Sen. Roland Gutierrez held a press conference with Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, Sen. Jose Menendez, and Rep. Gina Hinojosa, and families of victims killed in mass shootings to present proposed gun safety and accountability legislation.
This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.
Sen. Roland Gutierrez
- Introduces victims of the Uvalde shooting
- Will be holding press conferences once a week, have a series of bills in response to Uvalde shooting
- Families from Santa Fe will be here next week
- Needs to be the session where we do something on gun safety
- Will be talking about justice today, appropriations next week, emergency management the week after, and gun safety the next week
- Should raise age to 21 like 18 other states have, have not raised age on assault weapons; asking for common sense solutions
- Should not allow the children’s deaths to be in vain
- Rep. Gina Hinojosa has committed to file companions in the House
- 4 bills:
- SCR 12 would allow families to sue the state and or it’s agents for negligence that occurred at Uvalde, families should have their day in court
- SCR 11 is to be sent to US Congress against PLCAA which gives protection to gun manufacturers; manufacturers have been marketing to children, cites Star Wars ads, ads claiming guns are in Call of Duty, etc.
- SB 146, Compensation fund for children killed in schools, money comes from per bullet tax of $.05, should raise billions in TX every year
- Ending qualified immunity for police officers
Sen. Sarah Eckhardt
- Families are leading the process, as a parent cannot imagine what they’ve been through & appreciate steps taken so that no other family has to endure this
- Asking state leadership that failed to protect children
- Need to raise age to purchase semi-automatic weapons, allow for extreme risk protective orders, and have universal background checks for gun purchases
- In addition to mass shooting tragedies, 3,647 Texans die each year from firearms, 372 are children, 127 women murdered by domestic partner
- Gun laws are lax and do not require responsible ownership or sale; 70%-90% of guns used ion violent crime in Mexico are sourced from Mexico, 40% are from Texas specifically
Sen. Jose Menendez
- Thanks families for being present & keeping pressure on, will work as hard as possible to ensure loss is not in vain; should not forget about pain, anger, and anguish
- Supports Sen. Gutierrez’s legislation, legislation is calling for accountability
Rep. Gina Hinojosa
- Thanks Sen. Menendez and others for involvement
- Should have called a special session to take action and protect children, but here now and this is the time to act; have made a commitment to do everything possible in the House & will follow families’ lead
Felicia Martinez
- Mother of Xavier Lopez
- Age limit should be raised to 21; gun manufacturers should be held accountable, 18 year old should not be allowed to purchase a deadly weapon
- Should remove qualified immunity, can sue other professions; police officers did not do their jobs on May 24th
Family of Irma Garcia
- Sister of Irma Garcia
- Recounts events of May 24th, police did not arrive for some time; sister was unaccounted for for hours
- Irresponsible gun owners, irresponsible gun laws, and >300 cowardly LEOs contributed
- Qualified immunity keeps officers from fulfilling duty to serve & protect
Velma Duran
- Sister of Irma Garcia
- Asking for resolution to dissolve qualified immunity so government agencies can be held accountable
- Need to ban assault weapons; not against guns, but against modifications & weapons that are challenging to protect against
- Police waited and likely assumed those in the school were dead
- Have normalized mass shootings on TV, need to stop trauma and mental health crisis
- Banning assault weapons would give LEOs opportunity to protect citizens
- Need common sense laws like universal background checks, red flag laws, safe storage laws, and mental health support
Questions
- Asks after plan to hold press conference each week & bill filing
- Sen. Gutierrez – At least 20 pieces of legislation, split up they are harder to kill, other subject may not be as pertinent, like mental health funding, school hardening
- Need to get policies done, don’t care who carries the bills
- Will be talking about bulk ammo registry in the coming weeks
- Shouldn’t be on legislative to mandate LEO procedure, but had a department that wasn’t operating reasonably, wasn’t training with other departments, resources haven’t been appropriately allocated
- Mismanagement of leadership, have heard repeated lies about which LEO has responsibility
- Will also be introducing transparency legislation
- Families will be present & will be knocking on doors
- If Gov. puts school safety legislation as an emergency item, do you expect bills to pass?
- Sen. Gutierrez – Very few bills are partisan, raising age, extreme risk protective orders, etc. have bipartisan support
- Open to discussion with Gov. Abbott, if Gov. Abbott wants Sen. Hughes to carry these bills that is fine
- Family – Last time we spoke to Gov. Abbott was trip to Uvalde, Governor has not reached out since then
- Asks family about legislative efforts
- Family – Said he wouldn’t raise age to 21, not sure if this has changed
- Incidents are happening often and there has been very little change; families have to deal with the reality of deaths every day, families don’t get to leave it behind & see themselves in every new mass shooting
- Sen. Gutierrez provides an overview of legislation and intent in Spanish, incl. removal of PLCAA, removal of qualified immunity, and the victims compensation fund