By Paul Lathrop | Contributing Editor
Appearing as a guest on “The Daily Bullet,” Texas gun rights advocate Rachel Malone is living proof that opinions and philosophies can change dramatically, and all it takes is an open mind, timely research and experience.
She went from being anti-gun to a lobbyist for the Gun Owners of America in Texas, and she revealed what Lone Star State gun owners can expect from the upcoming Texas legislative session.
Malone is the Texas Director GOA. A fierce and tireless lobbyist, she has been fighting for our Second Amendment rights since 2012.
Her journey from one philosophy to the other was not sudden, but it was personally surprising.
“It was a little bit of an accident and a little bit of tying to follow up on a dare,” she recalled. “I never set out to be a gun person much less a political activist. That was the farthest thing from my mind. I was just a music teacher. I taught classical violin and piano. My brother mentioned to me when we were in our early 20s he was going to get his license to carry. We grew up conservative, and I had never turned my back on conservative principles, so in theory, I should have been a gun person, but we didn’t grow up around guns.”
Malone worried about her brother carrying a gun. She began researching.
“I was trying to find all the data to show that he was more at risk carrying a gun than not,” she explained, discovering quite the opposite was true. “Even though I was still terrified of guns, my next question was ‘How can I start carrying a gun?’ because now I realized even though guns scare me, I’m actually safer carrying one.”
Malone said that it was a similar situation that propelled her into Second Amendment activism.
“There was a bill in Texas that said if you had your license to carry you can put your shirt on either side of the gun and you can carry open or concealed. At the time we had to carry concealed,” Malone said. “I want to be able to wear the clothes that I want to wear. I’m sure somebody else will work and get the bill passed.”
No one did. Malone then started to do the work herself in the next legislative session to get that bill passed.
Malone began to not only work to make progress for Second Amendment rights in the Texas Legislature, she began to teach others to become effective as well. With her help, open carry became the law in Texas and more advancement of freedom might be on the horizon.
Along with some possible advancements in Second Amendment rights, there are some potential setbacks on the legislative agenda as well. Malone discussed a few of those.
“There are a lot of anti-gun bills filed, and this isn’t unexpected, that’s what they did last time,” she detailed. “I want to say there were over 100 anti-gun bills filed last time, a lot of them didn’t ever move. For example, universal background checks; some of these bills would even make you do that for family members. Limiting ‘gun shows’ and they define gun shows as three people gathered together for the purpose of conducting a sale. They want to get rid of our stand-your-ground law.”
Malone then turned to some of the positive legislation proposed in Texas.
“We’ve already seen at least one bill filed that would, in a way get rid of the license to carry, and we are expecting at least one more bill the will be a full constitutional carry bill,” she said. “Some bills also that would end ‘gun-free zones’ and then a couple that relate to current happenings. There are a couple that have been filed relating to the Governor’s emergency powers.”
Malone said the current COVID-19 situation will have an effect on the upcoming legislative session.
“It’s definitely changing things,” she said. “We don’t know what it is going to outlook like though.”
She said the Capitol building in Austin has been closed to the public since the beginning of the COVID pandemic and a traditional legislative session will not happen. Proposals have made that only lawmakers and lobbyists will be allowed in the capitol building, but that doesn’t look like it will happen. There is a possibility that people will be able to testify virtually, however she thinks that may lose some of the face to face impact of testifying in public.
Malone can be reached at www.texas.gunowners.org and strongly encourages all Texas residents to get more involved.
