World News | Texas gun bill progress stalls after new mass shooting

AUSTIN (United States), May 9 (AP) Facing renewed pressure on gun violence after two mass shootings in Texas, Republicans unexpectedly approved a bill Monday that would Raising the buying age for semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21 is moving ahead with a House committee — though the proposal has little chance of becoming law.

The surprise move showed weak momentum among gun control advocates after a mass shooting at an outdoor mall near Dallas over the weekend, but also underscored the extent of resistance to gun restrictions among Texas Republicans to the point of Clearing even a small legislative hurdle has supporters celebrating.

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Two Republicans joined Democrats in an 8-5 vote to advance the bill on the House Select Committee on Community Safety, which Republican Gov. Greg Abbott had previously voiced opposition to. It was unclear when or if the proposal would receive a full vote in the Texas House of Representatives, which is just weeks away from passing any new law.

“It didn’t have the support of the Legislature,” said Republican state Rep. Ryan Gillan, who chairs the committee and voted against the measure.

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Abbott has shown no willingness to revisit gun restrictions after two mass shootings in one week. The first occurred in Cleveland, northeast of Houston, where a man killed five of his neighbors with an AR-style rifle after confronting him in his yard.

The bill introduced on Monday had been stalled for weeks before Saturday’s shooting that killed eight people at the Allen Premium Outlets, a sprawling outdoor shopping mall.

Protesters’ chants of “Do something!” echoed in the corridors of the Capitol in the nation’s largest red state ahead of the vote. Protesters eventually camped outside the House chamber and chanted slogans at lawmakers as they entered.

They included several relatives of victims of the mass shooting at Robb’s Elementary School in Uvalde a year earlier. Some of them stood with pictures of their slain children, and some cried after voting.

One of the Republicans who voted for the bill was state Rep. Sam Harris, who declined to be interviewed through his office. “He has no intention of using the media to cover the pain and suffering of those who lost loved ones in these tragedies simply because his heart, his conscience and his constituency voted,” Harless’ chief of staff Ron Hickman said in an email.

Relatives of 19 children and two teachers who led months of efforts to raise the purchase age at Capitol were killed in Uvaldi when an 18-year-old gunman opened fire with an AR-style rifle in fourth grade classroom.

Mack Segovia, whose stepdaughter Eliahna was killed at Robb Elementary, attended Monday’s rally wearing a shirt with a picture of the girl in her softball uniform.

“It’s happening again. And it’s going to happen again and again,” Segovia said. “This happened in a mall this weekend. You’re not safe anywhere. … It’s going to strike again, we just don’t know where. (AP)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)