of gun control in each state.
A database from Mother Jones showed a correlation between gun ownership and gun deaths, revealing that states with higher rates of gun ownership saw far more gun deaths than states with stricter gun regulations. Texas, which has a gun ownership rate 35.7 percent, higher than the national average of 29.1 percent—has over 3,200 gun deaths per year.
It should be obvious by now that America has a serious, dangerous gun violence problem. It cannot be solved by the NRA’s solution of a “good guy with a gun.” And while mass shootings bring the topic of gun violence into the public discourse each and every time, these events do not even make up the majority of gun deaths in the U.S. In fact, an analysis from FiveThirtyEightshows that nearly two-thirds of gun deaths are caused by suicides and not mass shootings.
One common denominator among mass shootings, which occur all-too-frequently in this country, is the immense power of the NRA. Despite the persistent calls for tighter gun control laws after a given horrific mass shooting, Congress, pressured by the NRA and its enormous lobby, fails each and every time to pass meaningful gun legislation.
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