A Texas lawmaker waging an uphill battle to pass state gun restrictions called on his colleagues Tuesday to defend children in the same way one of the Uvalde school shooting survivors defended herself from the gunman.
Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde, said that Mayah Zamora, the last survivor to leave the hospital after the May 24, 2022, school shooting, held up her hand to defend herself. Mayah, 11, spent more than two months in the hospital recovering from several gunshot wounds.
Gutierrez, speaking at the state Capitol in Austin, then raised his balled fists and said, “People in this building need to put their hands up to defend these kids.”
Gutierrez has been taking some fire for his outspokenness and his criticism of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other Republican legislators for failing to give his proposed legislation hearings and opposing his amendments. Gutierrez and others have called for raising the minimum age for purchasing assault rifles and closing loopholes on firearm sales at gun shows.
Gutierrez noted that the law enforcement officers who responded to the shooting and waited 77 minutes to enter Robb Elementary School were afraid of the gunman's AR-15-style rifle.
Gutierrez said that “not a bill that’s passed yet through either one of these chambers is going to make our kids much safer.”
Yes to gun ownership, but with age limits
Some of the families supporting Gutierrez also are gun owners, but want to see the Legislature advance a House bill sponsored by Rep. Tracy King, a Democrat whose district also includes Uvalde, that would raise the age to buy certain assault weapons from 18 to 21. Gutierrez had proposed something similar.
Both state legislative chambers have passed school safety bills, with the Texas House passing three on Tuesday, including a $1.6 billion bill that among other things would place armed security guards at every campus, the Texas Tribune reported.
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Republican from Lubbock, said during debate that after talking to parents, grandparents and classroom educators from Uvalde, he came up with the legislation that includes requiring a security guard in every public school as well as any open enrollment charter school in the state.
Burrows noted that public and private sector institutions choose to have security guards, including airports, universities, banks, malls, sporting events and “even the Texas Capitol.”
When Burrows was asked in the debate about raising the minimum age for purchasing assault rifles, as requested by families, he responded that there are many solutions and “whether we’re talking about mental health availability, whether we’re talking about school hardening, all of these things have to work together.”
Texas also passed legislation to improve school safety after a May 18, 2018, shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas. Eight students and two teachers were killed in that shooting.
But Gutierrez said that “until we start attacking the issues that are affecting us most," which are access to guns in the hands of young people and mentally ill people and the need to close the gun show loophole, "we’re not going to make it any safer in Texas, so don’t be bamboozled with what they are trying to tell you.”
Gutierrez has worked with families of the Uvalde victims and brought them to the capital regularly to press their case with lawmakers and tell their heart-wrenching stories, at a committee hearing and in visits with lawmakers.
As Gutierrez has been building support for gun regulations, the movement around his issues has been led by Latinos. Gutierrez is Mexican American and many of the family members of the children killed and injured in Uvalde are Latino, though not all.
On Tuesday, a Latino-led group from San Antonio, the Bexar County Gun Safety Coalition, joined him at the news conference to try to put pressure on lawmakers to move some gun regulation bills.
“Roland and other people can’t do it by themselves. It needs to be a grassroots welling up of Texas communities," said Lawrence Romo, a former Obama administration staffer and military veteran. "Poor Uvalde can’t do it on their own. Maybe if we do it, other cities will do it as well."
Romo said the group was formed to rally more than just Latinos. "We want everyone involved," he said, adding that because the group is based in Bexar County — which is majority Latino and home to San Antonio — group membership so far is heavily Latino.
Also attending the news conference were Henry Rodriguez, executive director of a South Texas chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC; and Tommy Calvert, a Bexar County commissioner who is African American but whose district also includes many Latinos.
The debate over guns has penetrated deep into the lives of Latinos after mass shootings in heavily Latino communities or venues, including at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in 2019; the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016; and at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde last year.
About 42% of Latino parents are extremely or very worried about their children getting shot at some point, and another 23% are somewhat worried, according to an April 6 Pew Research Center report. That compares to 22% and 23% for all parents.
About three quarters, or 73%, of Latinos said it's more important to control gun ownership than to protect the right of Americans to own guns — far more than 52% of all Americans, according to surveys last summer by Pew.
A wide partisan gap exists on the issue. Pew’s research showed 87% of Latino Democrats favored gun control, while 44% of Latino Republicans did.
CORRECTION (April 25, 2023, 10 p.m. ET): A caption on a photo in a previous version of this article misstated when the Uvalde school shooting occurred. It was May 24, not Nov. 8.
