One of Texas’ Largest Counties is Slowly Pushing Anti-Gun Policies

Leaders in Bexar County, Texas are trying to craft civilian disarmament policies under the guise of “gun safety.”

“We’re not trying to take guns from lawful gun owners. That’s not our goal. We simply want guns kept out of the wrong hands, like children who might find them by accident or criminals who would steal them,” Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said.

Salazar unveiled a new proposal which allows residents to voluntarily turn in firearms for either safekeeping or for disposal.

“If somebody may have inherited a gun, maybe, from a spouse that has passed away and those guns are in the way, and they don’t know quite what to do with them, and they don’t want to sell them, we’ll take those off your hands,” Salazar stated.

Salazar said that the sheriff’s office is receptive to the idea of storing guns temporarily in cases where residents may be traveling for prolonged periods of time or are in the process of selling a house or they’re expecting house guests.

“We’ll have a deputy come out. We’ll collect the guns we’ll give you a receipt for them, and then we’ll hold them in our property room for safekeeping until you’re ready to accept those guns back again,” Salazar commented.

Salazar said each weapon will be checked against the sheriff’s office databases to make sure it has not been used in a crime.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff also revealed that the Freeman Coliseum would no longer offer its venue for gun shows. Wolff noted that the last gun show at Freeman Coliseum took place in 2016 and there were no plans to host a gun show in the future.

“At gun shows, anybody can buy a gun from a stranger and sell it to a stranger,” Wolff declared.

Although not explicitly gun control, Bexar County’s latest moves are part of a bigger ploy to advance anti-gun narratives and condition people into accepting gun control further down the line.

Texas’ gun laws are still staunchly pro-gun, and have strong mechanisms to keep rogue counties and municipalities in check for the time being.

However, Bexar County’s actions show that urban counties in Texas are ready to move anti-gun policies forward, which represents a growing political divide emerging in Texas between urban centers and rural areas.

Gun rights activists will have to adapt to these changing circumstances.