On Monday, May 8, the Texas Community Safety, Select Committee in the state House passed House Bill 2744 with an 8-5 vote. Two Republicans on the committee voted in favor of the bill.
The bill bars residents under the age of 21 from buying or owning “a semiautomatic rifle that is capable of accepting a detachable magazine and that has a caliber greater than .22.”
Having passed the initial vote, the bill will go to the Texas House of Representatives, which has 150 members. Only if passed there, by the state Senate, and the Texan executive branch will it become law.
U.S. constitutional law protects the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, but the rise in mass shootings in the last few decades has sparked debate about how far those rights go.
On May 6, just two days prior to the Committee’s vote, a mass shooting in Allen, a Dallas suburb, killed 9 people including the perpetrator.
Success
You are now signed up for our newsletter
Success
Check your email to complete sign up
Introducing Bill 2744 was Texan Democratic Rep. Tracy King, who represents Uvalde. That town was shaken by a school shooting last year, in which an 18-year-old man murdered 19 schoolchildren and two adults as police hesitated to engage; he was finally shot dead by Border Patrol agents.
- ‘Turn in your badge’: Uvalde School Board Fires Police Chief Criticized for Shooting Response
- 6-year-old Boy Sole Survivor After Entire Family Slain in Texas Mall Attack
The bill could provide exemptions for honorably discharged U.S. military veterans and law enforcement personnel, according to a Fox News report.
Politicized debate on gun rights often tunnels into the specific issue of whether or not to ban so-called “assault weapons,” a vague term usually used in reference to rifles such as those resembling the American AR-15 or Russian AK-47.
U.S. law functionally bans assault rifles (an actually defined military weapon) as a type of machine gun, because they can fire multiple bullets each time the trigger is pulled. But almost all the “assault weapons” legally owned in America are semi-automatic models, meaning that pulling the trigger once fires only one round.
There are also millions of semiautomatic rifles not popularly characterized as “assault weapons,” as they do not typically have “military-style” cosmetic features such as pistol grips and metal or plastic furniture.
The important part of the “assault weapons” debate then centers on the legality of detachable and/or “high-capacity” magazines, which opponents argue facilitate mass shootings since they reduce the need for reloading.
Meanwhile, proponents of preserving gun rights argue that the authorities should focus on alleviating the underlying causes of mass shootings, such as deteriorating mental health, economic conditions, or social culture, rather than on restricting specific types of weapons.
