In Texas, three men who have endured violence from men wielding firearms are running for office. Rather than running to limit Americans’ rights to own and carry firearms though, these candidates are fighting for the Second Amendment rights of their constituents. Elizabeth Findell reports in the WSJ:
Stephen Willeford was widely hailed by supporters of the Second Amendment as the model “good guy with a gun” in 2017, when he grabbed an AR-15 rifle and pursued and shot at a gunman killing churchgoers in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Two and a half years later, the gregarious plumber has embraced the moniker Good Gun Guy Wille in speeches, church security training and now in a campaign for local county commissioner. If he wins, he wants to make Wilson County a “Second Amendment sanctuary” that would defy any restrictions state politicians might put on guns.
“I never had such a voice,” Mr. Willeford said. “Now people are willing to listen to me.”
He is one of three men in Texas touched by shootings at churches who are drawing on their experiences to run for public office in March’s Republican primaries.
Pastor Frank Pomeroy, who lost his teenage daughter and 25 other congregants in the Sutherland Springs church shooting, is challenging a popular Democratic state senator.
In North Texas, firearms instructor Jack Wilson was already a candidate for county commissioner when he took down a gunman Dec. 29 at the West Freeway Church of Christ.
They aren’t the first people to run for office after being involved in gun violence. But the Texas candidates stand out because they are using their experiences to boost gun-rights campaigns.
Rather than submit to the erroneous idea that if law-abiding citizens surrender their firearms, violence involving guns will decrease, these men are fighting to give Americans the tools they need to defend themselves.
Gun control has not worked out well elsewhere. In countries where guns have been taken away from citizens, they want them back. Because when a government fails to protect its citizens, they should at least be given the option of defending themselves.
Americans simply don’t want gun control. Despite that, Democratic presidential candidates and politicians are obsessed with taking away American’s guns.
Taking guns from law-abiding citizens hurts the most vulnerable the hardest. Today, in greater numbers than ever before, women in America are buying and training with firearms in order to protect themselves. Politicians who want to take guns from law-abiding citizens will be taking them first from those who need them most as a force equalizer, women, the elderly, and the infirm.
In Virginia, Democrat politicians were recently scared out of passing an “assault weapons ban” by the outrage of their constituents. But it could happen anywhere if Americans aren’t vigilant in protecting their rights. All Americans should support politicians who will protect their Second Amendment rights, and all Americans should get their gun and their training now.
