Texas Gun Control

There have always been those who disagree with the way that our national, state and local governments are run. One such disagreement centers around the opinion that state legislators often spend their time focusing on issue that are not as pertinent as other situations facing their governing jurisdictions and the people affected by such issues. The Texas State Senate has been spending their time debating a new gun control law. According to the article “Bothersome racket is just Texas Legislature firing blanks” which was published in the Editorial section of the Austin-American Statesman on Saturday March 21, 2009, the State Senate is simply wasting their time on the issue.

The article seeks to illuminate light on the Senate’s decision to debate legislature that would allow employees to carry firearms with them in their vehicles to their place of employment. Employers are concerned that such legislation would make it more difficult for them to keep their businesses and employees safe. While this is an interesting debate and a tricky piece of gun control legislation, myself as well as the authors of the article believe that there are much more pressing issues at hand.

The authors put their concerns, which echo my own, into a concrete argument by stating that a “governance discussion” about gun control “is a time-consuming luxury that Texas legislators facing economic crisis can ill afford.” Simply put it is not a pertinent issue to spend time debating upon when our economy, both locally and nation-wide is struggling and Americans are in need of help and assurance. It is not acceptable for our tax dollars and our elected officials’ time to be spent analyzing a very minute piece of a gun control issue which is insignificant in terms of how many Texans will be affected by the outcome.

Our government needs to be focusing on how to reverse the downward spiral that our economy is taking in order to restore the public’s faith in government. Us as Americans need help with an economy that is forcing us to change the way we live. Unemployment rates are phenomenally high while the dollar is losing its strength by the day. It does not put the minds of Texans at ease to learn that the people we hve elected to help us are spending time with tedious issues when so much more could be done to help turn the economic situation in our state around.