Uvalde families protest at Capitol
Hundreds gather to demand governor, Legislature raise age to buy some firearms
AUSTIN — This is not the life Javier Cazares wanted.
Standing among hundreds of gun control advocates on the steps of the Texas Capitol Building, the Uvalde man said he's no activist or politician but just a dad who doesn't want to let his daughter Jackie down. The fourth-grader was among the 19 children and two teachers killed during the school shooting at Robb Elementary on May 24.
“I'm just a grieving parent,” Cazares said. “I've got to keep fighting. That's something I promised her, and it's a promise I won't ever break.”
That mission on Saturday had him gathering outside Gov. Greg Abbott's office at the Capitol demanding Abbott call a special session of the Texas Legislature to raise the age to purchase for some weapons from 18 to 21 like Florida, California and New York have done.
“Gov. Abbott, how much more blood will stain your hands,” Cazares said as he led off the rally that included several families from both Uvalde and Santa Fe, where a 17-yearold murdered 10 classmates in 2018.
While Cazares spoke, other families held up signs with the names and faces of the children and teachers who died in the massacre.
Abbott, who was not in Austin during the rally, has so far rejected calls for a special session and has not publicly supported raising the age for buying guns in Texas. Instead, his response to Uvalde has been more focused on school safety and mental health initiatives.
“The governor also requested the Texas legislature work together on legislative recommendations to make schools safer, including considering school safety, mental health, firearm safety, police training, social media, and more,” Abbott press secretary Renae Eze said on Saturday.
But for Uvalde families at the rally on Saturday, that isn't enough. Since May, they say,
very little has changed in Texas, and they worry it is just a matter of time before the next shooting.
“Nothing has changed,” said Maggie Mireles, the sister of Eva Mireles, one of the teachers who died at Robb Elementary.
She said more families are sadly going to join them if Texas doesn't do more to stop 18-year-olds from being able to buy weapons that belong in the military.
Earlier in the morning, many of the Uvalde families gathered at 6 a.m. outside the governor's mansion a block away chanting for Abbott to do more.
Throughout the rally on Saturday the crowd chanted: “Vote him out.”
Democrat Beto O'Rourke has made the Uvalde shooting a big part of his gubernatorial campaign speeches, vowing to raise the age to purchase the kinds of weapons the killer used in Uvalde.
“We're going to make sure that our kids who are starting their school year right now, that they don't have to worry about someone walking into their school with a weapon like this,” O'Rourke said at a rally in Mineral Wells earlier this year.
On May 24, the 18-yearold Uvalde shooter used an AR-15-style weapon when he walked into Robb Elementary and began shooting children and teachers. While law enforcement arrived quickly on the scene, it took over an hour for police to try to enter the classroom and kill the shooter.
Last week, the Uvalde school board agreed to fire Pete Arredondo, the school district police chief that was leading the police response.