'We will not stop': School shooting victims' families ask Texas lawmakers for gun reform
Families of children who have been killed in school shootings gathered at the Capitol on Monday to implore state lawmakers to include gun reform and school safety legislation as priorities in any upcoming education-focused special session.
“We don’t want to take your guns,” said Velma Duran, whose sister Irma Garcia, a teacher, was killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde last year. “We just want common sense gun laws that will stop this senseless killing.”
She, like many of the other family members, spoke through tears as they talked about lost loved ones.
The event at the Capitol was one stop along a bus tour of Texas meant to advocate for tougher gun restrictions and hosted by families of students killed in Parkland, Fla., in 2018.
The event also followed a largely disappointing legislative session for families from Uvalde, where 19 children and two teachers were killed May 24, 2022, at Robb Elementary. Many family members voiced frustration that lawmakers hadn’t done more to clamp down on gun violence.
Manuel Oliver wore a shirt that said, "Ban Assault Weapons Now" and spoke about his son, Joaquin Oliver, who was one of 17 people killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14, 2018.
Since then, lawmakers haven’t made the gun reform changes he wants to see.
“This is the building where political inaction happens in Texas,” Oliver said while standing in a Capitol press conference room. “We have one like this in Florida.”
Oliver and his wife, Patricia, are hosting the bus tour, which he said “could only be possible in the United States of America.”
Texas' regular legislative session, which ended in May, didn’t yield the results many Uvalde families wanted to see.
Gloria Cazares spoke Monday while wearing a shirt bearing the face of her daughter, Jackie Cazares, who was killed at Robb Elementary.
“I refuse to let my daughter just be another number,” Cazares said. “Even though I’m tired and have been let down over and over again by our city, our state, our country, we will not stop.”
Families of Uvalde shooting victims walked away frustrated after the spring legislative session, the first since the massacre.
Lawmakers passed a $330 million school safety package, but families had poured their efforts into House Bill 2744, which would have raised the minimum age to purchase AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles — like the one used by the gunman at Robb Elementary — to 21 years old.
Despite their nearly weekly trips from Uvalde to Austin during the session and hours of emotional testimony, HB 2744 died by failing to meet a legislative deadline before the Texas House could vote on it.
Still, that conversation caused change, said Rhonda Hart, whose daughter, Kimberly Vaughan, was killed in the Santa Fe High School shooting just south of Houston, in which eight students and two teachers died May 18, 2018.
“For the first time in five years, lawmakers had to listen to survivors in Texas,” Hart said.
The Olivers’ bus tour is scheduled to reach Uvalde on Tuesday to continue the campaign as they mark what would have been their son's 23rd birthday.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas, Florida families push for tougher gun restrictions at Capitol
