Texas is starting to appear as though it’s not the solid red conservative state it once was, and Republican voters and second amendment supporters should be very concerned. With recent failures by the top 3 Republicans to pass historical monument protections, now some in the Texas GOP are starting to break and bend on one the most important issues to the Republican party, gun rights. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, known by some around the nation for his appearances on Fox News and Fox Business, says he is “willing to take an arrow” and support at least one gun control measure. The measure would be closing what he considers to be a loophole, private party gun sales without background checks.
The Dallas Morning News reported:
“That gap of stranger to stranger we have to close, in my view,” Patrick, a staunchly conservative Republican and avid gun-rights advocate, said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News.
“When I talk to gun owners, NRA members and voters, people don’t understand why we allow strangers to sell guns to total strangers when they have no idea if the person they’re selling the gun to could be a felon, could be someone who’s getting a gun to go commit a crime or could be a potential mass shooter or someone who has serious mental issues.”
“Look, I’m a solid NRA guy,” he said, “but not expanding the background check to eliminate the stranger to stranger sale makes no sense to me and … most folks.”
The NRA responded to the statements by Patrick and were not too thrilled. They responded very strongly by saying that new regulations based on Dan Patrick’s proposals would be “political gambits” that would “resurrect the same broken, Bloomberg-funded failures that were attempted under the Obama administration.”
The NRA-ILA went on to say this, also according to the same link cited previously:
“Criminalizing private firearm transfers would require a massive, governmental gun registration scheme. Instead of trampling the freedom of law-abiding Americans, the government should focus upon actual solutions: fixing our broken mental health system, prosecuting known criminals and enforcing the existing gun laws that require follow-up whenever a prohibited person tries to buy a firearm,”
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R), who recently proposed debating Hollywood leftist Alyssa Milano on gun rights, has declined to comment on Dan Patrick’s new ideas, dodging whether or not he would support or stand against them. He recently made a statement at a forum in Austin when prodded on the issue.
“I’ll let the state officials focus on state policy. I can tell you at the federal level if you want to stop these problems, what is effective is target the felons and fugitives and the bad guys,” Cruz stated recently at the Texas Faith, Family & Freedom Forum, a meeting of about 300 social conservatives Friday and Saturday at Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin.
He went on to say, as reported by Statesman.com:
“I’m going to let Dan speak for himself,” and then on private gun sales:
“We’re seeing 2020 Democratic candidates campaigning on the federal government simply taking your firearms away,” Cruz said Saturday. “And part of the reason politically they are going after the private person-to-person transactions between a grandfather and a grandson or two buddies in a hunting blind, is they want a registry of firearms to then follow through on their objective of gun confiscation. That is a political objective.”
Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R) has hinted that he supports flirting with the idea of ‘Red Flag‘ laws but now says he doesn’t want anything to do with expanded background checks, in what could be an attempt to salvage some of his lost support for his initial statements that drew fire and fury from many of his constituents and supporters around the nation. Some Texas Republicans though, are standing firm in the midst of all the confusion and teeter-tottering in efforts to appease irate Democrat gun grabbers in the aftermath of recent shootings.
State Rep Matt Schaefer (R), also in Texas, tweeted out on August 31st that he is not giving an inch on the second amendment. Previously reported by Big League Politics, Schaefer tells us in a six-part tweet what he plans on NOT doing. He starts off by saying that he is not going to use the evil acts of a handful of people to diminish the God-given rights of his fellow Texans. He goes on with much more as can be read below. This post summoned controversial Pennsylvania State Rep Brian Sims to respond. Sims, known for calling to dox Christians praying outside of a Planned Parenthood, and apparently fundraising in the wake of the recent Philadelphia police shootings, appears to whine about his statements. He pretty much says that in his opinion, Schaefer isn’t saying anything new or unexpected. Check out the thread below in an image screenshot that links to the original tweet thread.
SEE TWEETS BELOW:
