UVALDE, Texas — The state senator who represents Uvalde held an emotional news conference Thursday where he angrily called on Texas Governor Greg Abbott to take action to prevent more mass shootings.
Democrat Roland Gutierrez said Abbott's call for a special committee isn't nearly enough and said there is bipartisan support for a special session to change gun laws.
“We’ve seen this show before from Greg Abbott, the same roundtables that he did after Sutherland Springs, the same recommendations that he issued after El Paso and the same concerns that were levied after Santa Fe,” Gutierrez said. “We’ve seen this show over and over again, and, yet again, he has refused to do the right thing, which means getting us into a special session.”
SPECIAL COVERAGE: Uvalde school shooting
At times, choking back tears, Gutierrez pointed out there have now been seven "massacres" in Texas in recent years but nothing changes.
"This is enough, man. Raise the age limit, have a red flag. Where’s the decency of a gun salesman to go off and call the police, when he has a kid go in buy a gun, buy ammo the next day, buy another gun. Where’s the human red flag?” Gutierrez asked. "He’s either gonna kill somebody or sell them to the cartel."
The lawmaker accused Abbott of "hiding behind his desk" waiting for people to lose interest in the story.
"Greg Abbott can’t even fix the smallest thing here, 18 to 21, when 80 percent of his constituents are saying, ‘That makes sense,'" Gutierrez said. "So what’s the damn problem?”
He urged all parents in Texas to call the governor every day to make their feelings known.
"Tell him to, at the very least, raise the age limit so that some punk doesn’t go to some store down the street – like a 7-11 – to buy two AR-15s in two days," Gutierrez said. “You don’t want to go through what these people are going through, I promise you. You don’t want to have to bury your fourth grader. That’s not normal. They’re supposed to bury you, not the other way around.”
When asked about "school hardening," Gutierrez said state lawmakers approved $100 million to make Texas schools safer.
“That is a piss-poor drop in the bucket. Greg Abbott has spent $4 billion, 40 times more, along the border right now to have cops go up and down these streets.”
Along with raising the age limit and spending more money on school safety, Gutierrez called for a 10-day waiting period before anyone can buy a gun. He pointed out the gunman who killed four people in Tulsa Wednesday bought his AR-15 the same day.
Abbott said last week that existing laws would not have stopped the rampage in Uvalde.
"Evil stole those gifts from their parents on Tuesday," the governor said in a recorded video message played for the NRA Convention last week. "And also remember this. There are thousands of laws on the books across the country that limit the owning or using of firearms. Laws that have not stopped madmen from carrying out evil acts on innocent people in peaceful communities."
If you'd like to contact the governor, his main office number is 512-463-2000. You can also find him on Twitter at @GovAbbott.