Days after a man drove through Midland and Odessa, shooting his AR-15-style rifle out his window at bystanders and killing seven people, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick issued what was seen as a potentially monumental breakthrough in the state’s gridlocked politics around guns: The staunch conservative came out in support of expanding mandatory background checks in private sales of guns between strangers, a loophole that the shooter exploited to get his rifle after failing a federal background check years before.
“Someone in the Republican Party has to take the lead on this,” Patrick said. As the conservative leader of the state Senate, he was “willing to take an arrow.”
