EL PASO, Texas.— César Blanco, like many Texans, has a gun in his home and believes in the right to bear arms.
At the same time, he works so that there is
greater regulation in this regard in his state.
Blanco is currently a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives and was elected state senator in the November 3 election.
In El Paso, where he lives, another Democrat, President-elect Joe Biden, also won even though outgoing President Donald Trump, a Republican, took more votes at the state level.
[They voted for Trump in 2016 and now they voted for Biden: the racist attack on Hispanics in El Paso explains it]
The use of weapons is very present, both in District 76 of the Texas House of Representatives and in District 29 of the state Senate, the position that Blanco will take next year.
Also still very present is the shooting of August 3, 2019 in El Paso that left 23 dead.
"I think the weapons are too accessible and are creating public harm," emphasizes Blanco, who was a military analyst in the Navy.
Blanco says that, in his new term, he will fight for measures such as
the elimination of assault weapons, firing accelerators and high-capacity magazines.
It also seeks to make it mandatory for a person's criminal record to be verified when he acquires a weapon online or so that people convicted of domestic violence cannot obtain a gun.
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“There are a variety of gun reform bills that we need and I think they do
not violate the Second Amendment
[point in the Constitution that gives citizens the right to own guns] and that, at the same time, make our community a Safer.
These are some of the bills that I have presented in previous sessions and bills that I will continue to present in the Senate, ”says the Hispanic politician living in the border city of El Paso, which borders Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
According to his biography on the Texas Congress website, Blanco "comes from a family of nurses, teachers, and a tradition of military service dating back to World War I."
In addition, he is
"the grandson of an immigrant who came to Texas
to build a better life for his family, he was raised in El Paso by a single mother who had several jobs to make ends meet."
From the supermarket parking lot where the tragic incident occurred that killed Americans, Mexicans and a White German, he recalls: “An armed man came here, drove nine hours and said he killed 23 people because there was an invasion of Latino immigrants in U.S".
Blanco, who is Mexican-American, continues to attend this Walmart to do his shopping.
Guns are no longer sold here.
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“It is very personal for me.
This is something that happened in my community, which I represent.
These are the people I [shop with].
As an elected official I have to do something about it,
I owe it to the 23 people who represent this monument, ”he
emphasizes
,
pointing to a 30-foot-high golden statue made up of 23 pillars that was built at the end of November last year.
The 'Grand Candela', the monument in honor of the 23 victims of the August 2019 shooting. Sarah Yáñez-Richards
Following the shooting, the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, and the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Dennis Bonnen, appointed Blanco to lead the Texas Safety Commission and the Select Committee on the Prevention of Mass Violence and Community Safety .
Blanco used to go to school where relatives of the victims had to identify the bodies left by the killer (a 21-year-old white man who lived in Dallas).
Now he stresses that during the state Senate elections his opponent, Republican Bethany Hatch,
"campaigned very much in favor of the Second Amendment"
and lost with 33% of the vote.
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“I have received a flood of letters in my office in which people thank me [for my work].
People have responded very positively and said, 'Thank you for doing this.'
We need to keep our community safe, ”he said.
According to Fernando García, founder and director of the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR), the Latino population of El Paso, which represents 83% of the county's population, according to Census data , he is
not particularly concerned about the Second Amendment.
[What's behind Trump's rise in popularity with Texans?]
“For Hispanics in Texas the last thing they worry about right now is whether or not they will have access to a gun.
Of course it is a part of constitutional law, but
we are a community that has been so impacted by economic and immigration policies that I think we have many other things as a priority ”,
emphasizes the activist, who also points out that most of the Hispanic population of the area has a very low per capita income.
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Among their most urgent concerns in the face of the general elections, Hispanics around the country cited
the economy, the coronavirus and access to health care
, according to several surveys conducted by Noticias Telemundo in the months leading up to the vote.
Garcia bases his theory on conversations he has had with some of the 10,000 people he works with in the border region.
“This concern has been reduced to a more extreme group, supremacist, who say they have the right to arm themselves.
And they are usually white people, they are not Latino people.
I am not saying that Latinos do not have weapons, but simply that it is not in their priorities, "he concluded.