AUSTIN, Texas — Gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis promised Tuesday to veto a state income tax to pay for public schools and expand where people may carry handguns, while her campaign attempted to move past allegations she misled people while telling her life story.

via AUSTIN, Texas: Davis stakes out middle ground, shifts topic | Elections | The Sun Herald.

It seems that in an attempt to distract from her real life story making the news, Wendy Davis has decided to claim support for expanded gun rights and promised to veto a state income tax if elected governor. Imagine that, a liberal democrat advocating for gun rights and lower taxes. Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? Yeah well, it probably is too good to be true but, that’s what she said during an Associated Press interview last week while the press was having a field day with the revelation that the life story she’s told in campaign ads and previous interviews was found to be less than accurate.

Prior to her filibuster of abortion legislation, few people outside liberal democratic circles knew or cared that Wendy Davis existed. She was allegedly a Republican once upon a time so it may be that no one really knows who she is. Where gun rights are concerned; since beginning of her gubernatorial campaign, she has largely avoided saying anything on the subject. Guns and gun rights aren’t mentioned at all in the issues section of her website.

But, if we use a time machine (or simply look at her legislative record), we see that her sudden support for expanding gun rights is a 180-degree reversal of her position on this issue. What am I talking about? Remember campus carry (SB 1581)? Yeah well, you’ve got Wendy Davis and other Texas Democrats to thank for that bill dying on the floor of the Texas Senate floor. And true to that reversal, she did vote in support of SB 1907 last session which allows us to keep guns in our cars on college campuses.  Of course, she’s done nothing to raise awareness of her vote on that issue.  Doing so might ruffle the feathers of fellow liberals Democrats and cause some to withdraw support on that issue alone.

Surprisingly, in the same AP interview,Davis went on to claim that she “owns a handgun for protection, plans to get a concealed handgun license,”  I wish her luck with that. Given her voting record, some CHL instructors, likely wouldn’t let her sign up for their class or sign her completion certificate if they knew who she was ahead of time. Of course, Texas CHLs records are not available to the public (nor should they be) so there’s no way to verify her claim but, I’d love to know if she actually follows through on that claim of getting a CHL and ultimately supports the right for all rather than just the privileged few like herself. I’m not holding my breath.

-GM