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Ep. 12: Giffords, Gun Owners for Safety in Texas (Steven Kling)
66 Plays24 days ago
A Giffords leader, Army combat veteran, Texas gun owner, and Democrat Steven Kling joins Mission Texas to dismantle one of the biggest political myths in Texas — that being a Democrat is somehow in conflict with being a gun owner. Steve Kling of Giffords Gun Owners for Safety explains why common-sense gun safety laws protect the Second Amendment, preserve public trust in responsible gun ownership, and keep Texas communities safe.
As Texans head into the new year, this is a must-hear conversation about public safety, responsibility, and what it really takes to build a winning majority in Texas.
In this episode, we also talk about:
• What Giffords Gun Owners for Safety is and how it differs from the NRA
• What Texans really support on gun safety, including background checks and red-flag laws
• Dangerous gun bills quietly moving through the Texas Legislature
• Why schools and communities are being put at risk by current gun proposals
Follow @MissionTexasPodcast
Learn more: giffords.org/stats
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Mission
00:00:00
Speaker
Howdy. This is Mission Texas. A political podcast about winning Texas by 2032 or else we may lose the White House for a generation. I'm one of your hosts, Alex Clark.
00:00:13
Speaker
And I am Kate Rumsey. Other podcasts may focus on the day-to-day the next election. But we are keeping the eyes of Texas on the bigger prize. What happens after the next census?
00:00:27
Speaker
Well, we have a special episode with a representative from the Giffords Group. ah This person is a Texan. He is an army vet. He is a gun owner.
00:00:38
Speaker
and he's a Democrat right here in the state of Texas. No, those are not contradictory terms. Welcome to the podcast, Steve Kling.
Guest Introduction: Steve Kling
00:00:45
Speaker
ah Thank you for having me, Kate. And Alex.
00:00:50
Speaker
Well, I have a question. You're part of a group called Gun Owners for Gun Safety within the Giffords group. And I'm really curious, like, what is the existence of that kind of group in answer to, especially within Giffords? Like, I'm i'm very curious because we have a lot of gun owners in this state.
00:01:11
Speaker
Yeah, a slight correction is just gun owners for safety, but um it is a it is part of the Giffords organization, and it seeks to give a home to people like me who have felt for a long time that organizations like the NRA do not speak for me.
00:01:27
Speaker
They don't speak for most of Texas gun owners. Statistics will bear that out. We could talk about that, too. but It is something I've wanted an organization that as a gun owner would restore my voice around common sense gun laws, around the need to protect our communities and ah
Gun Owners for Safety's Mission
00:01:45
Speaker
to, you know, provide, you know,
00:01:49
Speaker
access to training and other tools that are being provided by the NRA and and everything that comes with that as an alternative to that.
00:02:00
Speaker
We felt for a long time that the NRA just does not represent our voice. We feel like that since the late 80s have become increasingly political and increasingly an arm of the gun manufacturing lobby and not of of individuals who who still cherish the the legacy of gun ownership involved in hunting and sports and things of that nature that they were passed on by you know by our parents and our grandparents. In addition to my background, military background as a combat veteran, I served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:02:33
Speaker
But in my reserve duty, I was the commander of a small arms readiness team. ah They trained other units on on firearm safety. And so, we also fielded teams to go to all army competitions and won them very consistently. Not myself, but my my ah my my soldiers would do this. So, I come from a fairly unique perspective, even within the military, of having run ranges consistently and you know being responsible for training thousands of soldiers and airmen um over the course of several years on the importance of accountability and training and and and safety and you know gun responsibility. And
Challenging Stereotypes in Gun Ownership
00:03:13
Speaker
the ethos of the US military around around firearms very heavily
00:03:20
Speaker
you know is is very heavily um you know, focused on that kind of responsibility and accountability. And it's really interesting to see a gun culture that seems to want to emulate that.
00:03:35
Speaker
and They even dress that way. Yeah, very militarized. Right. And you two to to not understand or honor that the U.S. military takes safety seriously. Very seriously. seriously If you lose a weapon on a post, that post will shut down.
00:03:54
Speaker
And the general of that post will be will be immediately aware of your name. And no one comes in or out of that post until that weapon is found. I mean, that that's the level we're talking about.
00:04:04
Speaker
If you are even accused of domestic abuse in the military, your first sergeant will come to your home and confiscate any private weapons that you have. And if you are found guilty, you will never deploy again. You will be undeployable.
00:04:18
Speaker
but you will be uneployable because of the Law and Burke Act and Law and Brandon. So these are the kind of things that as someone from the military, like it's anathema to me, this idea that, that it should be a free for all and everyone should be able to carry whatever they want without any training whatsoever.
00:04:36
Speaker
Amen. So, I mean, when we're looking at like the state of Texas, and I think the stereotype is that a lot of people probably in the state of Texas have guns um or were perceived as a gun loving state. But i I was trying to do some research just to figure out how many people in the state of Texas own firearms. You know, it's hard to know because so many people are not, may not have a firearm that's registered under the ah the law, which we can talk about, but ah some people,
00:05:04
Speaker
they estimate that almost half of households might have a firearm in the state of Texas. So when we're a podcast about flipping Texas and trying to gain voters, get a bigger um part of our tent, you know bring people in. I think about, ah do we need to be speaking more to gun owners as Democrats and whether gun owners like yourself even feel welcome or perceived to be welcome within our party?
00:05:34
Speaker
Do
Origins of the Giffords Organization
00:05:35
Speaker
you know or have any sense of that? Well, i can key let's key off perception first and foremost, because the opposition has done a very good job of creating a perception that the Democratic Party does not reflect the values of gun owners, and nothing could be further from the truth.
00:05:51
Speaker
In poll after poll, we've seen recently, University of Houston poll, for example, gives 91% of Texans. support universal background checks. that That's just one.
00:06:02
Speaker
Over 80% of Texans ah um support red flag laws or extreme risk protection orders, right? That includes a lot of gunners. And then when you ask just gun owners, only gun owners, how many of them support universal background checks, it's always over 80%.
00:06:19
Speaker
so So it's a perception versus a reality thing. it's a it's It's a PR issue for us, for certain. And so the way to go about that is to be very vocal about the fact that being a Democrat and running as a Democrat and your policies around gun violence prevention are ah very much in line with the protections of the Second Amendment.
00:06:44
Speaker
And in fact, I like to put forward that they one of the reasons I'm an advocate for gun violence prevention, gun safety laws,
Kling's Political Motivation
00:06:53
Speaker
is to preserve the second amendment. If this keeps getting worse and worse and worse, you're gonna see a growing movement of people who are not gunners, who are not aware of the heritage around that, ah having a larger and larger voice that is not influenced by or instructed by by gun owners who who have those same concerns about safety of their communities.
00:07:17
Speaker
And so I think it's just a matter of really making it very clear that we do represent the will of the people in this case, and that by passing these gun laws, we're going to save lives, but we're also going to reflect what the people in Texas want, not just gun owners, but also gun owners.
00:07:35
Speaker
Steve, I want to get into your origin story about how you got involved in politics and how you got involved here too, but I want to back up even further because we we led the this pod with talking about Giffords as an organization.
00:07:49
Speaker
I know it's unlikely for the kind of person who follows political media at all. You may have heard about Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and just the horrible tragedy that she experienced whenever a gunman attacked her when she was just doing a routine constituent um visit. Right.
00:08:10
Speaker
um But I think we kind of always assume that everyone knows just as much as we do. And that's not always the case. So. um Would you mind describing um kind of the origin of Giffords itself? Well, sure. I mean, you're right. Gabby was attacked and several people on her
Challenges for Texas Democrats
00:08:31
Speaker
staff and stan standards by were were murdered at a Safeway parking lot where she was doing, you know, just meeting with constituents.
00:08:40
Speaker
She was a con congresst a Congresswoman from the state of Arizona at the time. and a gun on her and and ah you know reflected the politics of her district. She was by no means wearing any kind of gun control um policy desires on her sleeve. She was attacked by someone who should have never had access to a firearm.
00:09:05
Speaker
And it really wasn't until Sandy Hook ah and her interactions with with that incident that really, ah i think, motivated her to to take her her message forward.
00:09:25
Speaker
As you know, she that shooting that they shot her in the head, she was actually pronounced dead. And there's an excellent, by the way, documentary on this called Won't Back Down.
00:09:38
Speaker
that talks about that and her and Senator Kelly or Mark Kelly at the time. A dream, a guest of this podcast, actually. I i know, we'd love to have him too. You know, um i was almost as impressed with Senator Kelly's um
00:09:55
Speaker
you know, his support and the the the the clear outpouring of love and and and and everything that he and his family gave to her as her comeback itself. But the point I was going to make is that she's severely debilitated by that and and has worked for many, many years do that. So if you ever have the opportunity to meet Gabby Giffords, it is always an inspiration.
00:10:19
Speaker
She is out there and has built this organization despite oh those those limitations, and it's quite something. But that's it was really Sandy Hook that that really put her into overdrive around this issue.
00:10:34
Speaker
So then how did you get hooked up with Giffords? I mean, how is that a part of your overall story? Because I think the listeners may not know this, but you have ran as a Democrat here in the state of Texas. You ran for state Senate back in, I believe it was 2018, right? So, which is a which is a a year we talk a lot about on this podcast since we got super close to flipping the state. So how does all that fit in?
00:10:57
Speaker
You know, I think myself, I was... kind of shocked into ah out
Rising Influence of Gun Safety Groups
00:11:05
Speaker
of some complacency after the 2016 presidential race. And I think a lot of people were.
00:11:11
Speaker
To say that, my wife and I were attending, we live in Dripping Springs, we were attending Dripping Springs Democratic Action, and it was about 12 people around a table at a Mexican food restaurant every once a month.
00:11:24
Speaker
That grew, and we were also the only people under the age of, probably the under age of 50, the only couple that was even present there. um After the election of Trump in 2016, we saw that grow probably times 20.
00:11:41
Speaker
Had to get a new venue. And we were, you know, the constant discussion was around somebody needs to run, somebody somebody needs to run for every office.
00:11:52
Speaker
And so we did a lot of soul searching here at the house around around that. I felt like my my background as a combat veteran would be an appeal to independents and to to folks that may have had the the wrong impression of what a liberal is, what ah what a Democrat is, for example. And so long story short, I felt like that it was the right thing to do. My wife and I jokingly would call call it my third deployment.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yes. But that was that was the idea, was to just step
Controversial Legislation in Texas
00:12:27
Speaker
up and serve and kind of do my duty once again to my community. And so then after that, is that how you started getting at? And I believe that you told me prior to this podcast that you'd been active with Moms Demand Action and other groups. And so is that part of it? Because I know for myself, I ran, I lost, but I wanted to stay engaged and I wanted to still like carry on with my political activism. like Can you speak to that? Yeah. So I had always been a you know gun violence prevention passive advocate. Like I would have voted for it kind of person. I wasn't someone who was actively involved.
00:13:01
Speaker
It was just my sympathies were towards that and the need for that. but But it was when I ran and and you ran for office too, you know what it's like to go out there, particularly in my case, it was running like a 30 plus point disadvantage race. i mean, no one thought I could win and and frankly, we didn't, but we we did very well. Yeah. um going out there and finding people and organizations that would stand behind you out of principle and out of a true desire and trying to overcome this, this inertia, uh, that you, you get, and, and these preconceived ideas that, you know, the conclusion, yeah, the foregone conclusion conclusions that actually create
00:13:46
Speaker
the the conclusion, right? Like the, well, you can't win, so you won't win. So you can't win, so you can't get support. And so you don't get support, so you don't win. And trying to overcome that when when organizations will stand by you on principle, not because ah not they're they're not making a transactional decision, it means something.
00:14:07
Speaker
And when moms demand action, and particularly Becca DeFelice, who was kind of the
Humanizing Gun Violence for Policy Change
00:14:12
Speaker
point person on for that organization at the time, put their support behind me. It meant a lot.
00:14:19
Speaker
And so I spent a lot of time with them and i and i would and they taught me a lot more gun violence prevention, it's the movement, the work that they were doing in the state of Texas. This is pre-Evaldi too, by the way, right? Of course. and um And so we developed friendships and relationships around that. So when it came time after my election, when I didn't win, I was like, well, what am going to do with this voice?
00:14:44
Speaker
And, uh, we came down and again, my wife and I decided on two things, uh, gun violence prevention and education. She kind of handles the education side and I, I do this.
00:14:55
Speaker
You're right. Like, and I, but what I want to know is that as a candidate, did you feel like you could openly talk about being a gun owner then? i mean, you are now, obviously, because you look at things like Kamala Harris coming out and saying, i i own a Glock. And it seemed like there was a lot, and maybe this is a perception versus reality thing too. Like, it seemed like people were disappointed that that she was a gun owner. And even just speaking anecdotally for me,
00:15:19
Speaker
um You know, my husband has firearms. ah They're in our home. They're in a safe. We know how to use them. We're both in the military. yet i I don't know if I would have felt comfortable talking about being a gun owner in our party. And again, maybe that's because of the right projecting onto us and not, you know, feeling like we're not welcome within the party. But what I'm hearing from you is that it seems like we've got it reversed. Like a lot of gun owners are in line with us. And our, you know, especially with gun safety, with safety and ah gun violence issues.
00:15:52
Speaker
Well, and we do have it reversed and in in a sense that if we we think it's a risk politically in the state of Texas to be forthright about gun ownership, um I think that's a mistake.
00:16:06
Speaker
in Texas, it's not that big of a risk to to go forward with that. I think, you know, when you're talking about Kamala Harris's campaign and something more national, she has other states where gun ownership is not as prevalent. They're far more urban, they're smaller.
00:16:20
Speaker
um That kind of appeal to someone in Connecticut, for example, might you might be a little bit different, but you know, you're in Texas, running for Texas, you know, you have you you have to reflect your constituency. And so I never consider it a risk to be upfront about that.
00:16:37
Speaker
And, you know, sat on several gun violence prevention or, you know, gun violence debate panels where it was happily discussed that because, you know, Texas has a rural traditions. Like we we may be slightly more urban now overall in population, but We come from our rural traditions, pioneering frontier kind of mentalities where that, you know, we're only a couple of generations away from people using firearms to to bring home food.
00:17:04
Speaker
Well, and to be clear, there
Cultural Identities & Gun Control
00:17:05
Speaker
are a lot of people in in urban settings right here in Dallas, Texas, for example. um You know, why white people and and and and ah and ah people of color and in particular, actually, I hear from who for them, ownership of a weapon.
00:17:23
Speaker
is really important to them, even if they're otherwise thought of as like a true blue, up and down, every issue Democrat. um They'll say, you know, I actually, I don't, I don't tow the party line on that.
00:17:37
Speaker
um And so I think it's broader than just the rural urban divide. And i would just, I would just speculate that maybe I think one of the things about the the interview where she made the Glock revelation is that it was,
00:17:53
Speaker
It did come off as something of a revelation. it was It was news. It was like, oh, I wouldn't have thought that about you because it was not part of her identity.
00:18:05
Speaker
what I mean by that is if, for example, Andy Beshear from Kentucky is running for president in 2028,
00:18:13
Speaker
I don't know that it's news that the governor of Kentucky has guns. so He probably has talked about i don't know if he has or not, actually, but I just don't get the sense that it would be as shocking because it doesn't seem to go against the image he's been putting out. right like ah Without trying to be too trite about it, like I think there's this authenticity question to it all.
00:18:35
Speaker
I think you're right. And I think it's important actually to dispel those types of stereotypes, right? You know, and to, to step away, just, just be honest, right? Just, make I'm a gun owner, you know, that's just a thing. And let's talk about it. Let's be open about it. Ask me questions. I'll go and do Giffords fundraisers in New York and Los Angeles and speak as a gun owner, right? Like that's why I'm there.
00:19:00
Speaker
And I have the best conversations with people. about it and I and i dispel their preconceived notions. I think it's good. i think in Kamala Harris's case, probably a a gender component to to to why that was a story too, if you want to be honest. I think that's right.
00:19:14
Speaker
And so, you know, is that fair? i don't think so. But, you know, there's lots of women, including Gabby Gifford, right? And Texas's own Ann Richards. You can so see a great picture of her holding a shotgun and and the whole thing. And good with it, too. You know, some women on the gun range I wouldn't mess with, you know. Yeah.
00:19:34
Speaker
I know. You're absolutely a better shot than I am. Oh, listen, we had one in I'm fulfilling Air Force stereotypes. I am a terrible shot. Oh, we had yeah we had an absolute Hawkeye in our in one of our in my units I served in who was was a woman. She's just an amazing person too. I'm still friends her. I know it's amazing. My husband's ah and a lawyer, we're both lawyers and he still has to qualify and he goes to the range. Whereas in the air force, like they are, they wouldn't, they're not going to assign me a weapon. It's just, it's kind of funny, like just how different those two things are. Um,
00:20:08
Speaker
But so I wanted to ask you going back to the beginning when we were talking about the standing up a group that is in contradiction to the NRA, like there's a need to you don't feel represented by maybe that kind of group. And I'm wondering, like, is the nra on the downhill like are they because they came up uh and and you would imagine the gun safety debate goes hand in hand with what was going with um with the and nra over the last century but now they've had a lot of issues and so i'm wondering like and you see a lot more groups kind of coming out like yours giffords moms demand action every town and i'll put a plug in for the moms because they are really active you know like we got a lot of moms who are out there
00:20:51
Speaker
Going into the stereotype. So like, how do you see that? Like, do you see the and NRA still at play in connection or in opposition to the groups that like you're a part of? They can't be ignored, but they're the fact that they're on a decline is it's it's obvious. And they're they're they're membership.
00:21:11
Speaker
their funding. ah Giffords and other organizations are are
Overcoming Political Barriers in Texas
00:21:15
Speaker
now outfunding, you know, outraising the NRA. And that's, I don't remember which year that happened. It in the last two or three years though, where we're actually, you know, finding our voice and getting, you know, winning the funding race behind that. So yeah, NRA's in a race the decline. You can't take your eye off them. There's other even more radical organizations I just won't mention just because I don't want to give them any I don't want to give them an ounce of publicity, but they're in the state of Texas, they're a force to be reckoned with as well. They're they're elect they're getting representatives elected that are making they introducing and absolutely dangerous and terrible legislation. I'd be happy to talk about that too. I think people yeah need to understand that there are representatives that are introducing legislation that is incredibly dangerous.
00:22:06
Speaker
And fortunately, we were able to work to prevent that from getting out of committee back in April. But like, if you don't have someone there to keep their eye on the ball, to show up like Moms Demand does, like Giffords does, to make oral arguments when these things, they they pass in the dead of night and people won't understand and make our streets and schools a lot less safe. Well, yeah, let's get into that because I recall at least the biggest piece of legislation that was going on in the last session, which you know, for our listeners, we only have sessions every two years. It was raising the age for a purchasing an assault weapon, right? So, and that did not, it got far, but did not pass. So are there any other, and I know that it's also in the same line of like, are there wins, you know, but that wasn't And that was an outgrowth of Uvalde, right? Because yeah the shooter in that case was 18 or for sure under 21, right? Trusted recently turned, right, yeah, and practically went out after his birthday. That was introduced by Representative King of Uvalde on his way out the door. He was not planning to get reelected or running for office again two sessions ago, but I think he was reintroduced. But that's something that...
00:23:18
Speaker
you know that's something that And I was there all night with dozens of survivors Uvalde and in incredibly heart-wrenching testimony about trying to make that happen. And, you know, my personal take on it was there provisions in there that were going to allow people who had military training ah to to be exempt from that. And I took i took that particular tack on the behalf of Giffords because I felt like, hey, this is encouraging that the state of Texas and even republican you know Republican reps in the state of Texas are recognizing the importance of training because you've been stepping away from training
00:23:59
Speaker
for the last 10 years and and increasingly allowing people and and trying to assert that people have the rights to carry whatever they want without any training whatsoever. So having a provision in there saying that if you're under 21, you could potentially still have access to you know to purchase an assault weapon if you have military training. I thought was ah an interesting point, right? The fact is, it's something that really stood out for me, if i'm if I may,
00:24:28
Speaker
was that Representative King said in, you
Support for Democratic Candidates
00:24:31
Speaker
know, when he introduced the bill, he said two years ago, I would have not even voted for this, let alone sponsored it. But, you know, what happened in his district made him change his mind. And it honestly, i was glad to see, im I'm always heartened to see someone being able to change their mind. That's what we're trying to do, right? We're trying, it should be in the business of changing people's mind and we should celebrate what someone does.
00:24:56
Speaker
but it offended me on another level because that represented such a lack of empathy to me that it made me want to get up and say, okay, for the rest of these reps,
00:25:08
Speaker
that were willing to pass this out of committee or or or or are willing to, excuse me, willing to prevent this from passing after Uvalde, after hearing all this testimony from the parents, that you're still willing to put this forward, that what it takes is for 21 people, 19 children and two teachers to be killed in your district,
00:25:31
Speaker
why don't we get a yearbook from one of your elementary schools and you can pick the 19 kids and the two teachers, they're going to have to be massacred for you to change your mind.
00:25:42
Speaker
That to me is the empathy deficit that we're talking about. That is, I don't frankly know what to do about, but I do think that we need to be more aggressive about pointing it out.
00:25:56
Speaker
Um, now when it comes to, ah The bills that were ah put forward into committee, and thankfully, again, because of Moms Demand, because of Giffords, did not make it out of committee because we we shined a light on it.
00:26:11
Speaker
um We're HB 2771, and I don't know how inside baseball your your listeners are. i don't want to throw a bunch of these at them, but I'll just give you the gist of them.
00:26:23
Speaker
so that you can look them up later if if you want to. HB 2771, Representative Hayes, rearming stalkers,
Hope for Texas Politics
00:26:32
Speaker
kidnappers, people convicted of sexual coercion and aggravated assault.
00:26:36
Speaker
But the one that really got me is you, if this had passed, people who had been convicted of firearm smuggling could could be reinstated to have their gun rights reinstated.
00:26:48
Speaker
that That one blew me away. And and and what I told um the committee was, look, you're you're basically talking about people who have been smuggling firearms to Central and South America in these cases.
00:27:03
Speaker
And your own president recently labeled the cartels as terrorist organizations. So what you're basically saying is that Representative Hayes is advocating to arm terrorists And what happeningt mean this is the kind of legislation that gets put forward that people need to be aware of. And it's really difficult because it's anodyne. It's like inside baseball politico kind of stuff. But if we have got to find a way to let people know that this kind of legislation is going out there. I've got more if you'd like to. There's another one that really blew me away, too.
00:27:39
Speaker
Yeah, lets go. So another one is a combination of HB 2470 and HB 4201. It was put forward by Verdell, who came from one of these extreme radical gun owners groups, and Schatzlein.
00:27:55
Speaker
The first one lowers the minimum age for handgun possession from 21 to 18. The second one... the second one ah would have made it legal for ah license to carry the LTCs to bring concealed firearms into places they used to call sensitive what they call sensitive places which are things like hospitals bars airports but most importantly schools and school property so the combination of that if we're talking about legislators that are putting forward legislation in like with a straight face and
00:28:28
Speaker
that would have let 18 year olds conceal carry at high school. Yeah. When they go to class. Yeah. Unbelievable. Turning every fist fight in into ah to a, into a gunfight.
00:28:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. a bunch of, a bunch of young men whose, whose frontal lobes haven't developed fully yet. Yeah. Great idea. Have you been in a high school in the last several decades? so I have, and it's a scary proposition, but like the point I would make. it but A lot of these legislators are old. When it was the last time they went?
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. um the thing The point I would make there, Alex, is like somebody do a poll on that, right? somebody We talked about the poll, at universal background checks, extremely popular, never going to happen because of who our representation is, right? who Who's there in in ah Austin right now?
00:29:17
Speaker
But do a poll on, hey, should we ah eight arm 18-year-olds and let them conceal carry in high school? what do you What do you think that would be? 10% maybe? And I would want to talk, I wouldn't want a serious- Who are those people? Yeah. 10%. But like that is what's happening. And I just don't think people know it.
00:29:34
Speaker
Well, what's interesting, yeah I was a prosecutor in the Department of Justice, and the case that really changed my life and made me want to run was a case of a gun ah manufacturer, a guy who was making AKs and ARs out of his home, and he was selling them to the cartels. And then they were getting found in Mexico and gun skirmishes where people died. And ATF, which is the federal agency that regulates firearms, they were trying to figure out where are these guns coming from? And it came from a guy in Flower Mound, Texas, who, And he was making them like out of his home, like 300 to 400 of them.
00:30:10
Speaker
And I was struggling with my ah partner at the Department of Justice with finding a crime that he actually committed. because we could not connect him to the drug conspiracy. There was no evidence that we had yet that he actually knew they were trafficking. um But we couldn't find, yeah because he was selling firearms with the personal collection loophole. So there was no paperwork. ah He was making these AKs and ARs out of his home. And what we could find that he did was that he was now doing this, but without a license. So he was like in the business of it with the volume. And so we were able to get a jury to convict him on that. Like he was, it was okay for what he was doing if he had a license. And I don't think people appreciate that we as Americans, and that guy is not, you know, he's just a Caucasian American in Flower Mound, which is a so suburb of Texas, in North Texas. And he's doing this and you know, he and he's providing firearms to people that are poisoning our communities. And yet, like, there's nothing that I could find that he could have done, like that could have stopped him along the way.
00:31:19
Speaker
And it just made me realize like, we need to do something. And going back to Uvalde, like I was pregnant when Uvalde happened and it was a very emotional time, I'm sure for all of us, but I just, you know, you're talking about the empathy issue. It's like, how can you not see yourself in that family? You know, like, how can you not see your own child at that school? And just speaking for myself, I know every day when I drop my child off at school or daycare, know, you're wondering like, could this be a day that I have to worry about this? And it just seems to me talking about messaging and how to like get people to to wake up. It's like, that's not freedom, you know, like that. How can that be freedom when you are fearing gun violence, when you go to the grocery store or to a church or to dropping off your kids? Like, how is that freedom in this country? Um, so yeah anyways I was a, I was a teacher. I was teaching third grade when, uh, Sandy Hook happened.
00:32:16
Speaker
And I remember finding out and just hearing the news, um, right after school had let out and the kids had just left. And i I like was overwhelmed. Like I had to sit down and just like, bawled, just wet.
00:32:32
Speaker
Right. Um, just thinking about how that could have been my kids just as easily because I had grown pretty close to, right. I talked to their parents. I know who they are. I know what they like and the dislike. I know what their challenges are.
00:32:44
Speaker
um it As a general political proposition, it is hard to hate up close. But I think the inverse of that is that it is hard to ignore ah the the plight and the needs of people if you know about them.
00:33:04
Speaker
I think sometimes we we, as a party, can sometimes get too lost in the sauce. Everything's ah a data point or it's a policy paper.
00:33:15
Speaker
And it's not, those were my kids. They had names. I think what was really powerful during the Uvalde stuff that I think actually moved the ball forward in the Congress, you know, John Cornyn's in trouble because he actually did yeah the pair minimum on guns.
00:33:32
Speaker
But one of the things I think was very effective was when Matthew McConaughey showed up and talked about the converse. That stands out to me. Yeah. Do you have thoughts as to like, what, what, what's, what's effective? Like what's going to make it real for people?
00:33:53
Speaker
That that's tough. I have, I have a controversial take on this and this is the, does not represent, you know, Giffords or anything. This is me. we We live for hot takes on this podcast. We love it. yeah Hit us. but I feel like we shield people from the consequences.
00:34:09
Speaker
I feel like the, with, you know, if we, of course, I feel like protecting the identity of of of the of the children is is paramount. We we know of their names, of course, but what I mean is, I think everyone should have to watch, every adult should have to watch the the video of the inside of Uvalde or the inside of a school shooting.
00:34:33
Speaker
and be exposed to that kind of violence. a gun violenceol A gun violence death is extremely traumatic for those that are experiencing it, of course, but those around it, even in a combat environment, even when you're sort of expecting it to happen, watching it happen, being aware of it happening, even to the killer,
00:34:57
Speaker
is chirp can create lifelong post-traumatic stress disorder, right? We have Navy SEALs, right? Operators who for the rest of their lives ah will be in counseling to help them through what they've seen and what they've had to do.
00:35:14
Speaker
a And so, We just protect ourselves from that. we we it It becomes an abstraction. It becomes, you know, we show the yearbook photos of the children and that should be enough.
00:35:28
Speaker
It should be enough. But what we have to realize is that since 2000, if you use that as a starting line, and I use 2000 because like that's around Columbine, right? ah We have lost more Americans to gun violence than all of our wars combined.
00:35:45
Speaker
Civil War, American Revolution, all of it. We've lost more Americans. And that's not just deaths. Every one of those deaths represents a life taken well before it you know a natural death, a life taken from three, five, 10 survivors who will never, ever, ever be the same. and And yet we have people selfishly saying, no, I don't care about any of that.
00:36:15
Speaker
I want my toys. I want my stuff. And you can't stop me, right? That to me is is is the problem. and Again, I call it the empathy deficit, but we need to step forward and to those people who don't suffer from that,
00:36:34
Speaker
and make make them know that the Democratic Party represents their interest and wants to keep their community safe, despite these other folks that seem to not care at all about that.
00:36:46
Speaker
and And how best to go about that, i I'm not quite certain. But, you know, I say lead with statistics, but, you know, our opponents lead with fear, right? um The, the, the,
00:37:03
Speaker
The amygdala, which controls that in your brain, will short circuit the prefrontal cortex where your logic and reason happens. And they know this and they cynically, scientifically understand and exploit it.
00:37:16
Speaker
And so, you know, we have to get past these culture war issues that people are voting on first and foremost before they even get to gun violence on the ticket.
00:37:27
Speaker
Well, to analogize, it's kind of like, again, the civil rights movement, Emmett Till. right It was a was a conscious and brave choice of his mother to say, the whole world is going to see what they did to my baby. right um And I think it did make a difference.
00:37:47
Speaker
I think Emmett Till's life had that impact. And going to be controversial myself now, and and maybe it's too soon, but I think I'm still shook up.
00:38:00
Speaker
I don't think I'm i'm over it yet. um Just having very recently but watched the very public death of Charlie Kirk. I saw it up close from every angle, just as it was flooding my algorithm, you know, just on on Instagram.
00:38:19
Speaker
um It was hard to believe that I had seen what I had seen, you know, like, how is it possible that this is on my phone? I guess shouldn't have been privy to such horrific moment ah to see the bullet enter his neck for the blood just blurred out to know that his children and his wife were there.
00:38:40
Speaker
um And I think you saw
00:38:45
Speaker
some really terrible people online. ah be really terrible, but I would say the vast majority of people come together and say that political violence is always wrong and that we are all horrified by what happened.
00:38:57
Speaker
no one should have No one should have to experience that. No one have to experience that. I mean, i i I think he was a reprehensible person, but no one should have to experience that.
00:39:09
Speaker
No one.
00:39:12
Speaker
I mean, he he himself had made the comment that, you know, gun violence deaths are the price you pay for the Second Amendment. He was in the middle of defending, um you know, gun violence, basically, whenever in the moments they leading up to him getting shot. And all that doesn't matter.
00:39:29
Speaker
it's No one should be shot in that way. Right. No, he was he was in the middle of of demonizing blacks and trans people to be white. but But it ah and trying to paint them as as being you know more violent.
00:39:42
Speaker
um But, yeah, nevertheless, it's just that no one should have experienced that. And the fact that we have representation in Austin, in in Washington, that says, no, no, no, that's fine.
00:39:58
Speaker
As long as it's not happening to my cohort, as long as it's happening to me, i wouldn' I wouldn't have voted for this two years ago except it happened to me. Well, that's why I'm bringing it up is that Charlie Kirk is fundamentally of the right.
00:40:11
Speaker
right He's of the right wing, and so you would think there might be this rare moment, this this opportunity where it it has affected them. It has forced empathy upon them in a way that maybe they would blow off if it wasn't part of their cohort, if it wasn't part of people who who were like them.
00:40:28
Speaker
I mean, I think there is a, like amongst very brave, um you know, other military members, other veterans I know who are on the right, who identified with Charlie Kirk, there is this kind of fear. There's a sense of like, you know, is someone out there going to kill me and my family because we disagree with them?
00:40:47
Speaker
And that's a horrible thing. No one should feel that way. um So I guess what I'm saying is, Should that not create space and opportunity to say, okay, look, we may never agree fundamentally on this issue for everything, but we have to come together in some limited way because we all like ah agree that like we have to make sure these kinds of events do not happen to the to whatever possible degree we can control that.
00:41:14
Speaker
We certainly, you know, ah you certainly get agreement from me on that, Alex. I mean, like, there's no question that i wish that that would be the outcome. Unfortunately, you you saw really nothing coming from official channels, at least about that.
00:41:29
Speaker
You know, they they used it as an opportunity to create a they ah and and blame people before they had any any evidence. And instead of of saying, hey, maybe this is a moment for us to look very closely at who can get a weapon.
00:41:46
Speaker
um and And I think that it's not they just don't feel like it's a viable, I mean, it's clearly not a viable position for them to take in a primary, particularly and you know in heavily gerrymandered Texas where the most radical person on the furthest, furthest right, you know, it's a race to the right to win that primary because the general is a given. And, you know, you guys talk a lot about these types of dynamics on your on your podcast. So, it's you gerrymandering perfect example of why we can't get representation for the 80 plus percent people who would like universal background checks in Texas. That's the reason.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, and here in Texas, they're trying to make that problem worse because the Republican Party Texas has filed a lawsuit to close its primaries so that you have to be a registered Republican to participate.
00:42:39
Speaker
Whereas now, you know, Texas has the largest number of veterans in the country. um About half of them identify as independent, and they can go and vote in whichever party primary they want for the year.
00:42:51
Speaker
They're trying to shut those people out. So, If there was any kind of moderating force, any kind of- People going to the primary, yeah. They're trying to shut that part down. maybe ah Maybe a gift to us in statewides.
00:43:03
Speaker
um There you go. But yeah, but it just makes things worse. And what we see are one party rule, one party politics here that increasingly is drifting from what people want, whether it's this issue or even public education, but like it's just drifting away from that and into very special interests.
00:43:23
Speaker
Well, so then, you know, in the final minutes we have together, you ran in 2018. It was a magical year for Democrats here in the state of Texas. um Do you have any reflections on how we can get back to flipping the state, like getting that close and actually flipping and And does is there a part of the gun owners that brings that to it? Because we have such a low voter turnout state. We talk about gerrymandering. We talk about how fear is driving a lot of Republicans out.
00:43:50
Speaker
Like, how else do you think that we can get closer, expand the tent, expand the electorate, and actually flip this state? Because less than half of voting age adults are voting in this state.
00:44:02
Speaker
It's crazy. I think, the you know, and just off the cuff, One of the things we looked at for my district in 2018 that really gave us a lot of hope was shifting demographics, right? You're seeing more and more people and in in that period of time coming from different states.
00:44:20
Speaker
You know, we were seeing statistics like, okay, you know, four to one, they're they're more in line with our message. But I i hate to to say it, but like money, it takes money to win elections and it takes money to put behind down-ballot candidates.
00:44:38
Speaker
ah And in a state of in a state like Texas where you have unlimited campaign contributions, when someone like you or me steps up and says, I'm willing to do my duty and do this, I'm not doing i'm not trying to like further some you know political career or or or see some amount of power. I just i just want to represent the people that might that live around me.
00:45:02
Speaker
You have to contend with the fact that that incumbent has can get a check from a single donor in Permian Basin and and and get more money than then the asymmetry of that.
00:45:17
Speaker
ah in And to get that in one check, in one minute from one person that you can you can raise in the entire election cycle. And that is a feature, not a bug for the incumbent, right? I mean, this is this is something that they, you know, that is how they hold power. and And why they're voting the way they're voting.
00:45:39
Speaker
It's state backed oligarchy, right? I mean. Oh, absolutely. I mean, if if there was an example of of oligarchy in the United States right now, the state of Texas is a petro state.
00:45:52
Speaker
and And there's absolutely no question about that If you, if you look at the details, but how do you get someone like you or me who just wants to step up, doesn't have a whole lot resources, just the kind of people you'd want to run.
00:46:04
Speaker
Right. And God, and God forbid you win. Right. Because then you get to make, then you didn't get to make $7,200 a year. Oh oh yeah. It's really funny to hear how, how that spun too, because it's like, it sounds so folksy and good to say, well, we don't have professional ah politicians in Texas. Right. know and And the good old boy reflects the responses. You're damn right. We don't, you know, we don't do that here.
00:46:29
Speaker
ah You know, we, in and to get this sort of folksy, um say, paint this picture of that, oh, that, you know, we all come from working class and and and come up from, you know, you know, non non-professional yeah politicians and, you know, they're coming, you know, from people. They're not.
00:46:48
Speaker
They're absolutely, they're appointed. They are bullpenned. and anointed by but on on the Republican side and given all the money they need. And that goes down to the school board now. you know We see sk school board elections here where if they're willing to sign on to the book banning you know ah you know to to that type of policy, they'll get a check from somebody you know for $15,000, $20,000 in a race like that. That's...
00:47:15
Speaker
that's Again, Patriot Mobile. huge Yeah, Patriot Mobile. Yeah, exactly. And so how do we, you have to, we have to find a way to make people understand that, that you said something on a podcast I listened to previously too that I thought was absolutely spot on. I love a listener. Yeah. And And that was, you may feel like your voice is gerrymandered out of existence, but there are statewides and there are locals and you and you're going to pull the same lever at the same station for those.
00:47:48
Speaker
You might as well, while you're there, you're not going to skip over the gerrymandered house district. You're still going to make that make that vote. Get out there and make the go for the statewides, but stay for the ah for the House. you know Yeah. Go down that ballot. Yeah. Absolutely. And so, I mean, there's a funding issue at play here that until we get the reins of power, we can't change.
00:48:10
Speaker
And that's huge. but But emotional appeal and making people understand that that these people are not representing your interests. We are, and you need to get behind it or you're creating that foregone conclusion as well is, you know, to me, the the mesh that i I always step forward with.
00:48:32
Speaker
And it it made a difference. We raced 10 times more than the previous challenger in our race. And we didn't completely close the gap. We brought it down to, i think it was 50,
00:48:46
Speaker
5743, something like that, which is, you know, from a 20 plus point disadvantage. And that's, ah you guys, i mean, if you're if you're a Democrat in this state, you have to be in it for the long haul, right? I mean, you you have to be thinking long-term strategy.
00:49:03
Speaker
You run and you you close those margins so that the next person running has less of a challenge and less difficulty raising money. Raising money in a 20 point plus race is extremely hard.
00:49:16
Speaker
Raising money in a seven point race is a lot, lot easier. No, that's the that's the whole thesis of the podcast, right? Just full circle. And I know Giffords is a group that, like others, supports candidates. and they either give them some sort of platform or i know there there was ah a candidate application for Giffords to be a Giffords organization. candidates. So it seems like there are groups that realize that they need to be involved, especially here in the state of Texas and helping people like you and me who are, you know, we're we're not rich and but like, I don't know about you, but I'm not a rich person. I don't got name ID, but I have, you know, how do I run and start? And I don't know billionaires.
00:49:59
Speaker
So how do I get elected? And i I love like vote vets and organizations like yours that go in and and you mentioned Becca, she, but she helps out at Emerge, which helps a lot of yeah ah women of color to run for office for the first time, run for something. There's a lot of these groups like that, I think, that are realizing that there's that gap um and helping people like you, me, and others to run.
00:50:22
Speaker
Yeah, and some encouraging news there, right? Just the last cycle, Giffords, Giffords, Texas, did endorse and provided you know resources behind those endorsements for the first time. In this latest legislative session, we had full-time government relations people on the ground here in Texas.
00:50:42
Speaker
And that's a result of the tide turning. That's the result of you know funding, of being able for ah nationwide organization like Giffords to see that they have the to have the funding to start working the the long-term strategy in a place like Texas. And right now, unfortunately, it's damage control.
00:51:02
Speaker
We'll prevent legislation like like we discussed ah earlier, but pretty soon we'll be able to you know to start moving into other areas. And one of those that I'm a big fan of and I push really hard for internally is supplementing or subsidizing training.
00:51:21
Speaker
Right. It's something that's very um doable in a state like Texas. When you have folks that are saying, well, you know, I don't I support open carry because I shouldn't have to pay for the cost of a LTC, you know, or or the training around getting a license to carry.
00:51:41
Speaker
it would be nice to have an answer of, okay, well, you you can get a voucher from the state of Texas. We'll pay here, essentially reimburse you for the training that's necessary.
00:51:53
Speaker
Because I mean, i Otherwise, you you pin them down and say, well, you're you're against, you're really against training. Like you're not just passively against training. You're actively against people getting training.
00:52:05
Speaker
So I think there's there's areas of hope there. But politically, you're going to see a lot more activity from the gun violence prevention folks. And it's, again, a function of getting funding. People are starting to really understand the magnitude of the problem that we have and and they're putting their voices in their and their pocketbooks behind it.
00:52:26
Speaker
That's great. I love ending on hope. I like the fact that we are making progress here and that there are groups like Giffords who are bringing people like you in our state to make sure that we don't believe that this is a foregone conclusion and that by having more conversations like that, we can ah hopefully get people to not only think about gun violence, but also electing people who want to actually pass legislation in the Democratic Party that would prevent that. Hmm. Yeah, that'd be great. So, well, Steve, it was great to have you. I'm going to leave you with the last word.
00:52:58
Speaker
Uh, where like people want to follow you or Giffords, where can they find you? And what do you got going on outside of, uh, the gun safety for, or gun owners for safety group, uh, uh, and all the other political things that you're doing?
00:53:11
Speaker
Well, thank you. ah Well, I think if I would end on something is you could find out a lot of really good information at giffords.org slash stats, S-T-A-T-S. And, um you know, I encourage you to follow Giffords at, ah you know, on on X or or whatever platform you use there. There's lots of good information. Giffords is really...
00:53:33
Speaker
taken the lead on statistics around this sort of thing. You could find out, for example, that Texas has five times the gun deaths of of of New York, for example, and and be able to win arguments with your with folks that are trying to paint democratically run cities and states. Steve, we tell people on this podcast, we're here to win elections, not arguments.
00:53:58
Speaker
But they're trying to make it into some hellscape, you know, like LA and New York, they, that's all just violence, but that's a good point. Yeah. But the, ah you know, the the, the, the point I would end on is that gun violence prevention and gun sense laws are complimentary to the second amendment. They are not,
00:54:19
Speaker
ah in, ah you know, in opposition to that. And, you know, we seek as gun owners to reclaim that voice so that we continue to have a voice ah and that we can in the scourge of gun deaths in the United States before we do have a reactionary group that starts to truly infringe on those rights that we hold dear. And and and you know that's, to me, if there was one thing I could leave your listeners with is it's it's that.
00:54:48
Speaker
Those gun sense laws reflect the will of the people and have held up time and time again in the Supreme Court, even Justice Scalia's Supreme Court, Scalia, I think I mispronounced it, but, ah you know, who wrote the majority opinion in Hella versus DC, that there there are limitations.
00:55:07
Speaker
um As far as me personally, you know, I'll continue to do my gun violence prevention work. i i Anybody who's running for office, uh is is i would encourage them to contact me i have a huge network of people that can help them out including i'll plug blue horizons texas that i'm on the board of that ah seeks to provide lots of training and and um like technical assistance to anyone running for office. What I hated of about running myself was that I had to reinvent this wheel, right? There was no one there from the Texas Democratic Party or any really organization that could help me set up my campaign, particularly from a technical
00:55:52
Speaker
perspective and I had come from a software engineering background so was able to put together a CRM, ah you know, connect it to ActBlue and automate that but a lot of people who want to stand up and run for office don't have that technical background and expertise.
00:56:07
Speaker
And so I've invested in in organizations like Blue Horizons and companies like Civitec.io that will provide that kind of technology and that kind of assistance um with with with minimal or no cost. And so that's that's kind of where my ah political action is these days. Well, Steve, we enjoyed having you um and we appreciate all the work that you're doing here in the state of Texas and for candidates, apparently. i love that. That's something I didn't know about you, but i'm going to look up Blue Horizons for sure.
00:56:39
Speaker
um But it was great to have you and we will see all of our listeners next week. God bless Texas. Thank you, Kate. thank youa God bless Texas. You can follow us on all socials at Mission Texas Podcast.
00:56:52
Speaker
Email us at missiontexaspodcast at gmail.com. This episode is edited by Juan Jose Flores. Our music bumper is by Adam Pickerel, and our cover art is by Tino Sohn.