MSNBC’s Dowd Says ‘They Banned Lawn Darts After Three Children Died’ But 4,000 Gun Deaths In Texas Haven’t Prompted Government Action

MSNBC contributor and Texas resident Matthew Dowd recounted how the federal government took action after three children died from playing lawn darts in the 1980s, yet thousands of Texans are being killed by guns each year without any movement on gun control.

“In 1988, I don’t know if anybody — probably some people on this panel remember — there was a thing called lawn darts. And lawn darts was a game where it had a metal spike on it, you threw it up in the air — it’s an insane game,” Dowd said on Deadline White House. “We had it growing up. And you throw it and it drops in a circle.

“Three children died from lawn darts. They banned lawn darts after three children died from lawn darts,” Dowd emphasized. “Texans will record 4,000 gun deaths or more this year as we move forward in this. And so, yes, it’s frustrating, it’s incredibly disappointing, but we have get to a place where it gets to anger and then anger motivates us to action.”

Dowd was part of an MSNBC panel discussing the Allen, Texas, shopping mall mass shooting that took the lives of eight people before police killed the gunman. NBC reported that the gunman espoused “extremist beliefs against Jews, women, and racial minorities” on a Russian social media platform.

Earlier in the program, Dowd said, “We’ve had eight mass shootings in Texas since Uvalde. Not this year, not in the past five years — since the mass shooting in Uvalde. And whether it’s a school, a mall, a church, a Walmart, whatever it happens to be…it happens over and over and over again.”

Dowd then turned to Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R), saying mass shootings have risen 100% under his watch.

“100% rise in mass shootings since Gregg Abbott has been governor, and what has he done in that time? He’s actually made it easier for people to get access to guns, not made it harder.

“What’s amazing to me is, when we constantly have this debate, and Greg Abbott is now saying, instead of saying ‘deal with the guns,’ he’s now saying, ‘it’s a mental health problem.’ Not the least of which Greg Abbott cut the mental health budget in Texas by hundreds of millions of dollars, so he cut the budget for mental health while simultaneously saying it’s a mental health problem here.”

Watch the MSNBC clip above.