by Jessica Priest and Perla Trevizo This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans.… Read »Decades of mass shootings in Texas with no meaningful legislative response
Nearly two years had passed since a student with a history of serious mental illness had gone on a deadly shooting rampage that left 32 dead at Virginia Tech. And Naishtat, then a Democratic state representative from Austin, argued that Texas was as vulnerable as Virginia had been to such mass shootings because it didn’t require the reporting of involuntary mental health commitments to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, known as NICS. Federally licensed dealers are required to check the system before they sell someone a firearm.
Emails obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune confirm that federal authorities are probing discrimination claims involving Gov. Greg Abbott’s multibillion-dollar border initiative.
