Mayor Betsy Price calls for common-sense gun control, expresses confidence in Trump
Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price was the only panelist to express confidence that President Donald Trump would take steps to reduce gun violence during a discussion Friday at the Texas Tribune Festival.
“I think his second term — if he wins again — I do think he will do something,” said Price, the lone Republican on the panel. “At least on background checks.”
Speaking Friday on a panel named “The Trigger,” Price stressed the need for common-sense gun control laws in a state that saw 29 people killed in shootings in El Paso and Midland and Odessa in August.
Moderated by MSNBC Washington correspondent Garrett Haake, the panel also featured Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action; Peter Ambler, the executive director and co-founder of Giffords; and Rep. Cesar Blanco, D-El Paso, who recently announced his candidacy for the Texas Senate.
Price has signaled her support for stricter gun control laws before, joining a bipartisan group of mayors earlier this month who traveled to Washington, D.C., to call on the U.S. Senate to take action on universal background checks.
Price said she didn’t meet with Trump personally during her visit, where mayors advocated for “a suite of solutions” in a meeting with officials from the Trump administration, including White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway.
Price noted she was the only Texas mayor on the trip, and said that while action needs to be taken on a national level, it will need to be buoyed by bipartisan support — which she sees in Texas.
Price did not go as far as supporting mandatory gun buyback programs.
“Mandatory buybacks are just a distraction and they take away from what we should be doing immediately,” Price said.
A February 2019 poll by the Texas Politics Project found that 72% of Texans surveyed strongly supported or somewhat supported red flag laws, which can provide law enforcement a means to confiscate firearms from people deemed dangerous by a judge.
“Congress is not where this work begins, it’s where it ends,” said Watts, who noted the work of Moms Demand volunteers across statehouses nationwide. They’ve made their presence known at recent Texas House and Senate hearings on guns, with volunteers’ red shirts dotting the audience as lawmakers discussed how to prevent future mass shootings.
Price touted the Fort Worth Police Department’s Mental Health Crisis Intervention Team as a model for cities to reduce potential violence in their communities. Created in 2017, the team is comprised of officers who follow up on calls for service related to mental health. The team works with law liaisons from My Health My Resources Tarrant County as well as U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials.
“Families can call and say, ‘I’ve got a question about a gun or I’ve got a child that’s in crisis that’s got access to a gun,’ and (officers can) go out and talk to them,” Price said. “In less than a year, they were legally able and lawfully able to seize 250 firearms.”
Price recounted the team’s recent work earlier this month in thwarting what Fort Worth Police believed to be a potential mass shooting. After they received a 911 call about a 27-year-old man who hadn’t been taking his medication and was talking about thoughts of harming people, the Crisis Intervention Team took the man to a clinic for a psychiatric evaluation.
“There are innovative things that can be done at the local level,” Price said.
But Ambler pushed back on Price’s stance.
“We cannot let this problem become something that we weigh on existential forces in our culture. It’s not a problem with mental health ... or parenting,” Ambler said. “If it was, other countries would have the same problem we have. We are not the only country in the world where people play violent video games.”
The real issue that needs addressing, Ambler said: easy and unregulated access to guns.
“Getting a standardized background check, closing the loopholes, getting red flag laws in, is absolutely first thing we can do and the most important step,” Price said. “But there are a lot of other issues.”
The broad approach is one state lawmakers who have been tasked with preventing future mass shootings have taken as they look at everything from loopholes in gun laws to mental health issues, and even the role of violent video games.
In the wake of the shootings, state leaders have issued executive orders, convened roundtables and committee hearings, and vowed to devote resources to prevent future mass shootings. Meanwhile, over 60 Democratic state lawmakers have called for a special session on gun violence — a step Gov. Greg Abbott has previously said is not needed for action to be taken.
Blanco reiterated the need for a special session to address gun violence.
While lawmakers increased resources for mental health and school safety this past session, they also made it easier for guns to be allowed in more places. It was lawmakers’ first chance to craft new laws after the mass shootings in Sutherland Springs in 2017 and Santa Fe in 2018.
When asked by Ed Scruggs, the president of Texas Gun Sense, a nonprofit that advocates for policies that reduce gun violence, how discussion can be initiated with Republicans who take the stance that evil can’t be legislated, Price said she doesn’t think a majority of Republicans believe that.
“I think you go to them logically. We’re not going to ever totally legislate gun violence out,” Price said. “We’re just not. But we can do some things to get it better and make gradual steps on it. They’re looking for solutions, and the solutions have to come here in the middle.”
