A Texas gun store has sparked national controversy after posting a message on a roadside sign advertising a “Back to School” sale.
The Boyert Shooting Center in Katy, Texas, posted the sign advertising a sale that runs for five days in August with firearms up to 50 percent off. As KTRK-TV reported, the sign sparked a backlash in the community among those who felt it was inappropriate to suggest for guns to be brought into schools.
But the owner of the Boyer Shooting Center said that was actually the intention. In a statement to KTRK-TV , the company noted that it is now legal in the state of Texas to conceal carry firearms on some college campuses and for teachers in certain school districts to do the same. The company said that its outreach to teachers was intentional.
“We have friends and family who are teachers and our way of reaching out and saying thank you is by offering a summer long promotion of discounted training courses, firearms and accessories,” the company’s statement said.
Texas has instituted a number of measures to allow teachers to carry firearms, with state lawmakers passing new legislation in the wake of last year’s deadly school shooting at Santa Fe High School. In April, the state passed legislation that would allow local school boards to allow marshals to carry their concealed firearms on campus. As The Texas Tribune reported, the legislation eliminated a mandate that trained school marshals had to keep firearms locked up.
“More specifically, it would give the board of trustees or the governing body of public schools, open-enrollment charter schools, private schools and junior colleges the discretion to decide whether their marshals carry their weapons on their person or in a locked and secured safe,” the report noted.
The state’s approach has been met with some controversy, with critics saying that allowing teachers to carry firearms in school fails to address the underlying problem of gun violence in schools. Texas lawmakers resisted calls to place more restrictions on guns in the wake of the deadly school shooting in the state.
Katy gun store faces backlash over back-to-school sale sign https://t.co/lTHP9gEXyQ pic.twitter.com/j9ah2mPGg9
— ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) August 11, 2019
The controversy over the Boyert Shooting Center’s “Back to School” gun sale reached a national level over the weekend, with many sharing the story on social media. A post reached the front page of Twitter, and many expressed opposition to the idea of advertising for guns to be brought into schools, especially in the wake of a series of mass shootings.
