0:00

This podcast is not sponsored by does

0:02

not reflect the views of the institutions that

0:04

employ us . It is solely our thoughts

0:06

and ideas , based upon our professional training

0:09

and study of the past .

0:13

Welcome to Talking Texas History , the

0:15

podcast that explores Texas history

0:18

before and beyond the Alamo

0:20

. Not only will we talk Texas

0:22

history , we'll visit with folks who teach

0:24

it , write it , support it , and

0:27

with some who've made it and , of course , all

0:29

of us who live it and love it . Welcome

0:34

to another edition of Talking Texas History . I'm Gene

0:36

Price .

0:37

I'm Scott Selsby . Gene , we've

0:39

had a lot of people on for a lot of time and we're

0:41

in Texas and we're talking about Texas history , and

0:44

how have we never had anybody on to talk

0:46

about guts ?

0:48

How did that happen ? Isn't it part of

0:50

the Texas mystique ?

0:52

That's what I've been told , so we better find out more about

0:54

it then . So why don't you introduce our guest ?

0:57

Well , we have Brennan

0:59

Rivas , and

1:02

Brennan , tell us

1:04

a little bit about yourself .

1:06

Hi Gene and Scott , I'm glad to be here

1:08

. I am

1:11

an in-grafted Texan , not

1:13

born here but arrived at age six

1:15

, and I

1:17

spent most of my adulthood

1:20

in the Dallas-Fort Worth area

1:22

. I studied

1:24

history as an undergraduate and

1:26

I have a PhD in history from TCU

1:29

, and I've been studying

1:31

guns and gun regulation for

1:33

about seven or eight years now .

1:36

That's great . It's a

1:38

topic that I'm betting there's not

1:40

just a whole lot of people that study

1:42

that . They probably should All

1:45

of us . What we've been told about you is you like

1:47

the Gilded Nation Progressive in the Bay of Texas . That's

1:49

a great topic anyway , but

1:51

especially these . What you're real

1:53

specialty is are laws about weapons

1:56

not necessarily weapons , but laws

1:58

about weapons . So tell us what drew

2:00

you to that topic .

2:02

Yeah , you make a great point that there's not

2:05

a whole lot of us who study the history

2:07

of gun laws . The

2:09

running joke by one of the others

2:11

there's a handful of us . His

2:14

joke is that we could have a conference inside

2:16

an English phone booth . That's

2:18

a pretty small group . I

2:21

fell into this topic by accident

2:23

. I did not grow

2:25

up interested in guns or aware

2:27

of , you know , gun control controversy

2:30

. I really

2:32

approached this as a graduate student

2:34

who was shopping around for a dissertation topic

2:36

. This was maybe about 2015

2:39

. And at that time , the

2:41

state legislature was considering

2:43

modifying some of our gun

2:46

laws . At that time , the

2:48

one under discussion which ended up happening

2:50

was to allow people with

2:52

handgun

2:55

licenses to carry openly as well as concealed

2:57

. And so ahead of in

2:59

the middle of all this discussion about it and

3:02

ahead of the legislative session

3:04

, the Houston Chronicle ran an

3:06

article about it and they had interviewed

3:08

the expert on the history of

3:11

gun regulation in Texas and

3:13

my advisor and

3:16

I were talking about it and he

3:19

said well , you know you're signed

3:21

up for a research seminar with me

3:23

next semester . Why don't you dig

3:25

into some of the historical claims

3:28

and see what , see

3:30

whether or not they're true ? And so that's

3:32

what I did and I ended up with a really good

3:34

seminar paper . I got an A , but

3:37

also I ended up submitting that to the quarterly

3:39

and that became my

3:41

article in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly

3:43

. I had previously

3:46

studied antitrust laws

3:48

that's what my master's thesis was on and

3:52

I thought that guns and weapons

3:54

would be more exciting . I thought it might

3:56

be better for me on the job market , but

3:58

I also thought it would be a

4:00

topic where I could engage a

4:02

little more meaningfully with race

4:05

and gender . You know things that I had studied

4:07

and learned about in graduate school

4:10

that I didn't really know how to apply

4:12

those , those methodologies to studying

4:14

antitrust . So I thought I could . I

4:16

thought I could do more with the topic , and

4:18

so I've just taken it and ran with it .

4:20

Talking about that article that you put in

4:22

the quarterly . It's called

4:24

"An unequal right to bear arms , state

4:26

weapons laws and white supremacy

4:28

in Texas 1836

4:31

to 1900 . What has

4:33

been the Texas

4:35

lawmakers attitudes towards

4:37

carrying weapons in

4:39

publics ? What did you learn ?

4:42

Well , I learned that for

4:45

most of our state's history most

4:47

Texans have supported the idea of regulating

4:50

the presence of guns in public in one

4:52

shape or another . Early

4:58

on there wasn't a state , what

5:00

we call public carry law , a

5:02

law that regulated or prohibited the

5:04

carrying of weapons in public . And

5:08

actually in the antebellum 19th century Texas

5:10

lawmakers kind of divided

5:13

over whether or not they thought the

5:15

right to bear arms would

5:17

be violated by such a regulation

5:19

. There was a bit of a back

5:22

and forth in the 1845 Constitutional

5:25

Convention between REB

5:27

Baylor , who was against the

5:29

constitutionality of gun regulation , and

5:33

John Hemphill , who said that the

5:35

right to bear arms has nothing to do with police

5:37

regulations affecting the carrying

5:39

or wearing of weapons in public . So

5:41

we have a bit of a back and forth between them in 1845

5:45

. But it was actually the state judiciary that

5:48

made it very clear that even if the

5:50

legislature were to pass any

5:52

sort of public carry law that

5:55

the judiciary was going to strike it down

5:57

. Now

5:59

all of that changed as a result of

6:01

the Civil War and Reconstruction . The

6:04

Civil War and Reconstruction were a tremendous turning

6:06

point in American history in so

6:08

many ways , but certainly in the history of guns and

6:10

weapon regulation In

6:13

Texas . The lawlessness

6:16

, violence , instability

6:19

of government , those are the things

6:21

that drove Texans white or black

6:23

, conservative or Democrat versus

6:26

Republican those are the things that drove

6:28

Texans to support some

6:30

kind of gun regulation , and

6:32

in fact , even though it was

6:35

Republicans who were yes , the

6:37

hated Republicans are the ones that enacted

6:39

this , but

6:42

it was actually a bipartisan consensus

6:44

that something needed to be done about guns

6:46

. Governor Throckmorton's

6:48

administration had floated the idea of taxing

6:51

carrying weapons in public , but

6:54

in a cash poor society

6:57

, his party couldn't agree on what that

6:59

tax would look like and so they didn't put forward

7:01

a law at all . But

7:03

when the Republicans took over control

7:06

, they thought that the only

7:08

way to have a safe and protected public

7:10

sphere was for no one to have guns

7:12

. So

7:15

, like I said , the lawlessness and instability

7:17

is what drove people in both parties

7:19

and various different political

7:22

camps to support doing something

7:24

about gun carrying

7:26

. And in fact , when Texas

7:28

did finally get into regulating

7:31

guns , a little behind the curve

7:33

for various other southern slaveholding

7:35

states , texas was pretty

7:38

aggressive about it . So whereas

7:40

states like Mississippi , louisiana

7:43

, alabama , I

7:47

think , georgia , various

7:49

other southern slaveholding states , had

7:51

enacted concealed carry restrictions

7:53

in the antebellum period , but

7:55

Texas hadn't enacted anything for the reasons I

7:57

described a minute ago . But

7:59

the Texas law from 1871 not

8:02

only prohibited carrying concealed

8:04

but it also specifically prohibited carrying

8:07

openly , which was a really big deal

8:09

. So , texas , when they got into it they were

8:11

pretty progressive

8:13

about it . But

8:18

even at a larger scale , beyond just Texas

8:20

, the Civil War and Reconstruction were

8:22

this tremendous turning point in the history

8:24

of guns and gun regulation . Because

8:27

of the mobilization

8:29

for the Civil War and in fact

8:31

Winchester started out with

8:34

the Henry Rifle and it was

8:36

use in the Civil War that made Henry's

8:38

well known and popular . It

8:41

was government contracts that initially

8:43

kept that company afloat . The

8:46

same thing happened with Colts . Samuel

8:50

Colts' first business went under . His

8:52

second business was saved by a government contract

8:54

during the 1840s but

8:56

he lost his patent in 1857

8:58

. And if it hadn't been for these massive US

9:01

military contracts during the Civil

9:03

War , his company

9:06

would not have been so successful and

9:08

his patent expired on the eve of

9:10

the Civil War . So all of these other

9:12

companies like Smith and Wesson who had been waiting

9:15

in the wings to get into revolver production

9:17

, they all got government contracts

9:19

as well . So anyway

9:21

, that mobilization meant that there were a whole

9:23

lot more guns in circulation . These

9:26

companies had invested in tremendous

9:28

production capacity for firearms , and

9:31

when the war was over , who's

9:33

going to buy those guns when the US military

9:35

has cut their purchasing ? They

9:38

started marketing them and selling them to Americans

9:40

nationwide , and so there was easier

9:44

access to guns and , as a

9:46

result of that , nationally a

9:48

big push for greater regulation

9:50

of guns .

9:51

Let me show you if you look at your article that

9:53

you've written in , which is a very , very good that came

9:55

out in 2018 Quarterly

10:00

and the premise of it in talking race

10:02

had a lot to do with how we looked at

10:04

gun laws and how gun laws going

10:07

to be regulated , not being a , it kind of changed

10:09

the tune . So why don't you tell us about how race came

10:11

into gun laws ?

10:15

Yeah , this is a really important topic . A

10:18

lot of the people who research gun regulations

10:21

are doing so because of

10:25

the landscape of Second

10:27

Amendment jurisprudence today , kind

10:29

of the gun control versus gun rights

10:31

debate , and

10:34

in that debate there's been a lot of discussion about intellectual

10:37

history and what the Second Amendment meant

10:39

, and there's

10:41

a lot of talk about laws and there are

10:43

these clean statutes

10:46

that get pulled

10:48

out from the context in which they were enacted

10:50

, separated from the social

10:52

problems that they were designed to address , and

10:56

that really takes it , takes the history

10:59

out of it right , just pulling the laws out

11:01

from their context and

11:03

that's one thing that I've been

11:05

very passionate about and that I think

11:07

is being corrected among

11:09

the people who are studying gun regulation

11:11

is to take the question of

11:13

race more seriously and

11:16

start looking more critically

11:18

at you know , which

11:20

laws might have been inspired by

11:22

racism ? Or how do we even evaluate

11:24

whether or not a law was or was

11:27

not racist ? What is the metric by

11:29

which we could even we could

11:31

even ascertain that right ? And

11:34

so I have found that race

11:37

is not the motivating

11:39

factor in gun regulation . In fact , I found

11:41

compelling evidence that Texas

11:43

gun laws were not enacted

11:45

with racist , racist

11:48

intentions of forethought . So

11:52

race isn't the whole story , but it is an important

11:54

part of the story and one that

11:56

shouldn't be shortchanged . So

11:58

Texas , as the Republic of

12:00

Texas , in 1840 enacted

12:03

a slave code which remained effective

12:05

. Coming into the United

12:07

States , the

12:09

slave code prohibited enslaved

12:13

persons from carrying

12:15

or having weapons unless they had the permission

12:18

of a master or overseer

12:20

or authorized white person . That

12:23

was very normal . I

12:25

just about every slave code has some

12:27

sort of you know gun or weapon

12:30

platform , but

12:34

there was some back and forth about whether or not that

12:36

was strict enough . So there was

12:38

some discussion , and I think

12:40

there might have even been a temporary change that

12:43

made that a

12:45

little stricter and trying

12:47

to prohibit slave

12:49

owners from providing arms

12:51

to their slaves at all . Now , that really

12:54

wasn't feasible , because slaves

12:56

did have access to guns at times , based

12:59

on what their responsibilities were and

13:01

the level of trust that they had within the household

13:04

and things like that . So there's certainly

13:06

slave code restrictions in

13:08

the United States , and definitely in Texas

13:11

. Other states , though , states

13:13

that had larger free black populations

13:15

, they were more likely to have

13:17

licensing laws . So

13:20

there were also some states that required

13:22

free blacks to undergo some sort of licensing

13:25

process in order to legally

13:27

possess a firearm within their home . North

13:30

Carolina did that , I think Delaware did that

13:32

. Texas did not

13:34

. My thinking on that , though , is that

13:36

the free black population was not very large

13:38

in Texas , and so there wasn't a whole lot of

13:40

concern the way that there was

13:42

in places like North Carolina . The

13:45

laws that I've spent more time working

13:48

on , which are these public carry or sensitive

13:50

place restrictions , so in Texas

13:52

, those were enacted in the 1870s by Republicans

13:55

. Those

13:57

, though , were not enacted with racist intentions

13:59

, and , in fact , the concealed

14:02

carry restrictions nationally

14:04

do not appear to have been enacted with racist

14:07

intentions of forethought . So

14:09

, for instance , a

14:12

state like Louisiana enacted

14:14

a concealed carry restriction in 1812

14:16

that withstood

14:19

any sort of constitutional challenge . It

14:23

remained on the books throughout the 19th century . Well

14:25

, from what I as far as I know , louisiana

14:28

also had a slave code , so if that law

14:30

was designed to be only applied to black

14:32

people , whether they be

14:34

free or enslaved , it doesn't

14:36

make sense that it would have been enacted the way

14:38

that it was , as opposed to be enacted as

14:42

part of a slave code or as part of some regulation

14:44

of free blacks . In

14:47

fact , that law was designed to be enforced

14:49

against white people who were notoriously

14:52

and inappropriately carrying

14:54

weapons in public at all times , and

14:57

so in Texas , the

15:00

in Texas , some of the

15:02

claims that

15:04

had been made that I investigated for my article

15:06

was a claim that these laws were enacted

15:08

with racist intentions , and

15:11

investigating that , I found that was not true . That

15:14

a bi-racial Republican party supported

15:17

this legislation because

15:19

they understood that

15:21

if everyone were carrying a gun

15:23

, that they would be outgunned

15:25

all the time . Because the Texas Republican

15:28

party did not have a demographic majority

15:30

in the state . They represented

15:33

a minority of people , and

15:35

if everyone were to be armed , they

15:37

were the ones who were going to suffer , and

15:39

so they saw a disarmed public sphere

15:41

as the only way to have a polite

15:44

, law-abiding , safe society . They

15:47

did not adhere to the mantra more guns

15:49

, less crime that you hear sometimes today .

15:52

Well , let me ask you about

15:54

something you an incident you

15:56

wrote about in your article

15:59

, and that was when state

16:02

police officer Mitch Cotton

16:04

tried to arrest Mr

16:07

DC Applewhite , and

16:11

so that that that's an incident where

16:14

and I'm going to let you explain more of it to

16:16

the audience that's

16:19

an incident where race but

16:21

also the question of Republican

16:23

control kind of

16:25

intermingled . So let me let you

16:27

talk a little bit about that .

16:30

Yeah , that happened in Limestone County

16:32

. I

16:35

found a lot of testimony

16:38

in the

16:40

legislative journals . There was an investigation

16:42

of it . There's a lot

16:44

of evidence about what

16:46

happened . We've got a lot of wonderful sources

16:48

to try and recreate what happened . Mitch

16:52

Cotton was a black man and

16:54

a state police officer . The

16:57

state police was very unpopular

17:00

among most white Texans

17:02

. It

17:04

was reviled as an all

17:07

black force , the

17:09

hounds of the governor . There's

17:11

some great scholarship busting

17:13

that myth , but they

17:16

were generally reviled by Democrats

17:18

or Democratic-leaning Texans . Anyway

17:23

, this incident occurred after the public

17:25

carry law had been enacted . It's illegal

17:27

to carry , openly or concealed , a

17:29

pistol in public in Texas . There

17:32

was a man in a bar or

17:34

near a bar named Applewhite . He

17:37

was carrying a gun unlawfully

17:39

. This state

17:41

police officer tried to enforce

17:44

the law and arrest him . The

17:47

whole thing resulted in a shootout . Applewhite

17:50

was killed in the street Out

17:52

of fear of the white

17:54

reprisal that was going to come after him . Mitch

17:57

Cotton and the other state police

17:59

officers who were with him , who were also black . They

18:02

ran away . It

18:05

led to a racist clash within

18:08

the city . There

18:10

were numerous black men who had to flee the city

18:12

for their own safety . Conveniently

18:15

, all of this happened right ahead of an election

18:18

. As

18:21

this disruption was happening in

18:23

Limestone County , a

18:25

white militia which was not , from

18:27

what I understand it , may have been a state authorized militia

18:30

, but it was a white militia company they

18:33

mobilized and they essentially took

18:35

over the town . They

18:38

did so in order to , as they

18:40

claimed , protect the integrity of the election

18:42

, but they had

18:44

also driven all the black voters out of town . They

18:47

were guarding the polling places with guns , inviting

18:50

the black men to come and cast their votes . This

18:55

was a turning point for Limestone County

18:58

during the reconstruction

19:00

process of Democrats retaking control .

19:04

It's a fascinating thing when you think and talk

19:06

about present-day ideas

19:08

about regulation of guns , many

19:11

of them look back and

19:13

cite

19:15

the carrying of weapons and the

19:18

proliferation of guns

19:20

in the 19th century . What

19:24

they're really seeing , as we all know , is

19:26

a popular culture mythic

19:29

manifestation of the Wild

19:31

West . It was actually very different

19:33

. When you do this your

19:35

research has found that out you

19:38

, along with others , have exposed

19:40

this myth of the Wild West , the gun-toting

19:43

West and all these things . How

19:45

do you find people react

19:47

when you present your

19:50

research ? When you talk about gun regulation

19:52

? How do contemporary people react

19:54

to what you have found ?

19:58

Often people are surprised . There's

20:01

different audiences I share this with . If

20:05

I meet real people

20:08

, non-academic folks , they

20:10

might be surprised that Texas had gun regulations

20:12

like this in the 1800s at all . That's

20:16

always fun to talk about Among

20:19

historians , though they're more likely to

20:22

think , oh well , yeah , I guess now that I think about it , it

20:24

would be reasonable that there might be historical

20:26

gun laws . What they're more likely

20:28

to find surprising is that Texas

20:31

was such a champion of what was at

20:33

the time very cutting edge and strict

20:36

gun regulation by prohibiting not

20:38

only concealed carry but also open carry . When

20:42

I get more into the policy details , historians

20:45

even find it surprising that Texas was such a

20:47

champion of it . Also

20:51

, people do find surprising that a

20:53

lot of these laws were not enacted with racist

20:56

intentions . Just to add

20:58

one more thing about the previous

21:00

topic of the discussion about

21:02

race and gun regulation I found

21:04

that the laws weren't inspired by racism

21:06

. I've even got stats showing

21:08

that initially they were not even enforced in

21:11

an overtly racist way

21:13

, but that did develop

21:15

over time . Another

21:19

thing that people sometimes find surprising is that these

21:21

laws were not enacted with racist intentions

21:23

, even though they did later on

21:26

become quite clearly and obviously enforced

21:28

in a grossly discriminatory way

21:30

. People find it surprising

21:32

and that makes it a little more fun to

21:35

share with folks .

21:37

So let me ask you a

21:39

question that I'm

21:42

sure that some people are thinking . Here you

21:44

are , you're a woman , you're

21:46

an academic . What do you know

21:48

about guns ? Have you had any problems

21:50

any people

21:53

reacting to you because

21:55

you're a

21:57

woman , an academic . So

22:00

how do they react to your publishing or talking

22:03

about gun laws ?

22:05

Yeah , I was initially really concerned that

22:07

I might get hate mail

22:10

or , you know , feel

22:12

threatened or something , and

22:14

I considered not doing this topic for

22:17

that reason . The Michael

22:19

Belial scandal you know

22:21

that that's a real yeah

22:24

, having somebody you know comb through your footnotes and

22:26

try to discredit your scholarship , you know . So

22:28

that has encouraged me to be very thorough

22:30

and careful and honest , right . But

22:32

yeah , I haven't

22:34

received anywhere near as much

22:37

pushback as I might have thought . I think

22:39

for the most part I've kind of flown under the radar

22:41

and most people don't know or care . I

22:44

have had a couple of times where gun

22:47

experts or gun enthusiasts have

22:51

argued with me or

22:53

at times tried to correct me . I

22:56

have found that I've had to learn a lot about guns

22:58

and I'm

23:01

not really into guns . But I

23:03

did reach a point where I thought , if I'm going to

23:05

be doing this , I need to know more about

23:08

guns and I need to understand

23:10

what gun rights advocates

23:13

are talking about . There's certain phrases

23:15

that you just don't want to say unless you're

23:17

prepared to argue , like

23:19

saying the phrase assault weapon . You

23:22

have to be very careful using that phrase

23:24

in the sentence because you will

23:26

be confronted about it

23:28

, right . So I have

23:30

had to brush up on guns and

23:33

I have

23:35

gone to this . It's

23:38

like a shooting range for replica

23:40

antique guns . They aren't actually

23:42

antiques but they're replicas . So I've shot in 1892

23:45

Winchester lever action , you

23:48

know , and so I've

23:50

definitely learned a whole lot about the

23:53

technology part and the

23:56

differences between and among different kinds

23:58

of firearms and kind of the

24:00

technological development and the

24:02

sort of the history

24:05

of technology involving

24:07

firearms during the 19th and early 20th centuries

24:09

.

24:10

Your research , specifically , is 1836

24:13

to 1900 and you do the 19th

24:15

century on gun laws and things like this . You

24:18

have the idea of the lightning , but you have ideas and

24:20

because you've researched this about how

24:22

the ideas have changed , Can you

24:24

pinpoint when the idea

24:26

? I mean , if you look at the

24:29

research and you look at the history

24:31

, most states were open

24:33

to regulating the carrying of weapons

24:36

in public in the 19th century

24:38

and into the 20th century . But

24:41

in many states now that has almost

24:43

completely reversed and we were getting this idea . We're

24:45

not going to regulate them at all . When

24:48

did that change ? What caused it and

24:50

this is you as as an academic

24:52

what caused it and when did it change and

24:54

why ?

24:56

I'd say there's two phases in this

24:58

change . The first one

25:00

is in the 1930s or so

25:03

. This

25:05

is when the NRA started getting

25:07

involved a little

25:09

more , a little more actively

25:11

in trying to shape gun

25:13

gun regulation . Initially the

25:15

NRA and the I

25:17

think there was like a pistol association

25:20

to the National Pistol Association and

25:22

Pistol and Revolver Association . But

25:24

these interest groups , their

25:26

hope was to get uniform

25:29

laws so that

25:31

way and they would promote model

25:33

legislation . But

25:36

their activity

25:38

and their engagement

25:40

, especially with hunting

25:43

enthusiasts and sportsmen's

25:46

groups and hunting

25:48

outdoors , sporting magazines

25:50

, that seems to have

25:52

been a sea change in

25:55

the 1930s or so in

25:57

terms of developing a consciousness to

25:59

some extent among gun owners that

26:01

these laws

26:04

were at times harming them

26:06

and trying to go after criminals . They're hurting

26:08

us , they're criminalizing lawful activity

26:10

. So the dynamic

26:13

or the discourse for that was

26:15

really shaped in the 1930s . There's

26:17

a great book written by a

26:20

friend of mine named Patrick Charles . It's

26:22

called Vote Gun and

26:24

he has done a lot of research on this . So any

26:26

of your listeners interested in following

26:28

up would do well to check out that

26:30

book . But

26:33

then later on there was an acceleration

26:35

of this in the 1970s and

26:38

later , and that was around the time that

26:40

the NRA became yet

26:42

more active in trying to shape legislation

26:45

as more of a lobby group and

26:49

the current gun control , gun

26:51

rights debate that we have right now was

26:53

really created as a result of

26:55

that . And so , beginning

26:57

in the 70s and 80s , there were certain

26:59

law scholars who started

27:01

pushing this in legal circles and

27:04

they were really capitalizing on the culture

27:06

, wars and kind of the conservative backlash

27:09

of the 70s and 80s , trying

27:11

to paint historical gun regulations

27:13

as an intrusive government

27:15

imposition or a relic of

27:17

racism that we need to get rid of and

27:20

that has ushered in this new era

27:23

. And because originalism

27:25

as a mode of interpreting the Constitution

27:27

was really rising to prominence at

27:30

that time and becoming a

27:32

more legitimate way of looking at constitutional

27:34

history . They invoked a lot of history

27:36

and there was a telling of

27:38

American history , including a telling

27:41

of Texas history or history

27:43

about guns and gun regulation

27:46

that was not accurate and

27:51

I think that went a long way toward , in

27:55

combination with kind of , the romanticization

27:57

of the wild west . You know

27:59

, people's vision of what our

28:01

heritage really is . That

28:04

vision was informed

28:06

by inaccurate scholarship

28:09

and so people have misremembered

28:11

what the American tradition

28:13

of regulating guns really is . So

28:16

it's definitely a 20th century development

28:18

and this kind of gun

28:20

rights activism that we see . It's

28:23

developed over time . There wasn't a one

28:26

single spark that created it . It's

28:28

been a long time coming and that's

28:30

why it's so strong .

28:32

Do you think that we will see

28:34

a reversal of that anytime soon

28:36

? Go back to some other ideas

28:38

about regulation , or have we crossed

28:41

a line that we may not get back

28:43

from ?

28:45

Well , you know , that's really hard to answer . I

28:49

don't think there's a quick fix , because we're

28:52

talking about something that affects

28:54

the way people feel and , for a lot

28:56

of folks , has become a part of how they

28:58

see themselves . It's

29:01

a part of one's own identity

29:03

. For some people they're the guns they

29:05

own , or what those guns mean for them . So

29:08

I don't see that kind of thing changing . But

29:13

I do see that if we

29:15

keep moving in the direction of rolling

29:17

back regulations and there's an

29:20

obvious increase

29:22

in shootings and crime as a consequence

29:25

, I do think that a lot of more

29:27

moderate people are gonna be willing to speak

29:30

up and I do think that we might see some

29:32

policy changes . Even if we don't

29:34

see , you know , cultural or ideological

29:37

changes that are major , I think we might see some policy

29:39

compromises .

29:42

Brendan , we're reaching towards the end of our

29:44

time . Next time it's always a minute

29:46

for everybody we have . This has been a great , great

29:48

discussion and I really appreciate you being

29:50

on here . We ask all of our

29:52

guests they come here as a final question

29:54

. Brendan Reavits , what do you

29:56

know ?

29:58

Well , this is a great question . I'm

30:01

gonna stick on the theme of why

30:03

you brought me on , which is the history of gun regulation

30:06

. Also , what I

30:08

know is and

30:10

I didn't invent this , okay the United

30:13

States has a gun culture . We've also

30:15

got a gun control culture .

30:20

I like it . I like that . That's short and sweet

30:22

.

30:22

Short and sweet .

30:24

Yeah , I like that .

30:26

Hey , brendan , I wanna thank you very much for being on the

30:28

program . I thought it was great

30:30

information and some new

30:32

ideas on perspectives that

30:34

are historical , but we really don't cover

30:36

very much in our Texas history courses

30:39

, so I really appreciate your answer , Thank you .

30:41

thank you very much . This has been one of our better

30:43

ones .

30:44

Oh well , thanks . I'm very glad to have participated

30:46

. I'd love to do it again sometime . All right

30:48

, thanks so much . Yeah , thank you Bye

30:51

.