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The pandemic inspired Austin-area resident Dawn Holmes to get a license to carry a concealed weapon.
When single mom Denise Thurston prepared to drive with her young son from her Austin-area home through Houston in June, just as anti-brutality protests were boiling over, she was glad she had just bought a handgun.
Thurston, 45, worried that something like a highway shutdown would leave them vulnerable to protests, or counter protests, or non-protest opportunists who saw a woman and child stuck in an immobile car as easy targets.
"I'm not a big person," Thurston said. "I need some power behind me somehow, and that was my way of doing it."
A chaotic year
Thurston bought her 9mm Glock pistol and became licensed to carry after the March lockdowns began. Previously a firearms novice, Thurston also now owns an AR-style shotgun she purchased this summer for home protection.
She is among hundreds of thousands of Texans whose pandemic-era gun purchases broke state and national records.
Those at ground zero for this phenomenon—trainers, retailers and students—say a wave of fear ushered in by societal destabilization in March, social unrest in May and police walkouts in June have driven the purchases both by newbies and by more experienced owners.
"It shows how people are not trusting their government, they're not trusting what's going on or the information they're receiving, and so they want to take their personal protection into their own hands," said Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin.
As a result, Texas gun owners have filled up classes, emptied ammo shelves, and swamped gun stores and manufacturers.
"It did heighten my concerns, and it definitely prompted me to get more aggressive with getting comfortable with my gun and to start carrying, absolutely," said Austin-area resident Dawn Holmes, who got her license to carry last week.
Soaring numbers
In Texas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted 121,926 background checks for handguns in June, more than three times the number the same month last year.
The number was even higher in March, right after the pandemic lockdowns began, and the FBI warned that some state shutdowns threatened to reduce the staff available for background checks on new sales and that the surge would create a backlog that could further delay new gun sales from being approved. Checks for Texans seeking to purchase handguns soared from 60,512 in February to 147,714 in March.
That number alone was more than double the checks that took place in December—the highest number of last year—and more than triple the monthly average for 2019.
Nationally, the FBI said they had done some 3.9 million background checks in June, the highest monthly total on record.
'They're afraid'
"It's based on a variety of reasons, but they're afraid," said instructor Tina Maldonado, who works with the local shooting league A Girl And A Gun, and who has more than doubled the amount of time she spends on the range with students since the lockdowns began. "Most of them are families, or parents whose spouses travel a lot, and they just decided they need to protect themselves."
Cargill said he has seen lines out the door and double the number of students since March 13, what he calls "D-Day," the weekend the first wave of new purchases hit.
Cargill predicts another increase around the election. Supporters of President Donald Trump are worried about their gun rights if Democrat Joe Biden wins, he said, and African Americans he's spoken to are worried about the empowerment of white supremacy and the growth of racism if Trump gets re-elected.
"I ask people questions, when they come in the store, to see where their heads are at," Cargill said. "Everyone should just take a deep breath and settle down a little bit. We need to be a lot nicer to each other. Worry about controlling yourself instead of controlling someone else."
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(Paxton Smith/Instagram)
Paxton Smith’s 2021 valedictory speech at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas wasn’t the same speech she had previously shared with school administrators. She dropped the approved speech and made a case for women’s reproductive rights after lawmakers passed the Texas "Heartbeat Bill.”
Her advocacy made news on NPR, YouTubeTV and in The Guardian. Just over a year later, the “war on (women’s) rights” she forewarned has come to a head as the U.S. Supreme Court voted Friday morning to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protection for abortion access.
“It is up to the people to show up and show the courts and the politicians that we won’t sit back and let this happen,” Smith told Austonia Friday morning. “We will show up, we will fight back. Before, we were scared of them, now they should be scared of us.”
Now a University of Texas sophomore and abortion rights activist, 19-year-old Smith said she wanted to give the same speech in the “the most public way possible” to reach “as many people as possible who don't agree that I deserve this right.”
However, she says the response was “actually overwhelmingly positive” and supportive of her cause. According to a recent UT poll, 78% of Texas voters support abortion access in most cases.
The speech opened up further opportunities for activism: she advocated for reproductive rights at the International Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, interviewed with Variety magazine and spoke to tens of thousands at Austin’s Bans Off Our Bodies protest at the Texas Capitol in May.
Smith also serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, a national nonprofit organization that helps fund abortions or medication abortion—like Plan C pills—in all 50 states. Most recently, Smith has been attending protests in Washington, D.C. leading up to the ruling.
“This is land of the free. This is where you get to choose how you live your life,” Smith said. “Overturning Roe v. Wade violates everything that we have come to believe about what it means to live in this country. I think a lot of people aren't willing to accept that this is a human right that is most likely just going to be gone for over half of the country within the next couple of weeks.”
Bracing for the next steps, Smith gave some tips for supporters:
- Find a protest to attend.
- “I would say invite somebody to go to those protests with you, invite a couple of friends, invite people into the movement,” Smith said.
- Talk about the issue on social media—use the platform you have.
- “Have these kinds of conversations where people can just talk about their fears and then find ways to go and advocate for yourself,” Smith said.
- Volunteer at a nonprofit near you.
“I feel like a lot of the reason things have gotten as bad as they have within the abortion rights world is that people are not making a scene, not protesting, not putting the effort into ensuring that the government doesn't take away this right,” Smith said. “I want to emphasize that if you're not doing anything, don't expect the best scenario, expect the worst because that's the direction that we're going in.”
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(Council Member Chito Vela/Twitter)
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, Friday morning. Moments later, Austin City Council set a special meeting for next month to pass a resolution aimed at decriminalizing abortion.
The GRACE Act, which stands for guarding the right to abortion care for everyone, is a twofold plan submitted by council member Jose “Chito” Vela. It recommends that city funds shouldn’t be used to surveil, catalog, report or investigate abortions. It also recommends that police make investigating abortion their lowest priority.
Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, who co-sponsored the resolution along with council members Paige Ellis, Kathie Tovo and Mayor Steve Adler, said the importance of the GRACE Act cannot be overstated.
“By introducing this resolution during a special session, City Council is doubling down on fighting back for reproductive health,” Fuentes said. “Items like the GRACE Act will promote essential healthcare while enabling individuals to exercise their bodily freedom.”
The act takes an approach similar to when former council member Greg Casar moved to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Ultimately, state law doesn't allow city officials to order police chiefs to adopt specific enforcement policies so the resolution would be a request to Police Chief Joe Chacon. In May, Politico reported that Vela is having "ongoing conversations" with Chacon about the proposal.
Austonia contacted Attorney General Ken Paxton for comment on the GRACE Act but did not hear back by time of publication. On Friday, Paxton celebrated the overturning of Roe and announced an annual office holiday on June 24 in recognition of the high court's decision.
In a press release, Vela said the Texas state government has a history of overturning municipal protections of human rights. Thirty days after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Texas will ban all abortions, with exceptions only to save the life of a pregnant patient or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”
Still, Vela expressed hope for the GRACE Act’s longevity. Council’s special meeting on it is set for the week of July 18.
“We know this resolution is legally sound, and Austin is not alone in this fight,” Vela said. “We are working with several other cities who are equally horrified by the prospect of an abortion ban and want to do everything they can to protect their residents.”
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