Texas lawmaker displays handgun during committee hearing

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - Texas state Rep. Richard Peña-Raymond displayed a handgun during a House Committee on Governmental Oversight hearing examining violent crimes that have not been prosecuted. He explained he was thinking about a threat made against him at the Capitol a few years earlier.

“A lot of the focus was on Travis County, where they weren’t prosecuting the cases. And we’re trying to get to understand that better. Why? And whether we need to do something in the legislature,” Peña-Raymond said.

Peña-Raymond said he reported the threat to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which handles Capitol security, and forwarded it to the Travis County attorney’s office. He said the office’s first assistant declined to pursue charges without explaining why.

“What you do is you carry one of these. And I just pulled it out. I didn’t show it to the audience, but there was the camera above… I was showing it to my committee members, saying, this is what you do, you carry one of these,” Peña-Raymond said. He said he and other lawmakers have licenses to carry.

Peña-Raymond said the hearing could shape legislation next session, including a proposal to give the Texas attorney general more power to prosecute violent crime cases when county district attorneys decline to act.

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