Brandon Herrera was fighting alongside Texas Gun Rights before he ever became a candidate. Katy Padilla Stout is running on universal background checks, Red Flag laws, a bump-stock ban, and new restrictions on young adults buying rifles.
Gun owners in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District have already spent years teaching politicians a lesson Washington too often ignores:
A party label does not excuse a gun-control record.
Former Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales found that out after becoming one of just 14 House Republicans who voted for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022.
That vote became a defining liability with gun owners in TX-23.
Brandon Herrera came within fewer than 400 votes of defeating Gonzales in 2024. Two years later, Herrera finished ahead of the incumbent in the Republican primary before Gonzales withdrew ahead of the runoff amid a separate personal scandal.
Gun owners had already sent the message.
Now TX-23 faces an even starker choice on the Second Amendment.
Herrera Was With TXGR Before He Was a Candidate
For Texas Gun Rights, Brandon Herrera did not suddenly become a Second Amendment ally when he decided to run for Congress.
TXGR has worked with Herrera since before his first campaign for public office.
He was already known to our organization as a firearms entrepreneur and Second Amendment activist, and he publicly praised our no-compromise work, saying “Texas Gun Rights is doing the work that the establishment gun lobby refuses to do”.
That relationship was built around the fight for gun rights — not around an election.
And when Herrera eventually entered politics, his public positions followed the same direction.
Texas Gun Rights President Chris McNutt put it plainly during Herrera’s battle with Gonzales:
“Brandon Herrera is the real deal. He’s not afraid to call out the ATF.”
That history matters.
Because Katy Padilla Stout is offering TX-23 voters almost the exact opposite approach to the Second Amendment.
Stout’s Own Platform Tells the Story
Stout says she supports the Second Amendment.
Then she immediately explains why she believes politicians should be allowed to restrict it.
Her campaign declares that “No constitutional right is without reasonable limits grounded in common sense” before expressly endorsing universal background checks, Red Flag laws, and a ban on bump stocks.
That is not a Republican attack line.
It is her own stated platform.
And from Texas Gun Rights’ perspective, it reveals the fundamental problem with Stout’s approach.
An enumerated constitutional right is not a privilege politicians get to continually carve away whenever they decide another restriction is “reasonable.”
Yet Stout’s agenda goes even further.
She has advocated what she calls “very moderate red flag laws” and said she wants firearm access restricted for people with a known mental-health diagnosis or a “recent crisis,” according to her June comments reported by Texas Public Radio and the San Antonio Report.
That raises basic questions she has yet to answer.
Who determines what qualifies as a “recent crisis”?
Which diagnosis costs someone an enumerated constitutional right?
What due process occurs before the government takes away access to firearms?
And how does that person get the right back?
Calling Red Flag laws “moderate” does not make those constitutional problems disappear.
Now Stout Wants to Restrict Legal Adults
Stout’s latest comments make the divide even clearer.
Asked whether she supports raising the minimum age to purchase certain semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21, Stout backed the proposal and pointed to brain development.
“We know the frontal cortex isn’t done developing,” she said, arguing that the restriction “makes common sense”.
But 18-to-20-year-olds are adults.
They can vote.
They can serve in the military.
They can enter legally binding contracts.
Yet Stout believes Washington should tell those same adults that they are too immature to purchase commonly owned semiautomatic rifles.
That is not a minor disagreement about paperwork.
It is a fundamental disagreement about when an adult gets to exercise a constitutionally protected right.
This Is an Extreme Gun-Control Agenda
Stout and her allies repeatedly package these policies as “common sense.”
Look at the entire record instead.
Universal background checks.
Red Flag firearm-removal laws.
A bump-stock ban.
Gun restrictions tied to mental-health diagnoses or a vaguely defined “recent crisis.”
And denying certain rifle purchases to otherwise lawful adults between 18 and 20.
Texas Gun Rights does not consider that a moderate gun platform. It is an aggressive expansion of federal gun control.
The national gun-control lobby clearly sees an ally as well.
In June, GIFFORDS PAC formally endorsed Stout in TX-23 and joined her at a San Antonio rally focused on gun policy.
Stout is free to describe herself as a Second Amendment supporter.
But a candidate’s policies matter more than the label she gives herself.
And a view of the Second Amendment that begins with finding new categories of people, purchases, transfers, and products for Washington to restrict is fundamentally incompatible with Texas Gun Rights’ no-compromise position.
Herrera Is Running in the Opposite Direction
Herrera is offering a dramatically different agenda.
His campaign says he will fight for national concealed-carry reciprocity and block Red Flag laws and new firearm restrictions.
He has also made nationwide Constitutional Carry a major public priority.
That is consistent with the Brandon Herrera Texas Gun Rights knew before he ever put his name on a ballot.
There is no mystery about this contrast.
Stout wants Washington to impose additional restrictions on firearm purchases, transfers, accessories, and the rights of young adults.
Herrera wants Washington to stop infringing on those rights and begin restoring them.
Gun Owners Already Sent Washington a Warning
TX-23 gun owners have already shown they are willing to hold politicians accountable when they compromise on the Second Amendment.
Now Stout is asking the district to embrace an even broader gun-control agenda.
Her own positions make the contrast clear: more federal restrictions, more limits on lawful gun owners, and a view of the Second Amendment that treats fundamental rights as subject to whatever politicians decide is “reasonable.”
Texas Gun Rights will continue making sure Texans know exactly where candidates stand — and what their policies would mean for the right to keep and bear arms.
Chip in today to help Texas Gun Rights expose gun-control agendas and defend the Second Amendment without compromise.
