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

In response to the Uvalde school massacre, the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus is urging Gov. Greg Abbott to call an emergency special legislative session to consider a variety of gun restrictions and safety measures.

In a letter released Saturday morning, all 13 Senate Democrats demanded raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21-years-old. The Uvalde gunman was 18 years old and had purchased two AR-style rifles which he used in the attack. The caucus is also calling for universal background checks for all firearm sales.

As previously explained, “Red-flag” legislation allows people to report others who may be a danger to himself or others. If the court deems that person a risk then they will have to turn in all firearms and will be prohibited from further interaction with firearms until they can prove otherwise. A judge can issue an order to confiscate the guns of the individual if they refuse to comply. Currently, at least 19 states have “red-flag” laws.

“Texas has suffered more mass shootings over the past decade than any other state. In Sutherland Springs, 26 people died. At Santa Fe High School, 10 people died. In El Paso, 23 people died at a Walmart. Seven people died in Midland-Odessa,” the letter reads.

They added, “After each of these mass killings, you have held press conferences and roundtables promising things would change. After the slaughter of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, those broken promises have never rung more hollow. The time to take real action is now.”

Only the governor has the power to call lawmakers back into session for emergency work. Asked about this at a Friday press conference in Uvalde, Abbott said “all options are on the table.”

He added, “You can expect robust discussion and my hope is laws are passed, that I will sign, addressing health care in this state. That status quo is unacceptable. This crime is unacceptable. We’re not going to be here and do nothing about it.”

However, Abbott did not accept the changes that Democrats are currently seeking. “If everyone wants to seize upon a particular strategy and say that’s the golden strategy right there, look at what happened in the Santa Fe shooting,” he said. “A background check had no relevance because the shooter took the gun from his parents…Anyone who suggests we should focus on background checks as opposed to mental health, I suggest is mistaken.”

Senate Democrats have criticized the governor for blaming a “broken mental health care system – that you and other state leaders continue to underfund severely.” The caucus wrote in a letter, “We need evidence-based, common sense gun safety laws. Without a doubt, if at least some of the measures noted above had been passed since 2018, then many lives could have been saved.”

On Friday, Roland Gutierrez, the Democratic state senator who represents Uvalde, interrupted Abbott’s press conference by walking to the front of the auditorium and urged the governor to bring lawmakers back for three weeks.

“We have to do something, man,” he said to Abbott, the second Democratic politician to interrupt a press conference this week. “Just call us back.”

In the hours after the shooting on Tuesday, Gutierrez told the Texas Tribune that the state needed to make it more difficult to obtain a firearm, especially the gun used by the shooter, an AR-15, which he called a “weapon of mass destruction.”

“There’s not a hunter in Texas that utilizes these kinds of weapons,” he said. “And so I’m not saying let’s take those kinds of weapons away, I’m saying that we should have some greater accessibility restrictions …When you’ve got an 18 year old kid getting his hands on this kind of weaponry, it just makes no sense to me.”