AUSTIN, Texas — It's been nearly 10 months since 19 children and two teachers were killed in Uvalde at Robb Elementary School.
The families are channeling their grief and anger into change.
Brett Cross, the father of victim Uziyah Garcia, said, "41 weeks ago, right now, we were in the Civic Center hoping to hear that our children were still alive. And as you know, they weren't."
On Tuesday in Austin, Cross and other victims' families, along with State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, introduced a new bills package. This is the fourth set of bills filed in response to the mass shooting, making a total of 21 bills for 21 lives lost.
"You need to put yourself in the shoes of these families and understand and ask yourself what it would be like just a day without your child, a week without your child, or a month or forever," Gutierrez said.
The following bills were announced:
- SB 1736 to close the gun show loophole, requiring vendors to see identifications, perform background checks, and maintain sales records.
- SB 1737 to ban expanding bullets.
- SB 1738 to require law enforcement under investigation to be suspended, not be allowed contact with witnesses or suspects, and also be investigated by a third party agency.
- SB 1739 to not allow juvenile assailants to have eligibility for parole.
- SB 1740 to increase gun storage and safety by requiring firearms in a vehicle to be in a locking container and hidden from plain site.
"They're here because they don't want this to happen again. They're here because they don't want this to happen to your child," said Gutierrez.
Some of the proposed bills in the last couple of months included purchasing-age requirements, an ammunition database and the safekeeping of firearms.
One of those bills, SB 911, would serve to create a database for bulk ammunition purchases. The 18-year-old gunman in the Robb Elementary School shooting had purchased over 1,600 rounds of ammunition before the attack on the school.