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O’Rourke bets the gunfire will shake up Governor of Texas race

WASHINGTON (AP) — Still mourning the mass shooting in Texas, Democrat Beto O’Rourke gave his long shot campaign push, beg national audience that it’s finally time for real action to contain the spread of powerful guns in his home state and throughout America.

It was 2019 and former congressman fled for the President when he stated during the debate“Hell yeah, we’re going to pick up your AR-15” weeks after a shooter targeting Mexican immigrants killed 23 people. people at Walmart in O’Rourke native El Paso.

Last week, after the massacre of 19 elementary school students and two teachers eighteen-year-old man with rifle type AR-15 in Uvalde, TX, O’Rourke – Now Campaign for governor – again briefly captured national political focus. This time it meant failure news conference of the man he wants to unseat is Republican Greg Abbottand ad – in moment, which subsequently became widespread online – that the massacre was “on you.”

O’Rourke bets that the tragedy could reset the governor. race in America’s Biggest Red State – Despite Abbott twice having previously won the election by a landslide and started campaign with $55 million in in bank and despite gun culture is getting bigger in Texas than anywhere else.

Is not work in 2019. O’Rourke Debate Declaration. won he is praised by other Democrats on stage and fundraising. But he fell out of in race barely six weeks later.

It’s too early to say what will happen in the governor’s race but the shooting is there already affected both sides. Abbott canceled his scheduled visit to the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association. remain in Uvalde. He was also passed by Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, who is among the negotiators with democratic colleagues on strengthening background checks and “red flag” laws allowing authorities to seize firearms from individuals identified as danger to yourself or others.

“I think it was a catharsis for a lot of of people what could possibly have been on fence,” said Abel Prado, chief executive director of democratic defense group Cambio Texas. “It gives you: ‘At least someone is trying to get up up and do something, or at least say something.”

O’Rourke spent two nights in Uvalde after the shooting then headed to Houston. for rally against gun violence outside meeting on Friday of NRA.

“Tom men as well as women in positions of power who care more about you power how using what power save lives of the ones you should serve… we will beat you and we will beat you,” O’Rourke told the protesters. who chanted his name and the phrase “Vote for them out!

Supporters hope that O’Rourke will regain the magic that made him national democratic star and almost upset Republican Senator Ted Cruz in 2018. But O’Rourke’s White House proposal has since fallen through. former President Donald Trump is easy won Texas in 2020 and Democrats who hoped to roll over scores of seats in Congress and legislatures in the state, which year lost almost all vertices race.

democrat also not won Governor of Texas since 1990, and, just last year, the state loosened restrictions on firearms enough to allow virtually any resident aged 21 or older can carry a gun without a license. Abbott signed this legislation along with NRA CEO Wayne Lapierre and group president Caroline Meadows.

Of course dominance of guns in Texas culture long predates the law. Abbott once tweeted that he was embarrassed that his state was lagging behind California. in gun sales while Cruz loves of saying “Give me a horse, gun and open plain and we can conquer world”. Former Republican Gov. Rick Perry is up for re-election in 2010 after using pistol with laser sight kill coyote while jogging.

Mass shootings also new in Texas. Massacre on Tuesday in Uvalde and the El Paso murders followed the Santa Fe high school mass shooting. outside Houston, which killed eight students and two teachers in 2018 and church rampage in Sutherland Springs what left 26 people dead including the unborn child, year before.

Former Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, longtime Republican for almost everywhere he went, he carried multiple pistols, said that O’Rourke’s most ardent supporters would “even more defined in vote for Beto” after the confrontation with Abbott.

Still, Patterson said the clash could backfire, alienating otherwise potentially sympathetic swing voters. who would have thought that O’Rourke was putting on selfish show.

“Sometimes your method suppresses your message, and his method negates all the good he could have gotten,” Patterson said. who, as a state senator, wrote “Texas”. original1995 Concealed Firearms Act allowing Texans to carry firearms. more places than almost everywhere in America of that time. “I think that it’s net the loss.”

Abbott made little mention of O’Rourke after the shooting, but answered questions about possible new state gun restricts by slamming high crime rates in cities in the first place run democrats.

“There is more people filmed every weekend in Chicago than is in schools in Texas,” the governor said exaggeratingly. Speaking of arguments that new gun restrictions could make Americans safer: “Chicago, Los Angeles and New York refute this thesis.”

Abbott campaign It has also previously chided O’Rourke for his previous position on guns that make online ad last year cartoon display of O’Rourke Speeds Up wrong direction down a one-way streetthen off rock while the radio plays clips of its “hell yes” comment and other strongly progressive positions he took as a presidential candidate.

O’Rourke campaign insists that he using massacre for political benefit. He transformed his fundraising apparatus into one accepting donations for native of killed in Uvalde and says O’Rourke visited Abbott news conference at the urging of one of families of the victims.

He sat quietly in the audience for 10 plus minutes, intending only to listen, campaign said. But when Abbott said “there was no meaningful warning of this is crime” besides what the shooter wrote about the shooting just Moments before he did so, O’Rourke became angry, especially since the state’s main reaction after the El Paso shooting was to loosen up. gun laws. He walked up to the stage and accused Abbott of “doing nothing” when the violence in Uvalda was “completely predictable”.

Also on Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin was on stage who answered with obscenity and called O’Rourke “sick” for trying to make the execution “political issue”.

But still it helped one Texan changed her mind. Nicole Armijo, who works in her familyHVAC business in borders city of McAllen and has three children aged 10, 9 and 6 attending public school. She doesn’t vote for O’Rourke when he fled for the Senate, but plans by now, because way we do what doesn’t work.”

“Maybe Texas, it’s not just about availability gunArmijo said. who said she loves guns and hunting, but support advanced background checks. “Good Beto of portrayed these thoughts: It’s not about me or you. This applies to everyone in general.”

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More on school shooting in Uvalde, TX: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings.

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This story has been corrected to show Abbott twice won elections, not re-election, by landslides.

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Tyler Hromadka
Tyler Hromadka
Tyler is working as the Author at World Weekly News. He has a love for writing and have been writing for a few years now as a free-lancer.

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