The Texas chapters of Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, both part of Everytown for Gun Safety’s volunteer networks, today released the following statement after Lt. Governor Dan Patrick issued a press release saying that “Gun sales are a leading indicator pointing to Trump’s electoral success in November.” Gun owners in Texas support background checks on all gun sales (83%) and enacting red flag laws (72%), policies which President Donald Trump and Dan Patrick have promised action on but failed to deliver.
“The vast majority of Texans, including those of us who own guns, support gun safety laws,” said Becca DeFelice, a volunteer with Texas Moms Demand Action. “Rather than spending his time looking for bogus political indicators, the lieutenant governor should think about what he can do to combat the gun violence epidemic that kills more than 3,000 of us every year.”
“Failing to pass common-sense gun safety laws is a leading indicator pointing to President Trump and Texas Republicans’ electoral failures in November,” said Nahla Owens, a volunteer leader with Students Demand Action in South Texas. “They’ve had their chance to act, and they’ve let us down.We’ll work day-in, day-out to elect gun sense champions come November.”
In the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso and Midland-Odessa, lawmakers across the country – from President Trump to Lt. Governor Dan Patrick – promised to act on gun safety. But to this day, no gun safety laws have been enacted since then at the federal level or in Texas. Governor Abbott issued a Safety Action Report which failed to recommend background checks on all gun sales. The Mass Violence Prevention and Community Safety Committee failed to seriously consider gun safety laws, instead devoting time to discussing video games. In the year since the Latino-targeted mass shooting in El Paso, an estimated nearly 38,000 Americans have been killed by gun violence, including more than 3,250 Texans.
In February, Everytown for Gun Safety launched Gun Sense Majority: Texas, an unprecedented financial and grassroots effort that will begin with making important gains in the state House, defending recently elected Texas gun sense champions in the U.S. House, flipping key congressional seats in the suburbs, and growing and educating the voting electorate in order to make Texas competitive at the statewide level. Everytown also released a memo outlining its electoral plans for Texas, and new polling, which demonstrates that gun safety will be a key election issue in Texas. And further polling, conducted by EquisLabs and Global Strategy Group, found that Latino voters support gun violence prevention in stronger numbers than they did before the shooting in El Paso.
Information about gun violence in Texas is available here.