Gun debate a side note in hearings on Uvalde shooting
AUSTIN, TEXAS >> The first public hearings in Texas looking into the Uvalde school massacre have focused on a cascade of law enforcement blunders, school building safety and mental health care with only scant mentions of the shooter's AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle and gun reform.
A day after the head of the Texas state police called the law enforcement response to the May 24 slaughter an “abject failure,” Texas senators on Wednesday turned their attention to mental health funding for schools and a shortage of counselors and mental health providers.
Only near the end of Wednesday's hearing in the Texas Capitol was there much talk about gun laws. And even then it received little acknowledgement.
The bungled response to the attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead at Robb Elementary has infuriated the nation, and a recent wave of deadly mass shootings has renewed a push for more gun laws. By week's end, the U.S. Senate could pass new legislation that would toughen background checks for the youngest firearms buyers and require more sellers to conduct background checks.
But the Republicandominated committee examining the tragedy in Uvalde appeared to have little appetite for new guns laws, even after a series of mass shootings in Texas that killed more than 85 people in the past five years — at an El Paso Walmart, a church in Sutherland Springs, a Santa Fe High School outside Houston and in West Texas oil country.
The state's Republicancontrolled legislature has spent the last decade chipping away at restrictions. Texas doesn't require a permit to carry a long rifle like the one used in Uvalde. Last year, lawmakers made it legal for anyone 21 and older to carry a handgun in public without a license, background check or training.
Nicole Golden, executive director of Texas Gun Sense, told the committee that tighter gun controls may have prevented past mass shootings in Texas and urged state lawmakers to consider a so-called “red flag” law and require background checks on private firearms sales.
“I've never seen anything like this past month in terms of the outrage, despair and heartbreak,” Golden said. “Texas is facing a crisis, one we know we've faced a long time.”
She got no questions from the Republican lawmakers on the panel.
Outside the Senate chamber, nearly two dozen members of the gun control group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America held signs criticizing Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and urging lawmakers to take up new restrictions on gun sales and ownership.
“We are tired of these do-nothing committees and roundtables that have been happening after every mass shooting in Texas,” said Melanie Greene of Austin.