Regarding the Wednesday, April 3 editorial “Schools, not gun makers, need tax dollars,” I share the editorial board’s concerns about the state of Texas using tax dollars to “solicit” greater economic investment in Texas, though I am not sure if they are against these giveaways as a matter of  principle.  

There is at least one glaring fallacy in their reasoning.  In the editorial, they stated:  “… if President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats succeed in passing an assault weapons ban, Texas will have spent billions propping up an industry that will suddenly find itself cut off at the knees.”  Please note that the last “ban” in 1994 did no such thing, and neither would the proposed “ban.”  In fact, sales of medium-caliber semiautomatic rifles boomed throughout the 10 years of the first “ban” and have continued unabated from 2004 to the present. There is a difference between prohibiting accoutrements on a weapon and an outright ban on a type of weapon, and manufacturers are quite adept at changing the equivalent of automobile chrome and tail fins — even the name/model of the entire weapon — to meet any ban, even as it is contemplated.

A more accurate assessment would reveal that millions of semiautomatic rifles have been sold over the last few months as a result of this new (and doomed) “ban” merely being proposed, and the back-orders are phenomenal. Now, that is a credible reason why gun manufacturers do not “need tax dollars” to invite them here.

Stephen W. McGuire, Austin, TX