By: Teresa Mull

Gunpowder Magazine has learned exclusively that Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Dennis Bonnen (R-25), evidently upset over Chris McNutt’s efforts to expose Bonnen’s plan to kill Constitutional Carry, physically confronted the gun rights activist at the Republican Party of Texas Annual Spring Dinner last night.

McNutt, South Central Regional Director of the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) and the Executive Director for Texas Gun Rights, told Gunpowder Magazine:

“When the Speaker showed up at the event, from what I’m told, he went directly to where I was seated to confront me. And when he came up to me, he slapped his hand on my back pretty hard, and just started yelling at me. At the moment, I didn’t know what was going on or who it was, and then when I turned around, it was the Speaker of the Texas House, Dennis Bonnen, yelling at me in my face. “He was saying things like, ‘Don’t ever come to my house again! Do not threaten my family! If you want to meet with me, you can come to my office.’ I just told him I was never a threat, and other than that, I didn’t really say anything, I felt like it was some sort of setup, because the whole thing has been manufactured from the beginning. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to provoke me and record it or what, so I just sat there and shut up. “Bonnen then stormed out of the room. Multiple witnesses saw him put his hand on me and try to give me a public dressing down. It was pretty crazy.”

Bonnen’s Backstabs

Speaker Bonnen’s beratement was doubtlessly in response to McNutt’s ongoing work to spread the word about the Speaker’s war on guns.

“The Constitutional Carry Act of 2019 is dead, killed by the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Dennis Bonnen (R-25),” Lone Star Gun Rights Texas (LSGRT), an organization that works with McNutt, reports. “Bonnen intended to kill the bill, which has been the number one legislative priority for the Republican Party of Texas for the past seven years, from the opening gavel of the 86th Legislative Session, and his masterly-crafted plan was executed in the perfect way to provide cover for himself.”

According to McNutt, there were reports that Bonnen was blocking constituents’ calls concerning Constitutional Carry and removing legitimate posts on social media supporting the Constitutional Carry bill.

McNutt distributed flyers in several neighborhoods, urging constituents to call their representatives and tell them to advance the Constitutional Carry bill, H.B. 357. McNutt told GPM his canvassing caused Bonnen to become “unhinged.

“Bonnen has been outright lying to the media about me,” McNutt said.

Bonnen claimed to the media that McNutt showed up at Rep. Dustin Burrows’ district office brandishing a firearm, which McNutt attests is “completely false.” Not only was he not armed, McNutt flew to Amarillo from Dallas initially and didn’t even check a bag.

What Really Happened

Bonnen evidently became aware of the flyers before they were distributed in his own district.

LSGRT reports:

Bonnen had called for DPS protection at his home, and after a week, he contacted the news media with the "story" that a crazy gun rights activist had targeted his home and intimidated his family. The story carried by all of the national media outlets, like Fox News, said that Chris had "showed up to Bonnen’s home in Lake Jackson on Wednesday to question why the bill had stalled." This isn’t even close to the truth, and is clearly an attempt to use Chris as a scapegoat for killing Constitutional Carry, which Bonnen finally admitted to the Dallas Morning News, that he felt it was a "bad policy." (so much for him being an "advocate for Texan’s 2nd Amendment Rights"). Chris texted LSGR Founders Justin Delosh, AJ Postell, along with myself the day that he went to Speaker Bonnen's neighborhood explaining his "incident" with Texas State Troopers at his house. Here is the screenshot of that text, along with three screenshots from Chris’ phone showing timestamped GPS tracking of his location during the three days he was canvassing neighborhoods.

McNutt told GPM that following last night’s incident, nobody has apologized to him – none of the security on hand at the dinner, no one from the Republican Party of Texas, nor anyone from Bonnen’s staff.

Photo Courtesy of Facebook

Teresa Mull is editor of Gunpowder Magazine. Contact her at teresa@gunpowdermagazine.com.