Joe Scarborough tweets:
There are several here who fit the definition of “Sick Son of a Bitch” in this picture, but none go by the name of Beto. Look instead at the freaks who keep gutting gun laws so 18 year olds can buy weapons designed for war to go into schools and slaughter babies. THAT is sick. https://t.co/LqhKSipOEW
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) May 25, 2022
This isn’t true. Texas has had the same laws governing the purchase of rifles for decades, and none of the people in that “picture” have “gutted” any of them. The 1968 Gun Control Act set the rifle-buying age at 18, and, since then, Texas has followed suit. As a matter of fact, the only changes made in this area since that point have been issued by the federal government, and those served to tighten, rather than to loosen, the rules. In 1993, Congress passed the NICS background-check system (which the shooter in Uvalde passed).
I understand that Joe Scarborough would like what happened to be Greg Abbott’s fault. But it really isn’t. Indeed, not a single law that Abbott has signed since he became governor even intersects with what happened yesterday. From start to finish, Texas’s laws would have treated this purchase in exactly the same way in 2012, 2002, 1992, 1982, and so on. One can certainly argue that this should change — although, as ever, one has an obligation to explain exactly how — but one should not blame politicians for phantom alterations that neither they, nor anyone else, have made.