Texas House leaves bill raising age limit for assault rifle purchases off agenda, dooming it to fail

Apparently, it doesn't pay to get one's hopes up that the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature will enact any kind of gun reform.

A day after finally advancing a bill backed by families of Uvalde shooting victims that would raise the age to buy a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21, the Texas House left the proposal off its agenda Tuesday night, effectively killing it, the Texas Tribune reports.

Barring a sudden about-face on the House's schedule, the bill is essentially doomed, the news site reports. Thursday is the final day the House can pass legislation, and its agenda must be approved 36 hours ahead of time.

On Monday, with the state still coming to terms with the North Texas mass shooting that left eight people dead, a House committee voted 8-5 to advance the bill to raise the age limit for purchasing semi-automatic rifles. House Bill 2744 had been stalled for weeks and appeared unlikely to pass before the end of the session, which concludes May 29.

Shortly before the House agenda's final deadline at 10 p.m. Tuesday, a group of nearly a dozen bill proponents took up spots outside the chamber and chanted for the bill to be added, the Tribune reports.

Capitol staffers closed the doors to block out the chants, and state troopers escorted Uvalde resident Brett Cross, whose 10-year-old son Uziyah Garcia died in the Robb Elementary School massacre, off the capital grounds, according to a Houston Chronicle report.

Cross shared footage of his ejection from the Capitol on Twitter, pledging not to back down on his demand for gun reform.

"This is just another fucking attempt to slow and stop us," Cross said. "2744 may have died tonight, but we will never stop! Texas fucked with the wrong parents!"

Just got kicked out of the capital because they said I was too loud.

This is just another fucking attempt to slow and stop us.

2744 may have died tonight, but we will never stop!

Texas fucked with the wrong parents! https://t.co/ldNbKEYkiS

— Brett Cross 🟧 (@BCross052422) May 10, 2023

In an emailed statement, State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, accused state Republicans including Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dade Phelan and Reps. Dustin Burrows and Ryan Guillen — both of whom sat on the committee that approved HB 2744 — of stabbing Uvalde families in the back.

Gutierrez, whose district includes Uvalde, introduced two dozen pieces of gun control legislation. Not one has received a hearing in the Republican-controlled Senate.

“We knew the children that died in the Uvalde massacre were braver than the DPS, but now we know that they were braver than these Republican lawmakers in the Texas legislature," Gutierrez said. "They faced the end of the gun because these five men are too gutless to stand up to the gun lobby.”

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