Few topics produce as many insipid excuses in Texas than guns. Some people treat their Second Amendment rights as if it's the First, because guns can't speak for themselves. The topic can make leaders twist themselves into self-contradicting gas-lighters who do everything short of yelling "Squirrel!" and run away whether or not anyone turns their head. Considering some of the past scapegoats Texas political leaders have tried to create in the shadow of tragedies like the one in Uvalde, which set a state record for mass shootings, that's probably somewhere in the playbook.
So you might want to think twice before jotting down one of these excuses if you're inclined to speak up for the rights of guns.
Gov. Abbott has some ideas to prevent mass shootings but none of them have to do with guns.
Lynda M. Gonzalez-Pool/Getty Images
Gov. Greg Abbott's press conference on the Uvalde shooting delivered more slaps in the face to the state than a Real Housewives marathon. He pledged to enact meaningful legislation that would curb this kind of violence even though the last thing he did regarding guns almost a year ago only expanded access. Of course, Abbott did it without actually making any suggestions for even piecemeal measures that could actually curb shootings.
Abbott said that mental illness played a bigger role in the Uvalde shooting than the shooter's ability to buy two AR-style rifles although so far there's no record of mental illness or criminal activity in his history. What has Abbott done to increase the average person's ability to obtain affordable, effective mental health care? According to research from the nonprofit advocacy group Mental Health America, Texas ranks dead last in states' overall access to mental health care. Abbott could've achieved more if he paid churches to hand-deliver more thoughts and prayers to the state's stockpile, because at least that requires some kind of active measure.
2. Video Games
Video games have been blamed for just about every ill and tragedy in American culture. The few things video games haven't been scapegoated for yet include sleep apnea and rug burns.
Every shooting features at least one bloated head in a suit blaming those dang "vidya games" for being the true culprit. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pulled out this tired cliché following the El Paso shooting because the shooter's manifesto made a tiny mention about Call of Duty and ranted at length about immigration and interracial relationships. Video games are the Milli Vanilli of gun violence scapegoats. It has no substance and anyone who says it is just lip-syncing the words of the last person who tried it.
Ronny Jackson says it’s “unfortunate” that the media is going to focus on guns, since the real cause of school shootings is rap music and video games. pic.twitter.com/pjydr3zrpB
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 25, 2022
3. Rap Music
The 1980s overflowed with overreaching public officials trying to censor rap releases they personally found objectionable. So you might be thinking that this scapegoat is an oldie. Nope. Someone from Texas trotted out this tired excuse all the way back on Tuesday, May 24, 2022.
U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson fired a buckshot of bullshit during an interview on (where else?) Fox News the day of the Uvalde shooting. He tried to direct the blame for violent behavior in children on video games, access to the internet and "the horrible stuff they hear when they listen to rap music." The only way he could sound more like a old fogie is if he tried to blame the shooting on "this wild, new dance these kids think is the cat's pajamas called the jitterbug. Why, they get to toe tapping and leg swinging and smoking the jive and next thing they know, they're headed to the big house or getting themselves fitted for a Chicago overcoat. Yowza!"
4. Comic Books
This scapegoat is an oldie but it's worth mentioning because Texas had a big hand in turning it into something truly backwards and pointless.
Comic books were the culprit of choice for child delinquency in the 1950s. Child psychologist Dr. Fredric Wertham built the latter part of his career on the narrow-minded notion that comic books turned kids into sharp-toothed, drooling gremlins with a penchant for violence. His book Seduction of the Innocent prompted state and federal leaders to start enacting harsh censorship laws against classic comics published by companies such as EC Comics, including Two Fisted Tales, The Vault of Horror and Tales From the Crypt. Texas' Legislature was one of the leading champions of this movement, according to the book The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America.
Texas became one of 14 states to enact an anti-comic book law by the mid-1950s that included an outright ban on comics deemed objectionable by a censor board. The only good thing that came out of it was the fact that Tales From the Crypt would be reborn as an awesome horror anthology series on HBO (if you ignore the one movie that cast Dennis Miller in a leading role), and the only EC Comics series to survive the onslaught of censorship led to the creation of the humor rag MAD Magazine.
5. Gun Laws
Oh, boy. You know this guy was gonna be in this list somewhere at some point. The only surprise is that we didn't get to him sooner.
Sen. Ted Cruz is one of the Senate's biggest gun supporters, and he's got the 100% National Rifle Association rating to keep up with — you know he probably carries a copy of the report card in his wallet next to pictures of his family. Naturally, Cruz has jumped in front of cameras to start pointing the blame at everything BUT guns, and this is actually one of the saner thoughts he produced in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, which is still a limbo-grade low bar.
Cruz said before the Senate Judiciary Committee that enacting laws to stop guns from getting into the wrong hands would not only be a waste of time but "not only does it not reduce crime, it makes it worse." Of course, he offered no numbers or figures to back up the claim because proving your math isn't really a thing you have to do to become a senator.
6. Entrances and Exits (No, Really)“Semi automatic rifles don’t kill people, unlocked back doors kill people” pic.twitter.com/mK5rxAdcrz
— Greg Grunberg (@greggrunberg) May 26, 2022
Patrick and Cruz are the kind of tongue-tying loudmouths who could back themselves into a corner in a circular room. They've blamed gun violence on just about everything on their side of the political aisle that they can't stand. So when you've got nowhere to go, the only place left is crazy.
Republicans like these two are actually starting to blame the school buildings for the high death tolls. Patrick started this scapegoat trope back in 2018 during a press conference in the wake of the Santa Fe High School shooting near Houston that killed 10 people by suggesting that the entrance and exit access of the school caused more deaths than the guns. Cruz picked up the narrative after Uvalde.
"There are too many entrances and too many exits to our over 8,000 campuses in Texas," Patrick said in 2018. "There aren't enough people to put a guard in every entrance and exit."
Damn! If only Republicans weren't against human cloning, we could solve this problem. You know an idea truly dumb when it's the same plot point as one of the Star Wars prequels.
