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Texas Has Become the Wild, Wild West

Sumayyah Borders

16 December 2022

May 24, 2022.

On that day, an 18-year-old gunman in Uvalde, Texas, entered Robb Elementary School with a handgun and an AR-15 assault weapon. He proceeded to open fire, killing 19 children aged nine to eleven and two teachers. Upon arrival, law enforcement officials fatally shot the suspect, identified as Salvador Ramos[1][2]. Following an event like this, a sensible course of action for Texas lawmakers would be to enact more stringent gun laws. They may require background checks on all firearm purchases, ban assault weapons, or prohibit guns on college campuses and K-12 schools. However, rather than implementing these policies, Texas has become more lax in its gun laws and continues to lead the nation in mass shootings[3].

Every year, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence releases a scorecard comparing gun legislation and gun death rates in all 50 states. Each state is evaluated on the strengths and weaknesses of their gun laws and policies for that reported year through a ranking system utilizing letter grades from ‘A’ to ‘F’. Since 2012, the earliest year of data available, Texas has consistently received an ‘F’ letter grade. In 2021, Texas had the 26th highest gun death rate in the United States, with an average of 14.2 gun deaths per 100,000 people compared to the national average, which was 13.6. Hawaii had the lowest gun death rate at 3.4, while Mississippi was the deadliest state with a rate of 28.6[4]. Additionally, Texas had 4,164 gun deaths in 2020, the highest total for that year. For comparison, the second-highest state in that category was California, with 3,449 gun deaths[5].

The issue of gun violence in Texas is only getting worse as Republican Governor Greg Abbott refuses to enact safer and more effective gun laws. Three of the ten deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. have occurred in Texas under the governance of Abbott, including the Uvalde school shooting[6]. For reference, the Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as a single event in which four or more people are shot and/or killed, not including the shooter[7]. The second mass shooting occurred in 2019 when a gunman killed 23 Latinos and injured 23 others at a Walmart in El Paso; in the third incident, a gunman killed 26 people and injured 20 others at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs in 2017[8]. After 10 students were killed at Santa Fe High School in 2018, Abbott showed some promise in enacting change to gun laws through the possibility of a “red flag” law that would allow the state courts to seize firearms from individuals who present a danger to themselves or others. It was not long before gun rights activists went into an uproar over the proposed law. Abbott eventually backed down, deeming “red flag” laws as unnecessary and passing bills that instead boosted mental health resources and gave teachers the freedom to carry guns in classrooms. Similarly, after the El Paso shooting, Abbott discussed requiring background checks for stranger-to-stranger gun sales. Again, Abbott and the legislature swept the proposal under the rug, and in 2021 they enacted a new gun law that would allow Texans over the age of 21 to openly carry a handgun in public without a permit[9].

Since the permitless carry law was signed, mass shootings in Texas have increased by 62.5%. In the one-year period before the bill was signed, 187 people were either injured or killed across 40 mass shootings. Within the year after the bill was signed, 375 people were killed or injured across 60 mass shootings[10].

There should not be so much debate or contemplation over the implementation of gun control laws, especially when such laws have proven to be effective in other countries. Australia and Britain have enacted prominent gun control legislation in the wake of major shooting massacres through the placement of a ban on assault weapons, increased registration requirements for firearms, and instituted gun buyback programs that allow the government to take away illegal guns from individuals[11]. As a result, Australia’s National Firearms Agreement (NFA) contributed to a 47% decrease in firearm homicide rates and a 57% decrease in firearm suicide rates[12]. Similarly, Britain’s 1997 Firearms (Amendment) Act contributed to its low gun homicide rates, with 0.7 deaths per million people. Though Britain has had two mass shootings since the enactment of the Firearms (Amendment) Act, the country maintains some of the lowest shooting rates in the developed world[13].

The United States prides itself on being the “land of the free,” but is there a thing such as too much freedom? If the answer is yes, then where should the lines be drawn? In the case of gun violence, particularly in Texas, Americans have the right to possess firearms as they wish, but there should be rules and regulations surrounding such deadly weapons. Texas needs to implement its red flag laws, require background checks for all gun sales, and, most importantly, repeal permitless carry laws. Without the need to obtain a gun permit or license, guns can get into the wrong hands. Mass shootings are a uniquely American problem, and unless Democrats and Republicans unite to combat gun violence, mass shootings will continue to be a problem for years to come.

  1. Victoria Albert, “At least 19 children, 2 adults killed after shooter opens fire at Texas elementary school,” CBS News, last modified May 25, 2022, https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/texas-school-shooting-robb-elementary-uvalde/
  2. Sneha Dey et al. “21 lives lost: Uvalde victims were a cross-section of a small, mostly Latino town in South Texas,” Texas Tribune, May 27, 2022, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/25/uvalde-school-shooting-victims/
  3. “Gun Violence in Texas” Everytown, February 3, 2022, https://www.everytown.org/state/texas/
  4. “Gifford Annual Gun Scorecard,” Giffords Law Center, September 21, 2022, https://giffords.org/lawcenter/resources/scorecard/#how-does-your-state-compare
  5. “Stats of the States – Firearm Mortality,” Center for Disease Control and Prevention, March 1, 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm
  6. Kevin Krause and Ari Sen, “Texas leads nation in mass shootings, and gun statistics point to why,” Dallas Morning News, June 3, 2022, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/06/03/texas-leads-nation-in-mass-shootings-and-gun-statistics-point-to-why/ 
  7. “General Methodology,” Gun Violence Archive, last modified January 3, 2022, https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/methodology
  8. Carolina Sanchez, “Timeline of Texas mass shooting over the years,” Fox 26 Houston, May 25, 2022, https://www.fox26houston.com/news/texas-mass-shootings 
  9. Kate McGee and Jolie McCullough, “Confronted with mass shootings, Texas Republicans have repeatedly loosened gun laws,” Texas Tribune, May 24, 2022, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/24/texas-gun-laws-uvalde-mass-shootings/
  10. Jef Rouner, “Texas Mass Shootings Up 62.5 Percent Since Permitless Carry Bill,” Reform Austin, September 8, 2022, https://www.reformaustin.org/public-safety/texas-mass-shootings-up-62-5-percent-since-permitless-carry-bill/ 
  11. Jonathan Masters, “U.S. Gun Policy: Global Comparisons,” Council on Foreign Relations, last modified June 10, 2022, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons#chapter-title-0-6 
  12. Zack Beauchamp, “Australia confiscated 650,000 guns. Murders and suicides plummeted,” Vox, last modified May 25, 2022, https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback
  13. Max Fisher, “Other Countries Had Mass Shootings. Then They Changed Their Gun Laws,” New York Times, May 25, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/world/europe/gun-laws-australia-britain.html 

Photo by Jay Rembert via Unsplash Photos.

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