AUSTIN, TX — After two Texas mass shootings within a month that took the lives of 29 people — and the fourth such rampage in the past two years — the governor tweeted his idea for a response over the weekend: “Expedited executions for mass murderers would be a nice addition,” he wrote.
Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday tweeted the state was “working on a legislative package” in response to mass shootings in Texas — which leads the state for such crimes. The governor and his conservative counterparts are loath to suggest gun reform as part of the mix in mitigating the scourge, often attributing mental illness whenever multiple people are killed by gunmen in the Lone Star State.
Abbott’s invoking quicker death sentences for mass murderers comes on the heels of new laws that took effect Sept. 1 representing the opposite of gun reform aimed at control, instead easing regulations related to the carrying of firearms. In its recent passage of more than 800 new laws, eight new pieces of legislation relaxed rules related to carrying guns under a number of scenarios — including making it easier for licensed gun owners to carry their firearms into synagogues and other houses of worship as well as in schools. Another law now will allow property owners to carry guns without a license for 48 hours after a natural disaster to deter would-be looters.
The eased regulations come after Abbott in May 2017 signed Senate Bill 16 into law, reducing the licensing fees related to buying a gun to make it easier for residents to secure firearms. That law did the following:
At the signing, Abbott tested out a few guns at an upstairs shooting range before joking he’d be on the lookout for journalists: “I’m gonna carry this around in case I see any reporters,” he said while studying his bullet-ridden target sheet, as the Texas Tribune reported at the time.
It’s not clear if Abbott’s proposed solution of quicker death sentences would be debated at the next legislative session in 2021 or if he intends to call a special legislative session toward passage. In his tweet, Abbott made a point to link an article published by The Blaze on proposed legislation by the U.S. Department of Justice to expedite executions of those committing mass murder in news attributed to Bloomberg.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice statistics indicate the average time spent on Death Row is almost 11 years, the Texas Tribune noted in its report.
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Before tweeting about possible quicker executions on Monday, Abbott noted the gunman in Saturday’s mass shooting in Midland/Odessa had previously failed a gun purchase background check. Moreover, he did not go through a background check to buy the gun he used to take seven lives and injuring nearly two dozen before being killed by an officer in stopping the rampage.
Abbott didn’t specify why the shooter failed the background check to purchase a gun. “We must keep guns out of criminals’ hands,” he tweeted.
In addition to the two most recent mass shootings in Texas, 26 people were killed in a November 2017 shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs and another 10 people were killed May 2018 in a shooting at Santa Fe High School near Houston.
With Saturday’s mass murder in the West Texas town of Odessa, Texas now has the grim distinction of being the state with more casualties from mass shootings except for Nevada. Abbott has enthusiastically espoused gun ownership in the state he leads as a sacrosanct 2nd Amendment right, championing for passage of the “open carry” law enacted on Jan. 1, 2016 and its companion “campus carry” law the following summer. The former legislation allows licensed gun owners to tote their weapons openly in public, while the latter provides for such behavior on all state-funded colleges and universities.
Many critics point to Abbott’s zeal for guns as more-than-tacit endorsement of unfettered access to firearms that promote a strong gun culture strongly furthered by some of his rhetoric. Once, upon learning Texas lagged behind California in per capita gun ownership, Abbott took to Twitter in urging residents to buy more guns. “Let’s pick up the pace, Texans,” Abbot wrote, tagging the NRA in his tweet.
More recently, Abbott acknowledged “mistakes were made” in his fundraising letter employing alarmist language in calling to “DEFEND” the Texas border against undocumented immigrants that went out to constituents one day before a deadly shooting by an avowed white nationalist who targeted Hispanics in El Paso, as the Texas Tribune reported at the time.
Ahead of the second meeting of the newly formed Texas Safety Commission formed in response to mass shootings, Abbott said he spoke to the El Paso legislative delegation about the misstep while emphasizing “…the importance of making sure that rhetoric will not be used in any dangerous way,” the Texas Tribune reported. “I did get the chance to visit with the El Paso delegation and help them understand that mistakes were made and course correction has been made,” the governor told reporters.
Abbott has long turned the issue of illegal immigration into political fodder, fanning the ideology of his base in demonizing immigrants as a scourge to be eradicated. He once cut off funding for Travis County agencies (many having nothing to do with immigration policy) in retribution for a perception officials at the county seat of Austin weren’t forceful enough in cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in rooting out undocumented residents.
In his fundraising letter sent the day before the El Paso slaughter, Abbott wrote prospective campaign donors: “The national Democrat machine has made no secret of the fact that it hopes to ‘turn Texas blue.’ If they can do it in California, they can do it in Texas — if we let them,” Abbott wrote in the fundraising appeal. Unless you and I want liberals to succeed in their plan to transform Texas — and our entire country — through illegal immigration, this is a message we MUST send.”
For its part, the city of Odessa over the weekend released the names of those killed in the latest mass shooting in Texas. The victims range in ages from 15 to 57, with a 17-month-old baby girl among the injured.
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