Texas Dems Push To Raise Gun Purchase Age After School Shooting

AUSTIN, TX — In a letter sent to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Senate Democrats urged him to call an emergency legislative session to consider new gun restrictions after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Uvalde elementary school this week.

The letter was released Saturday morning by all 13 Senate Democrats, who are asking lawmakers to pass legislation that raises the minimum age to purchase a firearm in Texas from 18 to 21 years old, The Texas Tribune reported.

The group also called for universal background checks for all firearm sales and "red flag" laws that temporarily remove firearms from people who are considered a threat to themselves, according to the Tribune.

"In Sutherland Springs, 26 people died. At Santa Fe High School, 10 people died. In El Paso, 23 people died at a Walmart. Seven people died in Midland-Odessa," the letter read. "After each of these mass killings, you have held press conferences and roundtables promising things would change. After the slaughter of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, those broken promises have never rung more hollow. The time to take real action is now."

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On Tuesday, a gunman barricaded himself in a classroom at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and began shooting. The gunman was identified by Gov. Greg Abbott as Salvador Ramos, whom police shot and killed in another exchange of gunfire.

Ramos killed 19 children and two teachers inside the room. His motive remains unclear, authorities said.

Ramos was 18 years old and had purchased two AR-style rifles which he used in the attack, according to the letter to Abbott.

As many as 19 police officers were inside the elementary school during the attack, but none of the officers tried to go inside the classroom where children made 911 calls asking to "send the police now," Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a news conference Friday.

Friday’s briefing came after authorities spent three days providing conflicting and incomplete information about the more than an hour that elapsed between the time Ramos entered the school and when U.S. Border Patrol agents unlocked the classroom door and killed him.

Three police officers followed Ramos into the building within two minutes. In the next half hour, as many as 19 officers piled into the hallway outside. But another 47 minutes passed before the Border Patrol tactical team breached the door, McCraw said.

Asked why police did not enter the school, McCraw said the on-scene commander — school district's police chief Pete Arredondo — determined the situation had transitioned from an active shooter incident to a barricade situation. The commander also believed officers needed more equipment, according to McCraw.

The commander also believed there were no more children at risk, McCraw said.

"From the benefit of hindsight, where I'm sitting now, of course it was not the right decision, it was the wrong decision, period," McCraw said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.