Texas gun law unleashes deadly mayhem

Critics have expressed strong outrage against Texas’ new law that allows people to carry handguns in public without a permit—a Republican achievement that many local officials say has already led to a spike in spontaneous shootings in highly populated parts of the state.

In one high-profile case earlier this year, Tony Earls “pulled out his handgun and opened fire, hoping to strike a man who had just robbed him and his wife at an A.T.M. in Houston,” The New York Times reported Wednesday. “Instead, he struck Arlene Alvarez, a 9-year-old girl seated in a passing pickup, killing her.”

A grand jury declined to indict Earls, agreeing with his lawyer that “everything about that situation, we believe and contend, was justified under Texas law.”

As the Times noted, “The shooting was part of what many sheriffs, police leaders, and district attorneys in urban areas of Texas say has been an increase in people carrying weapons and in spur-of-the-moment gunfire in the year since the state began allowing most adults 21 or over to carry a handgun without a license.”

“Far from an outlier, Texas, with its new law, joined what has been an expanding effort to remove nearly all restrictions on carrying handguns,” the newspaper continued. “When Alabama’s ‘permitless carry’ law goes into effect in January, half of the states in the nation, from Maine to Arizona, will not require a license to carry a handgun.”

“But Texas is the most populous state to do away with handgun permit requirements,” the Times pointed out. “Five of the nation’s 15 biggest cities are in Texas, making the permitless approach to handguns a new fact of life in urban areas to an extent not seen in other states.”

Peer-reviewed research published Wednesday showed that Americans are more likely to die early if they live in states dominated by right-wing lawmakers, and weak gun safety measures were among the factors driving up state-level mortality rates.

Many law enforcement officials say the presence of firearms on the street has increased while handgun permit applications have decreased.

“It seems like now there’s been a tipping point where just everybody carries arms,” said Sheriff Ed Gonzalez of Harris County, which includes Houston.

However, the Texas GOP’s assault on gun control is just part of a “state-by-state legislative push,” which “has coincided with a federal judiciary that has increasingly ruled in favor of carrying guns and against state efforts to regulate them,” the Times reported.

Years before making it easier to carry handguns in public, Texas Republicans turned their state into one of the 29 nationwide with so-called “stand your ground” laws. These laws, also known as “shoot first” laws, upend the common law principle of a “duty to retreat,” enabling individuals to use deadly force in purported self-defense as a first, rather than last, resort.

A study published earlier this year found that “shoot first” laws are associated with hundreds of additional firearm homicides each year.

Originally published at Commondreams.org.