WHERE THE GUN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE BOOK
Now that Texas has thawed and a decent amount of time has passed since the Great Texas Freeze Over, and the state’s toll of more than a 100 dead have been properly put to rest, I believe it’s time to unload on that bastion of arrogant right-wingers running the Lone Star State.
In case you haven’t heard or read, the Republican legislature recently passed a volley of new laws meant, apparently, to hold on to power and preserve and protect their nineteenth century culture of moneyed white supremacy. One puzzler to me, though, was the law that outlawed abortion after six weeks of becoming pregnant, which does not show much knowledge of the human reproduction process I’m told. The women I know assure me that many women have no way of knowing if they’re pregnant at that early date. Are the GOP lawmakers recommending invasive surgery to determine whether a woman is with child? Wouldn’t that be an unnecessary health risk if she were not? That makes no sense to me, but then Texas has never made sense to me.
There’s some real good news for gun owners, too. Governor Greg Abbott recently signed into law, to become effective September 1st, the right for those over 21 to open carry handguns without a permit or any training in gun safety. Add that to the existing right to carry cumbersome long-guns and you have the means to settle disagreements in much shorter time. Should come in handy in those common cases of road rage; or imagine you’re in the restaurant bar on your fourth longneck and some fancy dude with love on his mind starts cozying up to your wife. (Well, she isn’t really your wife—just substituting as such for the night.) You’ve got the iron to put Romeo in his place, pronto.
There’s even more good news for those gun owners who hunt. Your hunting license is all you need to meet the new requirement that you must have a voter ID to cast your ballot. That offsets the bad news for you would-be scholars; your student ID won’t pass the test. Proving? The gun is mightier than the book in the Lone Star state. Maybe that explains why Texas education is sub-standard.
So what? You don’t need no book-learnin’ to survive in Texas. You just have to be hardy down there in that gritty mix of the Old South and the Old West and the Old Testament. It’s “survival of the fittest.” That may explain why Governor Abbot deliberately “botched” his handling of the Covid pandemic and now vies with Florida for the most last-gasp “hotspots” of the virus; he just wanted to weed out the state’s weaklings.
Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, slightly to the right of Charlemagne on the political spectrum, seems to agree with the governor. He’s on the record as saying old folks should willingly exit this life if they get the plague, make way for the younger and fitter. I am an old folk and would willingly do nothing of the kind. That’s one reason why I will never be seen in Texas again—even with a handgun in hand.