The filing season has started for next year’s 87th Texas Legislature, and Rachel Malone, Texas Director of Gun Owners of America, sent out an email highlighting various gun-related bills (both pro- and anti-Second Amendment) in the forthcoming session. One entry that caught my eye was Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston) HB 579, which would regulate the use of SWAT teams.
The part that caught GOA’s eye was Sec. 1701.753. (c) “The existence of a legally owned firearm in the home of an individual does not in itself constitute evidence of an imminent threat.” That would indeed be an improvement in further normalizing lawful gun ownership. I also approve of the use of mandating body cams for SWAT team members. Indeed, every uniformed peace officer should wear a film body cam at all times while on duty. They provide invaluable evidence by good cops and discourage bad behavior by the few bad apples.
I’m a bit more ambivalent about the bill outlining the acceptable use cases for SWAT teams. There is a real concern about the increasing militarization of low enforcement, but such guidelines are better promulgated at the local rather than state level.
The fact that a small band of radical Social Justice Warrior idiots want to abolish the police shouldn’t keep us from examining good-faith efforts to reform police practice where possible. Better and more extensive use of force and deescalation training is any idea that both Republicans and Democrats should be able to get behind. (Well, you would think, except Democrats killed South Carolina Republican Tim Scott’s crime reform bill.) Eliminating civil forfeiture without trial is another area for bipartisan reform.
Tags: 87th Texas Legislature, Crime, Gun Owners of America, Guns, Harold Dutton, police, SWAT teams, Texas
To be honest, the recent videos of mobs of police brutally putting down people resisting Covid quarantine or not wearing masks has brought me a long ways down that “defund the police” path myself.
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