Texas' Attorney General Offers Worst Possible Response to Church Shooting

After a gunman killed at least 26 people who were worshiping inside a Sutherland Springs, TX, church on Sunday, the state’s attorney general offered the worst possible solution to stymie America’s mass shooting endemic.

“If somebody’s willing to kill someone they’re also willing to violate a gun law. All I can say is that in Texas, at least we have the opportunity to have concealed carry,” Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general, said in Fox News interview on Sunday. “And so if it’s a place where somebody has the ability to carry, there’s always the opportunity that gunman will be taken out before he has the opportunity to kill very many.”

Evil, an opinion oft repeated by NRA-backed Republicans after mass shootings, allegedly can’t be regulated. Paxton, who was endorsed by the NRA when he ran for attorney general in 2014, repeated this sentiment. “You can’t keep guns out of the hands of people who are going to violate the law,” he added.

Of course, it’s quite possible to prevent evil people from obtaining guns and the idea that evil can’t be regulated is bullshit. Of course it can. Disarming domestic abusers would be a good place to start. Banning assault rifle mimicking devices like bump stocks, the accessory used to massacre 59 in Las Vegas last month, would be another.

Lawmakers have the power to make it more difficult for evil people to obtain the weapons they use to commit mass shooting after mass shooting in this country, but instead Republicans offer obligatory “thoughts and prayers” and do nothing. Paxton’s suggestion, though, is somehow more evil and more ineffective than the typical GOP response.