Opinion: After Texas tragedy, it's not time to pray. It's time to legislate

In all the statements to come from conservative politicians following up Tuesday’s deadly shooting in Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were killed, do not expect to hear even a solitary voice suggest gun reform. The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, a very conservative Republican, went before television cameras Tuesday and said, “When parents drop their kids off at school, they have every expectation to know they will be able to pick that child up when that school day ends.” The governor ought to be asked how a parent can have that assurance when he said he was upset his constituents weren’t buying enough guns. Just last year, Abbott proudly signed into law what he called a “constitutional carry” bill, which allowed anyone over 21 to carry a gun without getting a permit, and he did it after the El Paso mass killing in 2019. He said the public and politicians have to be encouraged to stand up to the gun industry and he wondered while on his 17-hour flight home from Asia why the US is the only nation in the world that deals with recurrent mass shooting incidents. Those other nations don’t have gun lobbies? Gun rights advocates seem to have plans while reformers struggle against a powerful manufacturers’ lobby, the National Rifle Association and with how much regulation is too much.