Gun Laws Could Be Back On the Table After El Paso Shooting

This week in Texas politics with the Texas Tribune

By Rhonda FanningAugust 9, 2019 4:24 pm, , ,

It’s time for the week that was in Texas politics with Alana Rocha multimedia reporter for the The Texas Tribune.

After a gunman killed 22 shoppers Saturday at a Walmart in El Paso, President Donald Trump and several Texas lawmakers visited the border city. Rocha says Gov. Greg Abbott met with the El Paso legislative delegation this week to begin work on gun reform legislation.

“Democrats are realistic on what they can get done under Republican leadership,” Rocha says. “The governor did emerge from that meeting saying there will be a series of roundtables starting as soon as later this month, where stakeholders and lawmakers will flesh out ideas.”

Rocha says Abbott has not yet ruled out the creation of red-flag laws, which would allow the removal of weapons from people deemed by a federal judge as an imminent threat, but she says it’s unlikely.

“[Red-flag laws] have been pitched several times before,” Rocha says. “This is the third mass shooting in the state in a year and a half or so, so they have looked at it, but ya know, they don’t have all lawmakers on board.”

Rocha says Trump was not welcomed to El Paso with open arms. 

“The Congresswoman, Veronica Escobar said she wouldn’t meet with him,” Rocha says. “Eight patients at the hospital that he went to visit – victims of the shooting – none of them agreed to meet with him.”