Public displays of gun-toting lunacy are beginning to turn the heads of Texas politicos as the bloody-minded saga of cult leader David Koresh unfolds near Waco.
“State proud” Texans crack wise about “Wacko,” but it appears the carnage and the runaway numbers of military-style weapons swamping the state are beginning to soften up the cowboy culture.
Texans are unsettled by the shooting deaths of four federal agents at Koresh’s compound and by the uncertain fate of more than 100 of his heavily armed followers.
In the urban and suburban neighborhoods where most Texans now live, concern about street crime, violence in schools and the flood of high-tech weaponry is growing.
According to University of Houston political scientist Dick Murray, Texans are closer to majority national views on gun control than is widely believed.
“They’re worried about kids with guns, about drug addicts with guns,” said Murray, a veteran observer of the Texas political scene.
“I’m surprised more Texas politicians won’t test the the gun lobby. The fact is, there’s strong support for the Brady Bill” (which would require a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and a criminal background check).
With all eyes fixed on Waco, the consequences of Texas’ historic fascination with guns are beginning to emerge. Last week, the talk was of sheer numbers.
There are an estimated 68 million guns in Texas, an average of four guns per person.
Many in this state snapped to attention when a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms suggested the agents who led the Feb. 28 assault on Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound were “outgunned.”
Why? In part because for $30 and next to nothing in the way of personal information, the AFT will issue a federal gun dealer’s permit.
Not surprisingly, Texas is awash in the licenses, with nearly 2,000 in Houston alone.
According to the Dallas Morning News, the chap who sold Koresh a raft of legal weapons ran his dealership out of his girlfriend’s house and bragged about the vast stockpile of weapons he had peddled to the cult.
In 1991 nearly 3,700 Texans were shot to death, giving the state a singular distinction; it was the only state in the nation to have more of its citizens killed by gunshots than died in automobile accidents.
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Late in that same year, George Hennard, invariably described as a “crazed gunman,” massacred 23 people in a Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen.
That tragedy changed the mind of Rep. Chet Edwards, a Democrat whose congressional district includes Killeen and Waco.
He announced an end to his absolutist position against gun control.
Based on his re-election in November, it appears Edwards is hardly out of the mainstream of public opinion in the Lone Star State.
A statewide survey last year showed that up to 70 percent of those asked believed increased regulation of the sale and purchase of certain types of guns was necessary.
The state’s lieutenant governor has called for a ban on assault weapons, and Democratic Gov. Ann Richards, born in Waco, now seems inclined to back such legislation.
Like so many liberal Democrats across the South (including former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton), Richards has long played a facile game with the gun control issue.
In her 1990 election campaign, Richards tut-tutted about gun violence, but spoke often of her own gun ownership and her affinity for hunting. She even had herself photographed toting a shotgun.
Now her position will likely be tested with a variety of gun control legislation pending in Austin.
Politics aside, what has happened to Koresh over the last six years sounds like some lethal skit on “Saturday Night Live,” a gruesome parody of constitutional rights run amok.
In 1987 Koresh staged what amounted to an armed seizure of the Waco compound. He ran off his rivals in a hail of bullets, but a trial for attempted murder did ensue.
After Koresh and his seven comrades were acquitted, however, authorities simply returned their weapons. Without a felony conviction, law-enforcement officials had no alternative.
Across Texas, the craziness continues.
Last weekend, as Americans watched the drama outside Waco, the 14-year-old son of a police officer near Ft. Worth barricaded himself in his house while his parents were at the movies.
For his own twisted reasons, Jose Ramon dragged his father’s arsenal into his bedroom and began firing, allegedly killing a law-enforcement officer before being cut down by police.
Meanwhile, an Austin legislator is offering his own brand of lunacy: a bill that would allow Texans to carry concealed weapons.