Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton justifies his anti-gun control stance by saying laws against murder didn't prevent school shooting

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at a rally in Washington on January 6.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said gun laws are "not the right focus" after a mass school shooting in Uvalde.
He reasoned that there are already laws against murder and the gunman ignored those.
"'Laws don't work' - guy who enforces laws," wrote White House Digital Director Rob Flaherty on his personal Twitter account.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said gun laws are "not the right focus" after a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

"Look, we already have laws against killing people and this guy apparently didn't care what the law was," Paxton said during an interview with the conservative Newsmax TV channel. "Having a gun law that told him not to have a gun I don't think would've stopped any of this. So I think that's not the right focus."

Police said the gunman, who died at the scene Tuesday in Uvalde, Texas, was carrying a handgun, an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and high-capacity magazines.

White House Digital Director Rob Flaherty retweeted the interview clip from his personal account and mocked Paxton's response, writing "'Laws don't work' - guy who enforces laws."

—Rob Flaherty (@Rob_Flaherty) May 25, 2022

During the interview, Paxton was asked about statements by President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama blaming the gun lobby.

Paxton said "they obviously have a political agenda of limiting guns in the hands of everybody, which makes no sense." He noted that Texas laws allow school districts to choose whether they want to train people to "be ready." A 2019 law, signed after another mass school shooting, allows more teachers and school personnel to have guns in schools.

"Clearly law enforcement can't be everywhere," he said. "There's nothing wrong in my opinion with starting to think about putting trained police officers, maybe just a few, in every school, but that's going to be a higher cost than actually training some of the people already at the school."

If school districts took advantage of laws already in place, he said, that would "make a major difference."

The two-term Paxton on Tuesday won his GOP runoff election, even though he has been charged with securities fraud and faces an FBI investigation into allegations that he misused his power to help a donor.

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Paxton in his race against Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, whose family has long been at odds with Trump.

In interviews Tuesday, Texas politicians including Paxton, called for more school security rather than more gun laws.

"This idea that if you ban guns from law-abiding citizens, somehow these people that kill people, they're going to follow the gun law but won't follow the murder laws, is somewhat ridiculous," Paxton said in an earlier interview with Newsmax.

"So it makes no sense to me. I'd rather have law-abiding citizens armed and trained so that they can respond when something like this happens because it's not going to be the last time," he said.

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