Wendy Davis is a former state senator and 2014 gubernatorial candidate from Texas.

I am a lifelong Democrat. I proudly boast an “F” rating from the NRA. And, yet during my 2014 gubernatorial campaign in Texas, I supported the open carry of handguns in my state.

It is a position that haunts me.


Every few months, on the heels of a shooting that devastates a different corner of America, we find ourselves arriving at exactly the same place: Republicans offer their prayers; some offer up the idea of focusing our attention on mental health; almost none of them mention guns. Democrats talk background checks, magazine limits, closing the gun-show loophole and, ultimately, get exasperated. In the wake of the San Bernardino and Planned Parenthood shootings, the conversations we’re having now are almost exactly the same. Meaningful gun reform still seems as distant as it did when the Manchin-Toomey bill, which would have required background checks on all commercial gun sales, failed in 2013, mere months after 20 children and six adults were killed in a mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

As baffling as this would appear to an outside observer, I know why we keep ending up here. I know why because, even with my history of supporting sensible gun laws, I was cowed by the political realities of my state. Me, a Democrat who wasn’t afraid of making waves when it came to strapping on a pair of pink sneakers as a state senator and filibustering an anti-abortion bill for 13 hours. I might be doggedly progressive most of the time, but when it came to staking out my position on the open carry of handguns in a red state, none of that mattered.

I vividly recall where I was when I hatched the idea for the open carry position I ended up taking. It was a late night in February 2014, and I was bone-tired after finishing fundraising in Colorado. Standing in the noisy, crowded TSA screening area of the Denver airport, I received a call from my strategy team back home. My opponent, the current Gov. Greg Abbott, had staked out his position in support of the open carry of handguns, and I was being asked to stake mine out as well. Ever since I had announced my run the prior October, we had known this day, when I would have to declare my stance on this issue, would likely come. In every previous conversation that I had had with my team about open carry, I had been resolute in my opposition to the policy. Still, their concern that the issue threatened to “suck the oxygen” out of the conversation on other issues was a worry for me too.

Texas has some of the most lax gun laws in the country, with no minimum age requirements for possessing a firearm and no waiting period requirements. When I was running for governor, passage of open carry and campus carry in a state as gun-loving as Texas was just about all that the gun lobby there had left to achieve. Although federal gun laws place no restrictions on the open carry of handguns, six states, including Texas, had banned the practice since the Civil War. Open carry of long-barreled guns had always been allowed, and open carry advocates had taken to the intimidating practice of gathering in public places with shotguns and rifles strapped across their chests as an expression of support for extending that right to handguns. The issue had been heating up in the months prior to my decision, with several demonstrations in my home district of Tarrant County.

I wanted the campaign conversation to be about education funding, equal pay for women and access to health care—not guns. But this was Texas. Fifty-eight percent of voters in the state think gun restrictions should be either loosened or left alone. Texas is home to more licensed gun dealers than any other state in the country, and Lone Star State Sen. Ted Cruz tops the list of senators who have received the most money from the NRA. The gun lobby reigns supreme in the state legislature and has the power, at a moment’s notice, to rile up its passionate member base. Earlier this year, the state House passed a bill to allow members to install panic buttons in their offices after open carry advocates confronted a lawmaker in his.

Members of my team had long memories of what it meant to go against these folks, having watched Democrat Ann Richards lose her 1994 gubernatorial reelection campaign after she vetoed a concealed carry bill. In the wake of that election, it became conventional wisdom that vetoing a gun bill would bring a Texas governor’s career to an end—the “Ann Richards Rule,” as it became known in the state’s political parlance. At a packed campaign event in deep-blue Travis County, I posed for a photo opportunity after Richards’ adult children gave me her shotgun—a keen reminder of how fresh the lessons from that loss still are, especially for Texas Democrats.

Against that backdrop, I chose to do something that was cleverer than it was wise. I decided to take a position in favor of open carry, one which would include the caveat that any property owner who wanted to opt out should be able to do so, whether it be a school, hospital or a private business. Understanding that most of these property owners would likely take advantage of an opt-out provision if the legislature were ever even to agree to pass such a diluted version of the law, I thought I could go forward with a clear conscience.

Such was the dictate I gave my team from the Denver airport. But, as I hurriedly finished the conversation before boarding the airport terminal train, I couldn’t shake the shameful feeling that I had just done something I had never done before—I had compromised my deeply held principles for the sake of political expediency.

What a long way I was from where I had begun. Back in 2000, as an idealistic and recently elected Fort Worth city councilwoman, I decided to take the issue of gun-show background checks head-on. This followed on the heels of the Columbine High School shooting, where the two juvenile shooters bypassed background check scrutiny and purchased the guns used in the shooting at a gun show. I had young kids, and I was angry and incredulous when I had read the news.

The gun-show loophole, as it is known, allows non-licensed dealers to sell guns at gun shows to anyone, without the background check that would be required by federal law if the purchaser were buying from a licensed dealer at a store. This means that anyone, regardless of criminal history, juvenile status, domestic assault history or mental instability can walk into a gun show anywhere in at least 33 states and purchase a gun with no questions asked.

When I discovered that Texas state law prohibited municipalities from enacting any ordinances regulating the sale of firearms, foreclosing my ability to pass an ordinance requiring universal background checks for gun sales in my city, I went a different route and sought instead to prohibit the continued use of our city facilities for these gun sales. (Fort Worth, like many cities, rents its exhibit halls for gun shows on a fairly regular basis.)

The public reaction to my proposal was swift and intense. Numerous letters and calls accusing me of violating the constitutional rights of gun owners and sellers flooded in. Angry protesters hurled unbridled insults my way, with heated accusations that I was trying to take their guns away from them. Even in the grocery store, I was confronted by an angry man, his face contorted and red as he screamed at me for trying to “take away his right” to own a gun. When I attended a gun show to see for myself just what went on there, two intimidating looking characters shadowed my every step, not at all happy to have me in attendance.

As you might guess, I lost that battle. My motion to pass the ordinance was tabled, and it has been tabled ever since.

In 2008, when I was elected to be a Texas state senator, I became a key vote during three legislative sessions toward preventing the passage of a law that would allow guns to be carried on college campuses, a law that eventually passed in 2015 when I was no longer in office. I even came close to missing my youngest daughter’s college graduation ceremony in 2011 when the author of the bill refused the customary courtesy of delaying consideration of it in my absence. Thankfully, another colleague who supported the bill promised me his “no” vote on that day and I was able to watch my daughter walk across the stage.

These are but two examples of what have been long-held beliefs on my part that there ought to be reasonable limits on the purchase and carry of guns. And yet.

In 2014, during my Texas gubernatorial campaign, I succumbed to the idea that making guns an issue in the race was not politically wise in a conservative state. I take full responsibility for this decision, and I’ve lived with the consequences of having made it ever since.

In one sense, it was a successful strategy: It kept the open carry question off the table and out of the volley of issues that were batted back and forth between me and my opponent during the remainder of the race. Given how heated the topic had become with the pro-gun rights folks, I was glad I avoided lighting that match. But in another sense, it was terrible. Justifiably, some of my largest donors were angry about my position. And I will never forget the tear-filled eyes of a member of “Moms Demand Action” as she expressed her disappointment in me. Worse, I had to live with my own conscience.

In the end, there is no question in my mind that my decision to support open carry actually cost me votes that I otherwise would have had. As it should have. And I doubt that it gained me a single one.

But that’s not the point.

I was a long shot to win—I would have been the first Democrat in the governor’s seat since Ann Richards in 1994—and I know that. But I was still a contender in a high-profile gubernatorial race, and I had a unique power then that I might not ever have again: I had the chance to challenge people’s thinking about unbridled access to guns and whether, in this age of increased mass shootings, elected leaders are responsible for striking a better balance. Perhaps I even had the chance to change a few minds and to help shape the growing younger electorate’s thinking about how political candidates ought to position themselves on this issue. It’s the kind of opportunity that someone like me goes into politics hoping for. But when it was my turn to move something so divisive, and so important to me, out in front of voters, I did whatever I could to keep people from talking about it instead. I hid from it. I chose the exact opposite of what I knew I needed to do, because my strategy team—and ultimately I—was too afraid. If I had chosen differently, might I have moved the needle just a bit on this issue, even in a very conservative state like Texas?

When the Manchin-Toomey bill failed in April 2013, only four Republican senators voted in favor of it—including Sen. Pat Toomey, the bill’s co-sponsor. Only a handful of Democrats voted against it, and all of them were from predominantly red states. I could imagine all of the phone calls and advice they got from their own strategy teams. Maybe, like me, they feared that voting in favor of the bill would suck all of the oxygen out of the room.

I’m not sure what they were thinking then, but I wonder if they’re feeling guilty about it now, too. Unlike me, though, the ones who are still in office have a chance to reverse course. They still have a pulpit from which to speak. I can only hope that whatever guilt they might feel about that prior vote won’t wait to catch up to them until they’re out of office and out of politics, removed from the opportunity to do something about it—like it did for me.

