Beto O’Rourke Talks Outside The NRA Convention

Just three days away after the Uvalde School Shooting, the National Rifle Association (NRA) hosted its annual convention in Houston, with important political guests such as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. 

Republican party members and firearms manufacturers gathered at George R. Brown Convention Center to discuss the economic importance of guns in American society in the NRA convention. 

Across the street, in Discovery Green Park, Beto O ‘Rourke and organizations such as Moms Demand Action, Black Lives Matter Houston, and March Four Our Lives among others, protested against the lack of gun control policies, according to Court House News Service. 

Beto O’ Rourke, who is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Texas, told their provisional neighbors, the NRA convention assistants, that they weren’t his enemies. O’Rourke “extended” his hand to the NRA participants in a gesture of peace and fellowship to join the rally and ensure the Uvalde shooting won’t ever happen. 

“But the time for you to respond and to join us is now. We cannot wait any longer for you. Those who will be the victims of the next shooting unless we act, are counting on us at this moment.”

“To the leadership of the NRA and to those politicians who you have purchased to those men and women in positions of power who care more about their power than using that power to save the lives that you are supposed to save, we will defeat you and we will overcome you”. Said in his speech the democratic candidate.

O’Rourke also remembered his visit to Alithia’s parents, who are grieving their young daughter, one of the victims of the Uvalde Shooting. He said her drawing pictures were hanging in the fridge, and the helium balloons of her birthday, which was a few days before the shooting, were floating near the ceiling. Alithia´s Mother asked Beto that the name of her daughter would never be forgotten and that within his power, he never lets any mother pass through what she is living, according to O´Rourke´s Speech. 

Across the street, former President Donald Trump said in his NRA speech that the Uvalde Shooting was living proof that teachers and American civilians should be armed, according to CNN. “As the age-old saying goes, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

One million Texans own a gun, 47.5% of the adults in Texas say they live with a gun at home, according to a study by Rand Corporation. 

Another study from the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin declared that 43% of the people of Texas wanted more strict gun policies in the state, 34% wanted to leave the laws as they were and 16% of the people wanted less strict policies.