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Texas Senate Democratic Caucus urges Gov. Greg Abbott to convene special emergency legislative session to consider a variety of gun restrictions and security measures following a mass shooting at a school in Uvalde that left 19 children and two adults killed this week.
In a letter released Saturday morning, the 13 Senate Democrats demanded that lawmakers pass legislation raising the minimum age for buying a firearm from 18 to 21. The UValde gunman was 18 years old and had bought two AR-style rifles which he used in the attack.
The caucus also calls for universal background checks on all firearm sales, “red flag” laws that allow a judge to temporarily withdraw firearms from people who consider themselves an imminent threat to themselves, or for others, a “rest period” for the purchase of a firearm and regulations on high-capacity magazines for citizens.
“Texas has suffered more mass shootings in the last decade than any other state. 26 people have died in Sutherland Springs. 10 people have died in Santa Fe High School outside Houston. 23 people in El Paso die in a Walmart. Seven people died in Midland-Odessa, “the letter reads. “After each of these mass killings, you have held press conferences and roundtables promising that things will change. After the massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, these unfulfilled promises have never sounded more empty. taking real action is now. “
These laws are unlikely to gain strength in the Republican-controlled Legislature, which has a history of favoring legislation that loosens arms restrictions. Only the governor has the power to reconvene lawmakers to a special session for emergency work.
Asked about a special session at a news conference in Uvalde on Friday, Abbott said “all options are on the table” and added that he believed laws would finally be passed to address this week’s horrors. However, he suggested that the laws would be more appropriate to address mental health, rather than gun control.
“You can expect a solid discussion and my hope is that laws will be passed, which I will sign, addressing health care in this state,” he said, “This status quo is unacceptable. This crime is unacceptable. We will not be here and no we will do nothing “.
He resisted the idea of raising the age to buy a firearm, saying that since Texas became a state, 18-year-olds have been able to buy a gun.
He also rejected universal background checks saying existing background check policies did not prevent the Santa Fe and Sutherland Springs shootings, both of which happened while he was in office.
“If everyone wants to take advantage of a particular strategy and say that’s the golden strategy right there, look at what happened in the Santa Fe shooting,” he said. “A background check was irrelevant because the shooter took his parents ‘gun … Anyone who suggests that we should focus on the background check instead of mental health, I suggest that’ I’m wrong. “
Since the Robb Elementary School massacre, the governor’s comments on possible solutions have focused on increasing mental health services, rather than restricting access to firearms.
But in the letter, Senate Democrats criticized the governor for blaming a “broken mental health system: that you and other state leaders continue to be severely unfunded.”
“We need evidence-based common sense security laws. No doubt, if at least some of the above-mentioned measures had been passed since 2018, many lives could have been saved,” the caucus wrote.
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Following the 2018 Santa Fe school shooting, Abbott issued several recommendations to address school safety, including a call to the Legislature to consider a “red flag” law.
Abbott then stated in his plan to improve school security that similar protection orders restricting gun ownership could have prevented mass shootings in Sutherland Springs, southeastern San Antonio, and Parkland. Florida.
But Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and gun rights activists withdrew and the proposal died.
At the end of the 2019 legislative session, Abbott signed a package of school safety measures that focused primarily on expanding mental health resources and “hardening school buildings.” It expanded the number of school staff who could have a firearm on school grounds.
When he signed this legislation at the end of the 2019 session, journalists asked if he still supported a “red flag” law.
Abbott said the move was not needed in Texas “right now.”
On Friday, Roland Gutierrez, the Democratic state senator representing Uvalde, interrupted Abbott’s press conference by walking in front of the auditorium and urged the governor to return lawmakers for three weeks.
“We have to do something, man,” he told Abbott, the second Democratic politician to interrupt a press conference this week. “Just call us.”
In the hours following Tuesday’s shooting, Gutierrez told the Texas Tribune that the state must make it difficult to obtain a firearm, especially the weapon used by the shooter, an AR-15, which he called a “weapon.” of mass destruction “. . ”
“There’s no hunter in Texas that uses that kind of weapon,” he said. “And so I’m not saying we’re taking out these kinds of weapons, I’m saying we should have bigger accessibility restrictions … When you have an 18-year-old putting his hands on these kinds of weapons, just don’t it makes sense to me. “