The Washington Post published an article Tuesday expressing shock at the fact that people in Texas like guns, leading to a widespread mockery on Twitter.
To live in Texas is to live surrounded by guns.
Each morning, people strap guns inside suits, boots, bras and bellyband holsters that render them invisible. They stash firearms in purses and tool boxes and even take guns to protests at the state Capitol. https://t.co/Z9KSgASCfw
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 26, 2023
The article, titled “In Texas, guns are everywhere, whether concealed or in the open,” received just under 1,300 likes on Twitter at the time of publication compared to over 3,500 replies.
The article notes Texas‘ loose gun laws and compares them to California’s, noting that Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently passed sweeping new gun restrictions.
“Unlike California and some other blue states, Texas has no state firearm sales registry, no required waiting period to buy a gun, no red flag law guarding against the mentally ill or violent having weapons, no restrictions on the size of ammunition magazines and no background checks for guns purchased in a private sale,” the Post reported. (RELATED: WaPo’s Dave Portnoy Hit Piece Is Out And Just As Ridiculous As We All Expected)
The Post also noted that Texas has suffered the most mass killings since 2015, according to data from USA Today, which defines a mass killing as an incident with four or more deaths.
Data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention show that Texas’ firearm death rate ranks in the bottom half of U.S. states. Ranking higher than Texas, which suffered 15.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people, were blue states like Illinois and Colorado, where the death rates were 16.1 and 17.8 respectively.
Twitter users noted the ridiculousness of the article in the replies.
“I have lived in both Texas and Arizona, surrounded by guns. Owned some of myself. Never felt safer,” one user wrote.
“Sounds awesome. I like where you said there has been a record number of guns bought and yet homicide and other serious crimes are down. Honest reporting even if you didn’t mean to,” another posted.
Another hilariously trolled the outlet with “The Frog of Shame,” a meme picture of a frog wearing a cowboy hat with the caption, “If the Frog of Shame gets more than the original tweet, then your tweet really sucks.”
— Enguerrand VII de Coucy (@ingelramdecoucy) September 26, 2023
The frog received more than double the likes of the original post.