After people complained about seeing the above sign in Katy, Texas, the Boyert Shooting Center released the following unapologetic press statement:
“We have friends and family who are teachers and our way of reaching out and saying thank you is by offering a summer long promotion of discounted training courses, firearms and accessories. A lot of Texans are not aware, but it is now legal to conceal carry in some colleges, and for teachers in certain school districts to conceal carry as well. We are wrapping up the program that we have been running since the beginning of June, with a huge sale to benefit everyone.”
Despite the fact that Texas is preparing to turn blue, it is still often hard to believe that it’s part of the same country that I live in. Here in the suburbs of Philadelphia, very few people can see how it benefits “everyone” to market guns to schoolteachers. Laws that make it possible for teachers to conceal carry into our children’s classrooms seem just as dangerous as leaving your gun on the coffee table for any child to pick up and play with. The sign, the sale, the law, the gun shops reaction, all of it, just seems completely insane.
According to the Small Arms Survey, the country with the second highest gun ownership rate per capita (52.9 guns per 100 residents) is Yemen, which is in the middle of a bloody, protracted civil war. The country with the highest rate is the United States, with 120 guns per 100 residents. I still can’t wrap my head around this. (Survey can be found on Page 4, Table 2, of this study)
Three years ago I turned down a job in Texas – because I did not want to move to another country.