| Perspectives on Texas

When tragedies strike, as they did recently in Sutherland Springs, people set aside their differences and unite. We pray, because we know it is powerful even when we feel powerless, and we work to find healing.

Part of that healing is anger. We want to find anyone possible to blame. Beyond just the perpetrator, people may blame the victims for not being prepared, or the police for not being faster, or the Legislature for not having more laws — or even God for allowing it to happen at all.

Anger is understandable, but it is also dangerous. Often people want to use anger to achieve their own personal goals. They want the mob to rise up and help them increase their power. We see this regularly from politicians crying out for more authority so they can "fix things."

One of the most common guises this can take is to call for “common sense gun control.” Adding common sense in front of it to supposed to make you feel nonsensical if you do not happen to agree.

But Texans have historically had a different sense of how to deal with gun legislation.

That is why the Republican Party of Texas calls for our state to recognize constitutional carry, so that anyone who legally possesses a handgun may carry it, open or concealed, without a government-granted permit.

The Texas Young Republican Federation supports and affirms this legislation, and hopes lawmakers will make it a priority.

As we saw in Sutherland Springs, good men and women should not only have the right to carry, but should exercise it. We are thankful for those who were prepared and helped stop the killer from escaping. These armed citizens possibly saved countless innocent lives.

We continue to call on all elected officials to conduct themselves with tact, and cease using these types of situations to manipulate public sentiment. We oppose any call for committees or commissions whose purpose would be to limit innocent, free Texans’ ability to defend themselves, no matter the side of the aisle from which it comes.

We cannot stop evil. We can only empower good people to do the right thing.

As former state Rep. Susan Gratia-Hupp testified to Congress regarding the 1991 shooting at a Luby’s Cafeteria where her parents were killed, “I’m not a victim of guns, but of lawmakers who legislated me out of the right to protect myself and my family.”

Hupp was only 32 at the time of that attack, but like her, today's Texas Young Republicans respond to terror not by seeking to limit freedom, but by working to see that more people are prepared to protect their families and communities.

We understand the anger. We know why people would want to give the government more power. But history shows that government limiting good people is not the answer. We urge lawmakers not to use tragedies to lead Texas down the road of more government, but to lead us to a place of greater freedom. We demand Texas finally recognize constitutional carry.