After many years, Texas gun control and safety advocates are now seeing progress as they engage in constructive dialogue to find some common ground.
Texas Gun Control and Safety Advocates Finds Common Ground
Leesa Ross, the founder of the organization Lock Arms for Life agreed to sit down with the Gun Owners of America members about potentially working and collaborating together in the future, Texas Tribune reported.
She founded the organization together with some Texas gun control and safety advocates after one of her sons died in an accidental firearm discharge.
An event will be hosted by the group soon and she also plans to attend because she will be handing out free gun locks. Ross is also a member of the National Rifle Association.
She testified at a hearing in the Texas House committee in support of making the month of August “Firearm Safety Awareness Month. After the hearing, two gun rights advocates approached her to talk about the proposal. She expected opposition but what she got was more dialogue.
It was strange, yet meaningful, to see a friendly and cooperative gesture between Texas gun control and safety advocates and gun rights advocates who are typically witnessed as opposing each other in one of the nation’s most heated debates.
It happened during the first Texas legislative session after the state’s worst school shooting incident in history occurred. Texas lawmakers have loosened gun regulations and made accessing firearms easier for more than 13 years, despite eight mass shootings in the same duration.
Ross and some Texas gun control and safety advocates see those conversations as a starting point and a constructive path forward. Like Ross, several other Texas gun control and safety advocates in Capitol year recognized a change that has transpired this legislative session: a bit more dialogue.
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Texas Gun Control and Safety Advocates and Opponents Discuss Solutions
Nicole Golden, the executive director of Texas Gun Sense has exchanged business cards with gun dealers and sellers, and lobbyists this year. She is also a supporter of bills that never made progress in previous legislative sessions.
Rick Briscoe, the legislative director for Open Carry Texas, stated that he is trying to promote courteous discussion even on fundamental disagreement issues.
The Texas advocacy associate for the Community Justice Action Fund, Christina Delgado, said that discussions about ending and fighting gun deaths seem to be becoming more bipartisan. This is due to the scope and extent of gun violence’s impact on the lives of everyone.
On Tuesday, a Texas House committee is scheduled to have a debate on some of the bills that were filed in immediate answer to last year’s school shooting in Uvalde, which killed 19 children and two teachers. But similar bills have not acquired a hearing in the Senate and don’t appear to be getting one any time soon which made Texas gun control and safety advocates more positive.
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