To Texas Lawmaker, Guns Are the Answer

State Rep. Suzanna Hupp doesn’t like to advertise the fact. But if you press her, she won’t deny it--yes, she does carry a loaded gun when she’s on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives. She feels safer that way.

For similar reasons, she wrote a bill--three days before the recent school shooting in Santee, Calif.--to allow rural high school principals to carry concealed weapons on the job. Should a crazed student or miscellaneous wacko open fire on campus, the principals would be poised to shoot back.

“People who commit these crimes are sick, twisted individuals who are looking for easy victims,” Hupp said Tuesday, which was Texas’ annual 2nd Amendment Day, marking the constitutional right to bear arms. “They’re looking for places where they can shoot fish in a barrel. So when you give the potential victims the ability to protect themselves, you create an incredible deterrent.”

Even in Texas, however, the proposal to arm principals faces an uphill struggle.

But spend 30 minutes in the company of Hupp and you’ll understand why a dozen more outrages like the ones at Columbine and Santana high schools would not be likely to produce much support for tougher gun laws in rural America, where owning a weapon is considered both a proud tradition and sacred right.

Hupp, 41, is a survivor of the 1991 massacre in Killeen, Texas, in which 23 people died. She has been elected three times to the Texas Legislature on what could be called a “guns and more guns” platform. She is the person perhaps most responsible for the 1996 law that allows Texans to carry concealed weapons.

The armed-principal bill is just one of a dozen gun bills she’s written or co-written for this year’s legislative session. Together, they would chip away at the remaining restrictions on carrying a weapon in Texas--it’s still illegal to carry a gun in churches, on university campuses and at public schools.

Not that those laws are much of a deterrent to Hupp, who freely admits to carrying her handgun pretty much whenever and wherever she wants. Fortunately, there is no law against carrying a gun in the state Capitol. (It is unclear whether other legislators carry weapons.)

“I try to obey the law,” she said in an interview. “But when it isn’t convenient, or when I feel like I should [have a gun], then I carry. I never want to be in that position ever again.”

“That position” refers to the events of Oct. 16, 1991, the day that scarred Hupp forever and set her off on a public crusade.

She was having lunch with her parents at the Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen when a gunman crashed his car through the front window and began methodically shooting people. Hupp’s gun was locked in her car--it was then illegal for her to carry it. (At the time, she worked as a chiropractor and feared she would lose her license if she broke the law.) So she could do nothing while the gunman killed her mother and father. Hupp ran out a shattered window, thinking her mother was behind her, only to find out later that she had died embracing her wounded, dying husband.

Since then, Hupp has spent her life trying to erase the powerlessness of that moment.

A day or so after the shooting, she denounced the lawmakers who “legislated me out of the right to protect my family members.” She began what would become a string of countless public appearances advocating the right to carry a concealed weapon.

In 1996, she ran for the Legislature as a Republican, winning what had been a Democratic seat.

“She’s the poster girl” of the gun lobby in Texas, said Dave Smith of Texans for Gun Safety, a group that advocates restrictions on firearms. “She’s pretty effective. And the reason is she’s speaking for the NRA.” The National Rifle Assn. remains a powerful force in state politics.

Gun control activists have backed Hupp’s opponents, with little success. In November, she won reelection with 62% of the vote. Unabashedly libertarian in philosophy, she also has written pending bills that would make it easier to use marijuana for medicinal purposes and would force police to straighten up the contents of a vehicle after conducting a search.

Hupp appears frequently in television debates on gun violence. Last year, she tangled on “Nightline” with another gun-victim-turned-politician, Carolyn McCarthy, the Long Island, N.Y., woman who successfully ran for Congress on an anti-gun platform after her husband was shot to death on a commuter train.

When the Million Mom March arrived in Washington to call for stricter gun laws last May, Hupp spoke at a counterdemonstration called “The 2nd Amendment Sisters.”

Back in Austin, Hupp’s legislative efforts have met with mixed results. In 1999, she successfully sponsored a bill that prevents local governments from suing gun makers. But her bill allowing Texas residents to carry weapons without having to apply for a permit--modeled on a law in Vermont--didn’t even get a committee hearing.

Hundreds of teachers happened to be at the Capitol on 2nd Amendment Day. (They were protesting for better health benefits.) Many thought the bill was a bad idea.

“Principals have enough to say grace over,” said Ken Rawlings, a teacher at Pflugerville High School, just north of Austin. “If there’s anybody armed, it should be a certified police officer.”

Hupp said she agreed to sponsor the bill after being approached by school administrators in rural counties that don’t have the funds to pay for campus police.

Beyond Texas, the idea was greeted with derision.

“I think it’s insanity,” said Wayne Johnson of the California Teachers’ Assn., which has called for stricter gun-control laws in the wake of the Santee shooting.

Hupp doesn’t seem to care much what her detractors say.

“I don’t consider myself a professional politician,” she said. “It makes this job kind of fun. I can say whatever I think. And if somebody doesn’t like me, hey, they can fire me.”