WASHINGTON (AP) – Still mourning the mass shootings in Texas, Democrat Beto O’Rourke has shaken up his long-running campaign by begging the national public that it is finally time for real action to curb the spread of powerful weapons in his home state. all over America.
It was 2019 and the former congressman was running for president when he said during a debate: “Damn, yes, we will take your AR-15”, weeks after a gunman targeting Mexican immigrants killed 23 people in Wal-Mart in O’Rourke’s native El Paso.
Last week, after the massacre of 19 elementary school students and two teachers of an 18-year-old man with an AR-15 rifle in Uwalde, Texas, O’Rourke – now running for governor – briefly took over the national political spotlight again. This time, it meant the collapse of the press conference of the man he wanted to oust, Republican Greg Abbott, and the declaration – at a time that was later seen widely online – that the carnage was “on you.”
O’Rourke bets that the tragedy could nullify the governor’s race in America’s largest red state – even though Abbott has twice won landslides and launched a $ 55 million campaign at the bank, and despite the culture of guns is emerging more in Texas than perhaps anywhere else.
That didn’t work in 2019. O’Rourke’s debate debate earned him praise from other Democrats on the scene and fundraising. But he dropped out of the race only six weeks later.
It is too early to say what will happen in the race for governor, but the shooting has already affected both sides. Abbott canceled his planned visit to the National Weapons Association’s annual meeting to stay in Uwalde. He was also omitted by Texas Republican Sen. John Cornin, who is among those negotiating with fellow Democrats to step up checks on the past and Red Flag laws that allow authorities to remove firearms from those for whom they are definitely pose a danger to themselves or others.
“I think it felt cathartic for a lot of people who might have been on the fence,” said Abel Prado, executive director of the Democratic Advocacy Group Cambio Texas. This gives you, “At least someone is trying to stand up and do something, or at least say something.”
O’Rourke spent two nights in Uwalde after the shooting, then headed to Houston for a rally against gun violence outside Friday’s NRA meeting.
“To those men and women in positions of power who are more interested in your power than in using that power to save the lives of those you must serve – we will defeat you and we will defeat you,” O’Rourke said. told protesters chanting his name and the phrase “Vote for them!”
Supporters hope O’Rourke regains the magic that made him a national Democratic star and nearly upset Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. But since O’Rourke’s White House proposal failed, former President Donald Trump easily won Texas in 2020 and the Democrats, who had hoped to replace dozens of seats in Congress and state lawmakers this year, lost almost all of the leading race.
A Democrat has not won a Texas governorship since 1990, and only last year did the state loosen firearms restrictions enough to allow almost anyone aged 21 and over to carry a gun without a license. Abbott signed the law with NRA Chief Executive Officer Wayne Lapierre and the group’s president, Carolyn Meadows.
Of course, the dominance of guns in Texas culture has long preceded the law. Abbott once tweeted that his state was lagging behind in California in arms sales, and Cruz likes to say, “Give me a horse, a gun and an open plain and we can conquer the world.” Former Republican Gov. Rick Perry was re-elected in 2010 after using a laser-aimed pistol to kill a coyote while jogging.
Mass shootings are also not new in Texas. Tuesday’s massacre in Uwalde and the El Paso killings followed a mass shooting at Santa Fe High School near Houston that killed eight students and two teachers in 2018, and a riot at Sutherland Springs Church that killed 26 people, including an unborn child. , the year before.
Former Texas Commissioner Jerry Patterson, a Republican long known for carrying multiple guns almost everywhere he went, said O’Rourke’s most ardent supporters would be “even more determined to vote for Beto” after his confrontation. with Abbott.
However, Patterson said the clash could have the opposite effect, alienating otherwise potentially likeable swing voters who might think O’Rourke is making a show on his own.
“Sometimes your method outweighs your message, and his method erodes any benefit he may have gained,” said Patterson, who, as a U.S. senator, wrote the original Texas Concealed Pistol Act of 1995, which allowed Texans to take firearms. weapons in more places than almost anywhere in America at the time. “I think it’s a net loss.”
Abbott did not say much about O’Rourke after the shooting, but answered questions about possible new restrictions on state weapons by hitting high crime rates in cities ruled mainly by Democrats.
“There are more people shot every weekend in Chicago than in Texas schools,” the governor said hyperbolically. Speaking of arguments that new restrictions on firearms could make Americans safer, “Chicago, LA and New York disprove that.”
Abbott’s campaign also earlier rebuked O’Rourke for his previous anti-gun stance by creating an online ad last year showing a cartoon of O’Rourke accelerating in the wrong direction down a one-way street, then off a cliff while the radio played. videos of his comment “Yes, damn it” and other highly progressive positions he took as a presidential candidate.
O’Rourke’s campaign insists he does not use the massacre for political gain. He transformed his fundraiser into one that accepts donations from relatives of those killed in Uwalde and says O’Rourke attended Abbott’s press conference at the urging of one of the victims’ families.
He sat quietly in the audience for 10 minutes or more, intending only to listen, the campaign said. But when Abbott said “there is no meaningful warning for this crime” other than the shooter, who posted about the shooting just moments before he started, O’Rourke was angry – especially considering that after the El Paso shooting, the boss the state’s response was to loosen gun laws. He approached the scene and accused Abbott of “doing nothing” when the violence in Uwalde was “completely predictable.”
Also on stage was Uwalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, who responded with obscenity and called O’Rourke “sick” because he was trying to turn the shooting into a “political issue.”
But it still helped a Texan change his mind. Nicole Armijo, who works in the family business for HVAC in the border town of McAllen and has three children aged 10, 9 and 6 attending a public school. She did not vote for O’Rourke when he ran for the Senate, but she plans to do so now because “the way we do things doesn’t work.”
“Maybe, Texas, it’s not just about having guns,” said Armijo, who said she loved guns and hunting, but would support expanded scrutiny of the past. “Beto portrayed these thoughts to some extent: It’s not about me or you. It’s about everyone in general. “
___
More about school shooting in Uwalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings.
___
This story has been corrected to show that Abbott won elections twice, not re-election, by landslides.
Add Comment