5:38Texas senator calls for gun control after 2 mass shootings in 2 weeks
Warning: This story contains distressing details.
Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez says he's seen images of children slain in mass shootings that will haunt him for the rest of his life.
The state has seen two mass shootings in the last two weeks. On Saturday, a gunman killed eight people, including children, and wounded seven others in the parking lot of an outlet mall in Allen, Texas. On April 28, police say a gunman in Houston shot and killed five of his neighbours, including a nine-year-old boy, after the family confronted him late at night about firing rounds in his yard.
Texas is also where a shooter killed 19 students and two teachers at a Uvalde elementary school on May 24, 2022.
Throughout all of this, Gutierrez says he and his colleagues have been pushing for what he calls "common-sense" gun reform. That includes increasing the legal age for buying firearms, mandating private gun sellers to conduct background checks, and bringing in "extreme risk protection orders" that allow authorities to temporarily restrict gun access for those deemed at risk to harm themselves or others.
The party made some progress on Monday when a Republican-led Texas House committee advanced a bill that would raise the purchase age for semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. But the measure is unlikely to become law, as Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has previously waved off the idea.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Abbott said his state is working on bills to "get guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals and increase penalties for criminals who possess guns." But, overall, he dismissed gun control as a solution to gun violence, instead pointing a finger at mental illness.
"There has been a dramatic increase in the amount of anger and violence that's taking place in America," he said. "We are working to address that anger and violence by going to this root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it."
Gutierrez — whose district includes Uvalde — spoke to As It Happens host Nil Köksal on Monday. Here is part of their conversation.
Senator, Gov. Abbott says this is about mental health and healing a polarized country. What's your response to that?
We've been hearing this from Republicans for a very, very long time in this state and in this country. The fact is the common denominator is guns.
We certainly have a mental health problem; he's right. But we also have a problem that we have unfettered access to guns to people that are mentally ill. So how does that jive? How does that make sense? Abbott can't have it both ways.
They have created a chaotic situation in our state where ... everyone and anybody can go out and get a gun without even so much as showing an ID, if you're doing that at the gun show. Not to mention the obtaining of illegal guns. They have created a situation where every kid can go to a gun shop — [people who are] 18, 19 and 20 years old — and buy an AR-15 without so much as a waiting period or a registry of any kind.
The chaotic situation that has been created by Republicans has come to a massive increase in crime and public safety in our state. And that blood, that responsibility, is on the hands of Greg Abbott, [Texas Lt.-Gov.] Dan Patrick and others like him.
WATCH | The Texas gun debate:
You'd like to raise the age of purchase for an AR-15-style rifle from 18 years old to 21. That might have stopped the gunman in Uvalde, who was 18. But the gunman, as we understand it, at the mall, was 33 years old. So he might have still had access to a rifle, is that not right?
No, that's right. I mean, look, it would have stopped the gunman, or could have stopped the gunman, in Uvalde for sure.
We also have extreme risk protective orders, which is another one of our bills…. Perhaps had we seen the [Allen shooter's] termination from the military, had we seen the fact that he had he was considered to have some mental health problems from the military, perhaps we could have had an extreme risk protective order that could have taken those guns away.
The state of Florida has executed 9,000 extreme risk protective orders without a problem. Every sheriff is in favour of it. We have to take guns out of the hands of those that mentally ill.
And to be clear, you are not against gun ownership in general. You own a gun yourself, as I understand it.
I own plenty of guns. I don't own an AR-15; I don't need one. At the end of the day, you know, gun owners need to be responsible. But we should know who owns a gun.
You go to the DMV, they know exactly what kind of car I'm driving. Yet with a gun, we don't have any kind of registry. We don't know who owns it. We don't know if you're mentally ill. We don't know if you have the capacity to have it, or the responsibility that is required to have it. We need to have some common-sense solutions here.
I don't want to take people's guns away. I want to regulate guns so that we keep them away from certain people that shouldn't have them.
When we look at the last election, Gov. Abbott was re-elected, and it was not long after what happened in Uvalde. Whereas the Democratic candidate, Beto O'Rourke, who was campaigning for precisely the kind of gun control you're talking about, did not win. So do you feel that politicians in Texas — and people in Texas — are ready for this change?
Seventy six per cent of the Texas public wants common-sense gun solutions, including about 66 per cent of Republican voters. They want extreme risk protection orders, they want an age limit increase and they want to close the gun show loophole.
The Republican Party, however, and the members that represent them in this building, need to grow some fortitude and some fibre in their bodies to do what's right to protect all people —Democrats [and] Republicans, alike.
How difficult is it for you personally, Senator, to be advocating for what you're advocating for and going through this over and over again, watching this happen in your state, watching people die?
I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to stop, ever. I saw all these little children die. I saw all of the images that you haven't seen [from the Uvalde school shooting]. I've seen little children with their faces blown off, with their bodies mutilated. I've seen children stacked in piles with teachers on top of them. Those images will never be erased from my mind.
I've seen hundreds of hours of body cam footage, because I had to see how these people failed. I'll never stop.
This is the most important issue in my life. There is no other issue in politics or policy that is as important as is. If you don't have your child, then there is nothing left. There's simply nothing left.
With files from Reuters and The Associated Press. Interview produced by Kate Swoger. Q&A edited for length and clarity.
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