‘Raise the age’ gun bill passes Texas committee after months of advocacy by Uvalde families

[libertybele]

‘Raise the age’ gun bill passes Texas committee after months of advocacy by Uvalde families

In a shocking and last-minute turn of events in Texas, a bill that would raise the minimum age to purchase AR-15 style semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21 passed out of a House committee Monday, advancing the measure hours before a key deadline.

Several Uvalde victims' relatives burst into sobs and cheers in the Capitol hearing room when two Republicans joined all the Democrats on the committee to advance the bill by an 8-5 vote.

“I'm feeling very overwhelmed, very emotional,” Kimberly Garcia said through tears after the committee vote. Her 10-year-old daughter, Amerie Jo Garza, was one of the 19 fourth graders and two teachers killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24, 2022.

“I was super worried, but I feel like my daughter did this, and I feel like she's making a difference, and I'm proud of her. I hate that it's come down to this, but I know that she's always with me, and I know that I'm not going to let anyone ever forget her," Garcia said.

Uvalde victims' relatives have been advocating for lawmakers to pass House Bill 2744 for months, coming to the Capitol nearly every week during the legislative session to demand its passage and even waiting more than 13 hours to testify in support of the bill in a committee hearing in April.

Their unrelenting push for lawmakers to pass gun control legislation has been an uphill battle in a Republican-dominated Legislature that has loosened gun restrictions in recent sessions. Monday’s vote, however, was a significant victory for the families.

As recently as 10 a.m. Monday, Rio Grande City Republican Rep. Ryan Guillen, who chairs the committee where the bill was pending, had said he was not planning to bring the bill up for a vote because he didn’t believe it had the votes to pass in the full House.

But by 11 a.m., after an emotional protest and news conference by the Uvalde families and gun control activists Monday, Guillen changed course....................

https://www.yahoo.com/news/raise-age-gun-bill-passes-190539465.html

[Smokin Joe]

Emotional protests are not the basis of good government.

Why?

Go back and read the first word of the previous sentence.

Things passed thus are seldom well thought out, and often lead to unintended consequences.

Did they pass a "must go in" law for the police in the hallway?

Did they pass a "let the parents save their kids" law?

Nope.

Did they pass a 'don't arm the nutcase' law?

Unh-uh.
 
Nope. If this is incorporated in statute, it will not fix the problems at Uvalde, including propping open security doors. It will only put the onus of this horrible crime on 18-21 year-olds who have committed no crime, nor ever intend to.

Considering non-"AR-15 style" semiautomatic rifles are just as capable of firing rapidly, this is just a feelgood that carves another 'second-class right' out of the Second Amendment.

While what happened there is horrific, (and no, I have only lost a cousin to violence, not a child), I fully understand that the parents are seeking something, anything to try to make sense of their children's deaths, and are trying desperately to find some deeper purpose with which they can feel they 'did something' and their child's death was not 'in vain'.

Sometimes we have no answer to that deeper "Why?", but that's what makes senseless crimes senseless.

Instead, look toward a future when a 20 year-old, denied such a rifle, home on leave, might have been the one to stop the next shooting. There are many more who would fall into that category of would-be saviours than nutcases.

[Fishrrman]

If it can happen in Texas, it can happen anywhere.
And... it will.

[Smokin Joe]

Well, if you aren't mature enough at 18 to have a rifle, how can you be mature enough to vote and decide the course of an entire City, County, State, or Country?  Maybe we should raise the voting age, too.

Make up your minds, people, if you use them.

[libertybele]

Well, if you aren't mature enough at 18 to have a rifle, how can you be mature enough to vote and decide the course of an entire City, County, State, or Country?  Maybe we should raise the voting age, too.

Make up your minds, people, if you use them.

I think that the voting aged should be raised.