Texas gun bills taking us back to Old West days

Oh, how I wish Texas lawmakers cared as much about our children as they do their guns.

And wouldn’t it be terrific if the folks who represent us in Austin despised injustice as much as they do immigration and taxes?

I suppose, given the makeup of our state Legislature and the leadership in the top statewide offices, that’s a little too much to hope for.

It is no surprise that new gun legislation has been put on a fast track at the Capitol, sailing through committee and floor votes with ease, while our underfunded public schools likely will languish.

With our school funding system having been declared unconstitutional by a state district judge, legislators are expected to wait until the state Supreme Court rules on the matter before even considering trying to correct the system. In the meantime, they still look for ways (like vouchers for private schools) to further undermine public education.

But who cares, as long as we have our guns to comfort us?

The double-barreled proposals for the open carry of handguns and for concealed handguns on college campuses are idiotic ideas to me, ones that we are likely to regret, but those are issues that many current lawmakers ran on during the last election. So, they’ve wasted no time pushing them through.

The campus carry bill, which most college administrators opposed, passed in the Senate last week. It allows anyone with a concealed handgun license to bring their weapons into campus buildings except hospitals, bars and public schools on those campuses.

State Sen. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, argued, “The people of Texas don’t want this bill. The administrators don’t want this bill. Faculty doesn’t want this bill. Workers and employees don’t want this bill. Students don’t want this bill. Why are we doing this?”

That’s a good question.

The answer is that some people, like bill sponsor Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, think it is a God-given right to carry a gun.

College administrators pointed out that, in addition to safety concerns, guns on campus would add millions of dollars to their cost of operations because of added police, training and storage facilities.

Birdwell’s response to them was, “A fundamental right granted by the Creator is not subordinate to the financial costs or speculation … of our universities.”

I suppose that same argument holds for open carry, where gun owners can strap on their weapons and walk around freely with them in public.

It was meant to be by the Creator. In fact, I can envision God walking up to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and saying, “Listen folks, since you really have no way to conceal your handguns on your naked bodies, I guess I’ll approve open carry.”

I know, it is not a laughing matter. If anything, it is crying time in Texas as we watch our esteemed lawmakers push through their priorities.

Our new governor, who also campaigned on improving the state’s pre-kindergarten program, has vowed to sign the gun legislation if it passes, but he has only presented an inadequate, piecemeal plan for early childhood education.

Between the guns and another major effort on border patrols, it appears there really is an attempt to return to the days of the Old West, where we can walk down Main Street with our pistols in view and wage war with Mexico along the Rio Grande.

It makes me wonder if that’s where we’re also headed with public education — back to the days of the one-room schoolhouse, and the townfolk waiting for the new schoolmarm to arrive on the afternoon stage.

This story was originally published March 20, 2015 at 7:26 PM with the headline "Texas gun bills taking us back to Old West days."