Amarillo Mayor Ginger Nelson signed a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott (R) asking for more gun control last week while the nation was absorbed with Supreme Court decisions.
Amarillo, located in the Texas Panhandle, is a place where cowboys still roam, a place where ranchers with handguns on their hips and rifles in their trucks drive across flat land to break ice before sunrise so cattle can have water to drink.
It is now also a city tied to the latest in-state gun control push via Mayor Nelson.
Texas Tribune reporter Joshua Fechter listed the gun controls sought by the mayors who signed the letter to Abbott. Those controls include universal background checks, red flag laws, and raising the age to buy an “assault weapon” to 21.
California has a red flag law. They also have universal background checks and a minimum purchase age of 21 for semiautomatic rifles. (The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled the minimum purchase age unconstitutional on May 11, 2022, but the law had been on the books in California for two years.)
Despite these and numerous other gun controls, California was the number one state for “active shooter incidents” in 2021.
Three Democrat Mayors were also signatories with Nelson. They are Steve Adler (D-Austin), Eric Johnson (D-Dallas), and Sylvester Turner (D-Houston).
Other signatories included Ron Nirenberg (I-San Antonio) and Mattie Parker (R-Ft. Worth).
Amarillo City Councilman Cole Stanley is standing against Mayor Nelson’s gun control push.
ABC 7 Amarillo published a letter Stanley released, which says in part: “As a result of Mayor Ginger Nelson’s support of the open letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott regarding gun control, I am stating publicly that as an elected representative of the citizens of Amarillo, TX, the Mayor does not speak for me nor does she represent my views on this subject.”
Stanley added, “Our God-given rights shall not be infringed upon by impotent policies that restrict law-abiding citizens’ freedoms and do nothing to protect the most innocent people in our society.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.