There is something wrong with Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott claimed that mass shootings are an issue of mental health and not gun access following the massacre in his state. He said that following the Uvalde mass school shooting, he repeated it after the mall shooting even though he slashed nearly $211 million from the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), which oversees mental health services in Texas.
The problem is Republicans. They keep fighting for fewer gun restrictions even though children are being slaughtered. Now they want poll workers to be armed.
The Boston Globe reports:
Election judges and many poll workers would be able to carry handguns at polling places under a bill in Texas that moved forward on Friday, a day before a gunman killed eight people at an outlet mall in a Dallas suburb.
The bill would allow election judges to carry handguns at most polling places and some poll workers to do so during early voting. State Representative Jared Patterson, a Republican who filed the bill, said during a hearing on the legislation in March that the change “will make it clear that law-abiding citizens who are election judges who want to carry to protect themselves and discharge their duties can do so legally without fear of prosecution,” the Dallas Morning News reported.
The proposal now heads to the Texas Senate, where similar legislation failed in 2021, according to the Morning News. It would take effect on Sept. 1 if passed.
Although firearms are generally prohibited in polling places, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a nonbinding opinion in 2018 that presiding election judges who are licensed to carry can bring handguns to polling places with some limited exceptions, the Texas Tribune reported. The proposed legislation seeks to codify that opinion into law.
Republicans have been pushing for more guns in a country saturated with them. Abbott has been at it for years:
The GOP is full of psychopaths.
