It was nearing midnight when Kimberly Mata-Rubio finally got her first chance since the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas, to call Texas lawmakers to their faces to approve proposed restrictions on guns that she might be using. Finally they were given the opportunity to be heard.
Sobbing, he pleaded with them to raise the purchase age for semi-automatic rifles like the one an 18-year-old used to kill his daughter Lexi.
“Did you see the images of children running for their lives and thought, ‘What if we had enacted stricter gun laws?’” Mata-Rubio asked a state House committee as she wiped away tears.
Shortly after 3 in the morning on Wednesday, the session was adjourned without a vote and without any certainty that it will be held later.
The result was the end of what may turn out to be the only debate this year in the Texas Capitol over a series of proposals for stricter control of firearms that were introduced after the deaths of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde in May of last year.
Other than the evening hearing, Texas Republican leaders have not announced any other intention to consider or vote on proposed gun measures before the end of session next month.
Against the backdrop of renewed mass shootings in the United States, the emotional audience highlighted growing frustration over gun violence. Gun ownership supporters also stayed late, including a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and a man who legally carried a holstered pistol, as well as others who offered their condolences to the families of Uvalde to later urge legislators to reject what they described as a violation of their rights.
The audience reviewed the grim scene investigators found in a fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary School after police finally confronted the shooter after waiting 77 minutes, including descriptions the Uvalde families hadn’t heard before. Many of those present wept.
The series of recent mass shootings has reinvigorated gun control advocates across the country, but in Texas, their chances remain bleak. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has dismissed talk of raising the age to purchase AR-15s as unconstitutional, and earlier this year he made no mention of Uvalde when he laid out his third-term priorities.
The office of Republican state Rep. Ryan Guillen, chairman of the House Community Safety Committee, has not responded to a message sent Wednesday about whether he intends to hold a vote on the gun control bills.
