Immediate changes must be made regarding gun laws in Texas and across the country. While the second amendment does state that everyone has the right to bear arms, the death and bloodshed that this open ended promises has led to is simply unacceptable. This promise has made it entirely too easy to gain access to guns, even if a person’s intent is to do harm and not to protect oneself. Specifically in Texas, there have been multiple school shootings and how lax gun laws have a direct correlation to guns being trafficked in and out the country. Were stricter laws in place, crimes where children lose their lives would be few and far between and it would be more difficult for violent crimes to be committed with guns.
The most recent mass school shooting happened in an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde, Texas. The police response to this shooting was horrendous. On “May 24, 2022” a gunman entered the school and was able to murder “nineteen students and two teachers”(Texas Tribune). The shooter was a man named Salvador Ramos who had just turned 18 on “May 16,”eight days before the shooting(Texas Tribune). Because of Texas’s lax gun laws he was able to, on the day he turned eighteen, purchase an “AR-15-style rifle” along with “1,740 rounds of ammunition”(Texas Tribune). Now in Texas the current guns laws allow a boy who has been eighteen for only hours to purchase a rifle and ammunition, but however does draw the line a pistols or smaller guns. Beyond the fact that this distinction in type of guns that are available on one’s eighteenth birthday, there seem to be nearly no restrictions on ammunition that one can buy. Many who support the second amendment do so because they wish to be able to protect themselves and their homes. There is absolutely no problem with this line of reasoning, however it is hard to justify buying 1,740 rounds of ammunition with that same reasoning. Guns are one thing, but if restrictions are placed on the amount of ammunition that one is allowed to buy at a single purchase, these horrific events may be prevented. The limit should be set at a reasonable amount so that a person is still able to protect themselves. If a person wishes to do harm to others by way of a mass shooting and wishes to stockpile ammunition for it as Ramos did, the multiple purchases of the maximum amount of ammunition could throw up red flags to the local police department who could then intercept a possible shooter. This system if implemented would prevent innumerable mass shootings, and the deaths of many.
Texas’s lax gun laws do not only affect the state itself, but also a nearby country. The gun violence and gangs in Mexico are well known, but make little sense given the country’s strict gun laws. In Mexico there is only a “single store that can legally sell guns,” which is located on a “military base in Mexico City”( The Guardian). So if it’s so difficult to even buy a gun in Mexico, why is the country saturated with them? The answer lies in Texas’s lax gun laws. It is estimated that “half a milllion guns” are purchased in the United States and illegally trafficked to Mexico (The Guardian). On top of that, “about 70% of guns seized in Mexico” in recent years can be traced back to the “United States” (The Guardian). The mayor of Reynosa, “a Mexican town along the US border” has stated that “a significant amount [of guns] are likely coming from Texas” (The Guardian). The gun laws in Texas that made it possible for Salvador Ramos to cause mass destruction are the very same laws that make it possible for Mexican cartels to do the very same.
The topic of gun control must not just surround U.S citizens but also those that live in surrounding countries. Our lack of gun control has not only led to the deaths of our citizens but those in other countries. In order for this bloodshed to cease, new rules, such as ammunition limits, must be set in place so that the mass destruction that gun violence causes, is stopped.
If you are in need of representation in a gun related case, contact the attorneys at Brandy Austin Law, PLLC for help.
