Wednesday 25 May 2022 08:13 PM Abbott bucks gun control calls because shootings in Chicago where there are ... trends now
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that tightening gun laws is not a 'real solution' to gun violence because places like New York and Chicago see more shootings than schools in Texas.
On Tuesday an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two teachers.
'I know people like to try to oversimplify this,' Abbott said during a news briefing on the shooting Wednesday after he was asked whether there are any new gun laws he supports. 'There are 'real gun laws' in NY. There are real gun laws in California I hate to say this but there are more people who were shot every weekend in Chicago than in schools in Texas.'
'People need to realize-- who think well maybe we can just implement tougher gun laws, it's gonna solve it-- Chicago and LA and New York disprove that thesis,' the governor said.
'What you're talking about its not a real solution. Our job is to come up with real solutions we can implement.'
Abbott laid blame for the school shooting not on the state's lax gun laws but on the 'mental health crisis' it was facing.
He said he asked a group of Texas sheriffs what the 'problem' was, claiming they told him: 'We have a problem with mental health illness in this community.'
'We as a state, we as a society, need to do a better job with mental health. Anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental health challenge. Period,' Abbott said.
'We as a government need to find a way to...do something about it'
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that tightening gun laws is not a 'real solution' to gun violence because places like New York and Chicago see more shootings than schools in Texas
'People need to realize-- who think well maybe we can just implement tougher gun laws, it's gonna solve it-- Chicago and LA and New York disprove that thesis,' the governor said
Texas ranks 15th for weakest gun laws of the 50 states, according to the Giffords Law Center. Gun homicide rates in the state have risen 90 percent in the last decade, rising every year since 2011.
Gun crimes have risen in major cities with strict gun laws, too-- a rise in shootings in Chicago left more people dead in 2021 than in any other year in a quarter century. Shootings in New York City are also on the rise, numbering 296 for the first quarter of 2022 compared to the first quarter of 2021. Homicides in Los Angeles hit a 15-year-high in 2021, according to police.
Abbott then went on to say it has been legal for 18-year-olds in Texas to buy guns for 60 years, but that school shootings have not been happening for as long.
'What has changed is mental health.'
Meanwhile, Biden has issued a number of impassioned pleas for gun control legislation.
'These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen elsewhere in the world. Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with it? It’s time to turn this pain into action,' Biden sounded off on Twitter Tuesday night.
'As a nation we must ask: When in God’s name will we
