Within half an hour of the "Breaking News" about the active shooter in Odessa, Texas,

[Atticus]

Reverend Al's program was reporting that, "believe it or not", Texas had just loosened its gun laws to expand the places where you can legally "carry". Schools, churches and government buildings, I believe are now locations where "good guys" can wear their substitute manhood legally.

You can't make this stuff up!

[Skittles]

1. Texas is Gun Humper Central

lots of cowards in the "home of the brave"

[DesertRat]

2. These lax gun laws aren't preventing mass shootings

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Yes, I was watching The Rev before they broke in about the shooting

He had just reported that in Texas starting tomorrow it would be legal to bring a gun to church.

[Initech]

18. Oh great. What could possibly go wrong?

[Lonestarblue]

4. I live in Texas, and we have a totally irresponsible governor and legislature.

Abbott actually recently sent out a letter stoking hatred toward immigrants and refused to call a special session of the legislature to address gun violence. Yet in 2017, he was happy to call a special session to try to get a bathroom bill passed to force school children to use the bathroom matching the gender on their birth certificates. Fortunately, it failed, but how the hell was such a law to be enforced! Kids have to carry a birth certificate to use the bathroom, or be subject to physical inspection? But it’s absolutely okay to carry a gun and murder people anytime you want. These politicians need to be called out as the accessories to murder they are since they refuse to do anything to stop the murders.

[onetexan]

8. yes Abbott is a RW gun-promoting religious idiot. Strangely he's married to a hispanic woman.

[Initech]

19. He also put bills protecting Chik Fil A's right to religious discrimination

Greg Abbott:

[GitRDun]

5. A word in defense of Texas

I'm originally from up North, but now live and work north of Houston.

I office with 4 guys who all own multiple fire arms; they are not gun humpers...not even close.

I just ask we distinguish between the politicians and the people. The politicians are the ones responsible. This toxic obstruction of gun safety laws has a lot more to do with politicians and their benefactors than most who are just working for a living.

We've had discussions in the office about gun safety and laws.

Not a one has a problem with banning what we call "assault weapons". What I learned from them was many hand guns are capable of unloading just as fast, so they think a focus on just guns like the AR15 won't do a lot for criminals with the deadlier hand guns.

We also discussed high volume magazines and I laughed out loud when one of them said, "If you need more than three bullets to shoot an animal or defend yourself, you shouldn't be carrying a weapon".

Texas is changing. As the cities grow in size, they become far more diverse and decidedly progressive.

Peace.

[CTyankee]

6. Um, who puts politicians in office?

Next time ask your office buddies who they voted for and why...

[onetexan]

9. you clearly don't know Tx politics

[CTyankee]

11. 3rd generation Texan. Grew up in Dallas.

[Paladin]

7. Nice try. Thanks.

No point in trying to reason with the resident Texas Haters. Believe me, I know.

[cab67]

12. An AR-15 differs from a semiautomatic handgun in a couple of important ways.

1. It can more easily take a high-capacity magazine. Some handguns may fire as rapidly, but not for as long.

2. The ammo fired by an AR-15 and similar assault-style rifles (which aren't actually assault rifles, which are fully automatic) is more damaging on impact than what most handguns can fire.

3. Rifles have greater range, and greater accuracy at range, than handguns.

There's a reason mass shootings are far more commonly executed with semiautomatic rifles than handguns. It's the same reason the military relies on rifles more than handguns when deploying troops.

For what it's worth, I went to grad school in Austin, so I know not to regard Texas as a homogeneous libertarian shithole.

[yaesu]

10. the bigger the gun the smaller the "hands". nt

[Blue_true]

13. I remember a photo someone posted here on DU.

There was a patrician looking woman shopping for bread with a massive revolver on her hip. Guns in public places are like security blankets for scared children, they will be just as useful if a real monster comes after the kids. Maybe the good person with a gun will have a prayer if the shooter don't see him or her first.

Texas is awash in guns in the hands of good people with guns, yet that does not stop a killer. The guy today outshot two police officers before he was taken down by, I assumed trained professionals, not some yahoo with a gun on his or her hip.

[Scurrilous]

15. In the other photo you could see she was fondling the white bread.

[Blue_true]

20. I actually prefer some variant of white bread. So that alone don't say much.

I do think that big, expensive looking gum makes her a target of a maniac shooter, but if it makes her feel safer so be it.

I believe that if the gun culture continues, some maniac that is very good with guns and kept silent is going to kill hundreds of people in a single setting. When guns are out there that can fire 40 bullets in 30 seconds, an accurate shooter can do horrible damage. Someone showed video of a shooting at a high school football game in Alabama, some people and players hit the deck, but most people were sitting in groups as if nothing was happening. If it takes 40 seconds for most people to realize that a shooter is active, with an expert shooter, 50 or more of them can be dead before they could even try to duck or run away.

[uponit7771]

17. THANK YOU !!! Few if any gun owners in an active shooter situation will be able to stop the shooter

... from shooting anyone

[Blue_true]

22. If they get lucky and spot the shooter and are out of the line of fire, maybe

they minimize the number of people killed by distracting or killing the shooter. Even if they see the shooter, the likelihood that they will shoot panicked people is very high, also their nerves will be on edge if they had not simulated such an event over and over until their response is rote (how many people that own guns do that? My guess is not many at all). In the Dayton shooting, it was discovered that the police officers that took down the shooter shot some of the victims, and those officers should have been people that simulated the chaos of a mass shooting and should have had a calmer response to the shooter.

[uponit7771]

23. +1,

[PatrickforO]

14. Oh. Gosh, even MORE guns to keep us all safe!

[dalton99a]

21. Beto: "This is fucked up."

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