Fact-check: Can Texans ‘too dangerous to carry a loaded gun in public’ now carry?

Our weekly check-in with the Texas Truth-O-Meter.

By Nusaiba Mizan, PolitiFact Texas/Austin American-StatesmanJuly 13, 2022 3:01 pm, , ,

From PolitiFact Texas/Austin American-Statesman:

Many Texas officials were present as Gov. Greg Abbott held a May 25 news conference one day after a shooter killed two teachers and 19 children at an elementary school in Uvalde. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke rose from the audience and approached the stage.

“This is on you,” O’Rourke told Abbott, his Republican opponent in the November election. “Unless you choose to do something different, this will continue to happen. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed, just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.”

O’Rourke, who endorsed the mandatory buy-back of military-style rifles when he ran for president in 2020, has continued to criticize pro-gun policies adopted by Texas’ Republican leadership.

On May 29, he tweeted, “38,000 Texans had their license to carry denied, revoked, or suspended over the last five years because law enforcement deemed them too dangerous to carry a loaded gun in public. But thanks to Greg Abbott’s new law, they don’t need a license to carry anymore.”

Is he right that people “too dangerous to carry a loaded gun in public” no longer need a license to carry?

Read the full story at the Austin American-Statesman, and listen to an interview with PolitiFact’s Nusaiba Mizan in the audio player above.

Radio interview produced by Alexandra Hart

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