Recommendations of the Editorial team
Texas is about to make it easier for its inhabitants to own short -term shotguns and rifles. This would relax another weapons law in a state, dhe has experienced some of the country’s fatal mass shootings in the country in the past ten years.
The Texas draft law Senate Bill 1596 would decriminalize the possession of short -term long weapons – including sawn -off shotguns. Texas currently defines this weapons banned in the state (without a federal permit) as a “a rifle with a running length of less than 16 inches. Or a shotgun with a running length of less than 18 inches. Or each weapon made from a shotgun or a rifle, which is shorter than 26 inches overall”.
Weapons with a short running length: fatal and easy to hide
Access to such weapons is usually limited, since shortened rifles and shotguns are extremely fatal, but also easier to hide. Snown shotguns create a wide shot that can injure or kill several people with a shot. In 2018, 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis used a short-term shotgun obsessed by his father to kill eight students and two teachers at the Santa Fe High School.
Such weapons are classified by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) as Title-II weapons according to the 1968 Gun Control Act. So as weapons that require a state registration to be bought and obsessed. SB 1596 does not change this federal law. But creates an open conflict. The draft law makes the possession of such weapons legal at the state level. And leaves the enforcement of federal law to the federal authorities. (Progressive states have pursued a similar strategy for legalizing marijuana, although the drug is still illegal.) SB 1956 was sent to governor Greg Abbott (R) on June 1st. Which is expected to sign before June 22nd.
Dismantling of gun controls despite the bloody story
There are a number of heavy mass shootings in the state. Including the murder of 21 students and teachers in 2022 at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. The murder of 23 people in 2018 at a massacre in a Walmart in El Paso. And the murder of 23 church goers in Sutherland Springs in 2017. Nevertheless, Abbott and the Texas legislative enthusiastically have removed restrictions on fatal weapons.
The state allows residents to wear weapons without permission. He has deccriminalized silencers. Restrictions on the sale of weapons and ammunition during declared emergency stands or disasters canceled. And Texas explains to the “Second Amendment Sanctuary State”. Whereby the enforcement of nationwide weapons control laws is blocked by state and local authorities.
A report from 2024 of the Giffords weapons security group – founded by the former MP and attacking Gabby Giffords – shows significant effects. The number of weapons in Texas has increased by 63 percent since Abbott took office in 2014.
In April, after a number of rights to abolish weapon controls in the Texas Parliament, Molly Bursey from the Texas Department of the Organization Moms Demand Action said: “More weapons in dangerous hands and in sensitive places are only leading to one. More violence, more fear, more loss and more grief.”