Take On the Talking Heads
Pistol-Packin' Texans
by Garry Wills
March 23, 2000 -- Wayne ("Blood on His Hands") LaPierre has only one candidate to back this November. George W. Bush comes from the state that has about twice as many gun shows as the next runner-up. In 1998, the last year for which there are comparative figures, Texas had 472 gun shows, while the No. 2 state, Pennsylvania, had only 250. The top 10 then trail off, down to 129 for the No. 10 state, Nevada. Just think of it. Texas has, on average, between nine and 10 gun shows per week.
Gun shows are the places that Timothy McVeigh liked to hang around. They are the obvious place for dealers to get guns for distribution to people who want to avoid background checks, or to be middlemen for shuttling them to the unchecked. According to an excellent article in The Washington Post by Paul Duggan, there was testimony in Congress last year that gun shows offer "a large market where criminals can shop for firearms anonymously."
What did George W. Bush think of his state's record in this matter? When a Texas legislator, Debra Danburg, offered a bill to require background checks at gun shows, she says it might have passed "if Bush had lifted a finger to help." He did not do it. And no wonder. He is a great friend to the pistol-packin' crowd in Texas.
Bush ran for his first term on a promise to pass a law to permit the carrying of concealed weapons. He not only kept that promise -- he also signed an amendment to the bill that allows concealed weapons to be brought into churches. Apparently, Texans feel so naked without their guns that they cannot even take time off to pray without the reassurance of their little metal friends nestled warmly somewhere on their person.
I heard an attractive young Texas woman on television the other day saying that she and her women friends feel safer now that they have their very own guns in their purses, and that the weak members of society are the ones who need that protection most. But Duggan points out that 92 percent of the concealed gun permits have been issued to whites, and that 80 percent have gone to men.
No doubt that Texas lady thinks the state just needs more guns. Only 60 percent of the houses there have their own little armories. When the other 40 percent get their homes ammo'd up, the state will be just perfect -- though the Violence Policy Center in Washington noted in 1998 that 2,000 holders of Texas' concealed gun permits had been charged with crimes in the previous three years. The guns that are supposed to protect people from crimes are helping people commit them.
Some Texans claim that this cannot be true, since the crime rate has dropped since Bush took office. So what? It has dropped everywhere in that period. The Clinton prosperity and the Clinton anti-crime policies have more to do with that than does Bush's pistol-loving regime. That is why, despite the fact that Bush as a national candidate has just backed off a bit from the NRA, accepting gun locks and gun-show checks, the way for Americans to put other states in an arms race with Texas is still to make the pistol-lovers' governor our president.
Copyright © 2000 Universal Press Syndicate
