Texas Senate Democrats call for special session to raise age to purchase gun, require universal background checks

Join The Transient, our each day e-newsletter that retains readers on top of things on probably the most important Texas information.

The Texas Senate Democratic Caucus is urging Gov. Greg Abbott to name an emergency particular legislative session to contemplate quite a lot of gun restrictions and security measures within the wake of a mass faculty capturing in Uvalde that left 19 kids and two adults lifeless this week.

In a letter launched Saturday morning, all 13 Senate Democrats demanded lawmakers move laws that raises the minimal age to buy a firearm from 18 to 21-years-old. The Uvalde gunman was 18 years outdated and had bought two AR-style rifles which he used within the assault.

The caucus can also be calling for common background checks for all firearm gross sales, “crimson flag” legal guidelines that permit a choose to briefly take away firearms from people who find themselves thought of an imminent risk to themselves or others, a “cooling off interval” for the acquisition of a firearm and rules on excessive capability magazines for residents.

“Texas has suffered extra mass shootings over the previous decade than every other state. In Sutherland Springs, 26 folks died. At Santa Fe Excessive College, 10 folks died. In El Paso, 23 folks died at a Walmart. Seven folks died in Midland-Odessa,” the chief reads. “After every of those mass killings, you have got held press conferences and roundtables promising issues would change. After the slaughter of 19 kids and two lecturers in Uvalde, these damaged guarantees have by no means rung extra hole. The time to take actual motion is now.”

Such legal guidelines are unlikely to achieve traction within the Republican-controlled Legislature, which has a monitor report of favoring laws that loosens gun restrictions. Solely the governor has the facility to name lawmakers again into session for emergency work.

Requested a couple of particular session at a Friday press convention in Uvalde, Abbott stated “all choices are on the desk” including that he believed legal guidelines would finally be handed to handle this week’s horrors. Nonetheless, he urged legal guidelines can be extra tailor-made towards addressing psychological well being, somewhat than gun management.

“You may anticipate strong dialogue and my hope is legal guidelines are handed, that I’ll signal, addressing well being care on this state,” he stated, “That establishment is unacceptable. This crime is unacceptable. We’re not going to be right here and do nothing about it.”

He resisted the thought of accelerating the age to buy a firearm, saying that since Texas grew to become a state, 18-year-olds have been in a position to purchase a gun.

He additionally dismissed common background checks saying current background test insurance policies didn’t stop the Santa Fe and Sutherland Springs shootings, which each occurred whereas he has been in workplace,

“If everybody needs to grab upon a specific technique and say that’s the golden technique proper there, take a look at what occurred within the Santa Fe capturing,” he stated. “A background test had no relevance as a result of the shooter took the gun from his mother and father…Anybody who suggests we should always concentrate on background checks versus psychological well being, I recommend is mistaken.”

Because the bloodbath at Robb Elementary College, the governor’s feedback about potential options have centered round rising psychological well being companies, somewhat than limiting entry to firearms.

However within the letter, Senate Democrats criticized the governor for blaming a “damaged psychological well being care system – that you just and different state leaders proceed to underfund severely.”

“We want evidence-based, widespread sense gun security legal guidelines. No doubt, if a minimum of a number of the measures famous above had been handed since 2018, then many lives may have been saved,” the caucus wrote.

Abbott’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark concerning the letter.

After the Santa Fe faculty capturing in 2018, Abbott launched quite a lot of suggestions to handle faculty security, together with a name to the Legislature to contemplate a “crimson flag” regulation.

On the time, Abbott claimed in his plan to enhance faculty security that related protecting orders limiting gun possession may have prevented the mass shootings in Sutherland Springs, southeast of San Antonio, and Parkland, Florida.

However Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and gun rights activists pushed again and the proposal died.

By the tip of the 2019 legislative session Abbott signed a package deal of college security measures that primarily centered on increasing psychological well being sources and “hardening faculty buildings.” He expanded the variety of faculty employees who may have a firearm on faculty grounds.

When he signed that laws on the finish of the 2019 session, reporters requested if he nonetheless supported a “crimson flag” regulation.

Abbott stated such a measure wasn’t vital in Texas “proper now.”

On Friday, Roland Gutierrez, the Democratic state senator who represents Uvalde, interrupted Abbott’s press convention by strolling to the entrance of the auditorium and urged the governor to convey lawmakers again for 3 weeks.

“We’ve got to do one thing, man,” he stated to Abbott, the second Democratic politician to interrupt a press convention this week. “Simply name us again.”

Within the hours after the capturing on Tuesday, Gutierrez informed the Texas Tribune that the state wanted to make it tougher to acquire a firearm, particularly the gun utilized by the shooter, an AR-15, which he known as a “weapon of mass destruction.”

“There’s not a hunter in Texas that makes use of these sorts of weapons,” he stated. “And so I am not saying let’s take these sorts of weapons away, I am saying that we should always have some better accessibility restrictions …Whenever you’ve obtained an 18 12 months outdated child getting his fingers on this type of weaponry, it simply is not sensible to me.”