Texas gets failing grade on its gun laws

[Daemonaquila]

1. Anti-gun fanaticism: the left fringe's single-issue answer to the right's anti-abortion

and anti-gay contingent.

21 states getting an F. Wow. That says more about the extreme agenda of one single-issue nonprofit (just like the crazies who give Fs to states with "too lax" anti-abortion laws) than it does about Texas or any other state these folks have graded. Another 10 with Ds. A whole 6 states with As and Bs. Yup, single-issue fanatics.

In terms of changing the country in meaningful ways, let's put this in perspective. I live in Texas, and I know my neighbors. You know how some non-fringe Rethugs are saying that they could win America in a landslide if the crazy contingent of their party would stop making abortion and gay rights the core of their hate agenda? Texas would go blue in a heartbeat if a certain contingent of dems got off their finger-wagging anti-gun agenda and focused on the issues that are core to Texans as well as people everywhere in this country - health care, bad banking and bad corporate citizenship, making sure people's tap water doesn't ignite, etc. Most of my friends, neighbors, and co-workers are RINOs - when you talk issues with them, they're libertarian left. But if guns are going to be more important in elections than the issues that really matter in getting our country on the right footing, dems and the dem platform are not going to get off the starting blocks in Texas and a number of other states.

But back to guns. In the interest of full disclosure, I have one gun. It has been used once, to put down a distempered raccoon that was endangering multiple neighbors' dogs one early morning. I also know what my neighbors have in their very considerable arsenals, and in many cases what they're packing in their trucks or under their coats. I used to live in much more restrictive Minnesota, where this type of gun culture would be considered alarming. But living in it, is it in any way troubling? Not at all.

Living in Minnesota, I actually saw much more gun violence than I see in my new home state. Yes, there are more accidents - but that's not violence. Nor does any rational person consider suicides and attempted suicides as gun violence. By the way, this fringe group's statistics are fundamentally skewed to make their point - lying to make an argument doesn't work for rethugs, and dems shouldn't play that game either. In terms if gun-related death rate, Texas is #26 in the nation per capita (http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-death-rate-per-100-000). That's hardly alarming. Alas for them, it's not a sexy figure that single-issue groups can use to shill for money and headlines. Shame, shame.