Lawmakers in gun-loving Texas have quietly gone around the National Rifle Association by slipping language into a massive spending bill that would fund a $1 million public safety campaign on gun storage.
The legislation is now headed to the desk of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
The last-minute move late Sunday sets up a political test rarely seen in Texas, which for years has buckled to pressure from the NRA.
It’s unclear whether Abbott will ignore NRA opposition and approve the spending, or if he’ll veto the gun-safety program.
An Abbott spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Texas Legislature is set to adjourn Monday.
KLBJ’s Eric Leikam joins us with some reaction….
“I have full confidence that the governor will look at it hard and will realize it’s all about saving lives. I hope there is no one discouraging him,” Gyl Switzer, executive director of Texas Gun Sense, said Monday.
The NRA and its state affiliate, the Texas State Rifle Association, have worked to beat back new restrictions on gun ownership, including after two recent high-profile mass shootings: one at a church in Sutherland Springs in November 2017 that killed more than two dozen people, including a pregnant woman, and a shooting at Santa Fe High School near Houston that killed 10 people and wounded 13 others in May 2018.
So Eric…what are some of the numbers on this issue across the Nation…?
Nationwide, nearly 1,700 children under age 18 died from accidental gun deaths from 2001 to 2017, while more than 33,000 were injured, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A University of Texas study of pediatric shooting injuries or deaths over a 15-year period in Houston found that in most cases, there was no adult supervision at the time and most families had received no training on safe gun storage at home.
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