By: José Niño
The Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund has launched a $250,000 ad campaign targeting Republican congressional seats in Texas.
The anti-Second Amendment group’s ads ran in the districts of Congressmen Dan Crenshaw, Michael McCaul, John Carter, and Chip Roy. Ads were also deployed in Texas’ 24th Congressional District, where former Irving, Texas mayor Beth Van Duyne is running for Congress.
According to the Cook Political Report, the 24th District is a "toss-up.” McCaul’s and Roy’s districts are designated "lean Republican." Crenshaw’s and Carter’s are viewed as "likely Republican." Earlier in the year, Everytown announced its plan to drop at least $60 million in races across the nation for the 2020 election cycle.
These ads are part of the group’s $8 million campaign to undermine Republican candidates in the Lone Star state. Everytown titled this effort, "Gun Sense Majority: Texas” and is focusing its efforts on 20 state legislature races as well. According to the anti-gun group, it needs to emerge victorious in nine Republican-held seats to attain a "gun sense majority."
“We’re investing in Texas because this state has one of the highest rates of gun violence deaths in the country,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, a group within Everytown for Gun Safety’s umbrella, said to reporters back in February.
To say the stakes are high in Texas would be an understatement. A Democrat takeover of the State House would make Constitutional Carry dead on arrival for the 2021 legislative session. Furthermore, Texas going blue altogether would cause a massive political realignment in the country. Such a realignment would be a nightmare scenario for the Second Amendment.
Changing demographics and the Texas GOP’s refusal to listen to grassroots demands to pass pro-gun legislation such as Constitutional Carry have made the state susceptible to encroachments from the Left. Keeping gun grabbers at bay in Texas will be one of the biggest fights in the upcoming decade.
We should keep in mind, however, that playing defense will not be enough. Once Second Amendment advocates are able to beat back anti-gun forces, they must pressure their legislators to pass genuine pro-gun legislation. Because of wishy-washy politicians, many voters end up sitting out come election time. With elections becoming closer and closer every passing year, any kind of depression in turnout could be costly to Republicans. Ultimately, it would behoove them to listen to their pro-gun constituencies and make an effort to pass solid pro-gun legislation.
If Texas Republican leadership continues to kick the can down the road, the idea of Texas turning blue within the next decade will not be so far-fetched after all.
José Niño is a Venezuelan American freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. Sign up for his mailing list here. Contact him via Facebook, Twitter, or email him at [email protected]. Get his e-book, The 10 Myths of Gun Control, here.