February 1, 2024
In the world of Second Amendment activism, one can always expect all manner of attacks from members of the political establishment. It’s the nature of the beast in a cut-throat political enterprise where expediency and backstabbing are the order of the day.
Since it was founded in 2014, Texas Gun Rights (TXGR) has known this all too well. Its staunch commitment to the Second Amendment has earned it many enemies both on the Left and the Right. The latter has been a fascinating development to observe over the course of TXGR’s rise to prominence as the #1 no compromise gun lobby in the Lone Star State.
TXGR’s willingness to take Republicans to task for their anti-gun ways and/or their inability to defend the Second Amendment has made many a party hack livid. One could write encyclopedia-length articles highlighting establishment Republicans’ long list of attacks against TXGR.
However, one recent attack launched against TXGR merits considerable attention: Mark McCaig, a well-established Texas lawyer and the publisher of a faux conservative blog, The Texas Voice:
In an attack piece titled “Affiliate of Never-Trumper Led ‘Little Nutjob’ Gun Group Engages in Texas Primaries,” McCaig tries to paint TXGR as a group with Trump Derangement Syndrome (more on that fake news later).
But McCaig’s blog is known for being the mouthpiece of the uniparty in Austin, primarily Dade Phelan, who serves as the Speaker of the Texas House. Phelan is infamous for empowering anti-gun Democrats by appointing them to chair powerful committees — and for leading a sham impeachment of Ken Paxton, America’s most pro-gun Attorney General. If you ever want to know Phelan’s position on something, one only needs to read McCaig’s blog.
McCaig, himself, is a vile creature. Groups such as Young Conservative of Texas (YCT) have previously condemned McCaig for some of the subversive activity he has engaged in. The irony here is that McCaig used to be a former YCT member. Nevertheless, he has used YCT ‘s name to attack conservative candidates through a PAC he used to run — Conservative Voters or Texas.
Worse, McCaig used to work closely with the late-Steve Mostyn — a mega-donor for Democratic causes — at his personal injury law firm, and used the resources from this gig to continue attacking conservative legislators (as if personal injury lawyers didn’t already have a bad wrap!)
McCaig is for all intents and purposes a Nikki Haley-style Republican at best — who is more than willing to support Republicans who routinely sell out their conservative constituents for political expediency.
But McCaig’s current outrage stems from TXGR deploying mailers, billboards, websites, text messages and digital ads across the state, letting Texans know about the sketchy voting behavior of their representatives in the Texas House (primarily those of Phelan and his top lieutenants — which annoyed McCaig BIGLY).
In McCaig’s hit piece on TXGR, he conveniently fails to mention that President Trump is backing TXGR PAC-endorsed David Covey against Dade Phelan. Trump even noted Covey’s commitment to gun rights when he gave him his “complete and total endorsement.”
The primary bill at the center of the “controversy” with McCaig and RINO Republicans is Senate Bill 728 from 2023, a bill suffused with nasty anti-Second Amendment provisions.
For example, SB 728 effectively complies with the Biden-Cornyn Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) by funneling tens of thousands of juvenile records into the NICS gun ban registry, irrespective of criminal record and a person’s return to normal mental health.
It works in a retroactive manner, and otherwise law-abiding people could be deprived of their gun rights without even knowing it.
NICS is notorious for having a 94% false positive rate on firearms background check denials. False positives occur when lawful citizens’ names get mixed and matched with criminals who share similar names, which results in them being unjustly stripped of their gun rights.
For that reason, NICS needs to be abolished, not reformed, much less expanded upon. TXGR has distinguished itself from the rest of the gun rights organizations in Texas by opposing SB 728 — and being the only organization that’s calling for the abolition of NICS.
“No Compromise” isn’t just a hollow slogan for TXGR.
Sadly, the political establishment won after the Texas Senate passed SB 728 by a vote of 31-0 and the Texas House did so by a 116-28 margin.
Of course, the NRA has endorsed Speaker Phelan and many of the legislators who supported SB 728, giving them cover and zero accountability. Much like McCaig with The Texas Voice, the NRA exists to provide cover and prop up establishment Republicans no matter how suspect their voting records are.
Which brings us back to President Trump. Neither National Association for Gun Rights nor Texas Gun Rights is a “Never Trump organization.”
President Trump certainly was not perfect on gun rights, as demonstrated by his administration’s decision to ban bump stocks and expand NICS — which was noted by NAGR president Dudley Brown in his personal tweets.
But Trump seemingly represents the best alternative to defeat the Biden regime’s gun ban agenda — the agenda that Phelan and his cronies like McCaig are unwilling to fight.
The Biden regime has been relentless with respect to its efforts to undermine the Second Amendment be it through legislative means or executive fiat. Biden and company have already granted a rogue ATF the power to unilaterally impose gun control through underhanded means.
Thus far, the Biden-ATF has made attempts to impose a partial “assault weapons ban” and universal gun registration through arbitrary regulatory orders and procedures.
The Biden-ATF is essentially functioning like any unaccountable bureaucracy by imposing policies that are not subject to democratic scrutiny or pushback at the polls.
So flaws notwithstanding, Trump is still politically useful in opposing gun control. One can acknowledge this nuance of the current political reality and still criticize political figures when they slip up.
And when it comes to perfection, we know that only Jesus Christ is perfect.
Texas Gun Rights is not loyal to any of the two parties, especially the anti-gun uniparty that resides in the DC & Austin Swamp. And TXGR is certainly not in the business of schmoozing with the ruling class or selling out gun owners.
We should never forget that TXGR’s mission is to mobilize pro-gun Texans in defense of the Second Amendment and Article 1, Section 23 of the Texas Constitution. Period.
