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Abbott, a Republican, promised that action was coming as he
finished his third session on school safety in talks that came
less than a week after a 17-year-old student armed with a pistol
and shotgun fatally shot 10 people at a Houston-area high school
on May 18.
"May 18th came around and it finally happened to our school and
we weren’t surprised," said Grace Johnson, a senior at Santa Fe
High School, the latest campus in a string of deadly U.S. mass
shootings that stoked a debate about the best ways to stop the
carnage.
"Why Santa Fe and we said why not. It is happening everywhere,"
she said, adding she sat next to the suspected gunman in a class
and asked the governor for more security officers on campus and
for trained teachers to be armed.
Abbott said after holding discussions with victims, security
experts, school administrators and advocates for and against gun
control that he would distill the ideas presented to him and put
a plan into action.
"We are going to do more than talk. We are going to act," Abbott
said.
He has mentioned the state will consider changes that include
improving mental health screenings, bolstering gun storage
regulations, and implementing so-called red flag warning laws
intended to keep guns out of the hands of people deemed by a
judge to be a danger to themselves or others. [L2N1SU1EQ]
But with the Texas legislature out of session until January, it
is nearly impossible for the state to implement or fund any
major policy changes that come out of the talks.
Texas Democrats have described the sessions as theatrics that
will skirt major issues such as substantive gun control.
The round on Thursday included about 40 people affected by the
shootings in Alpine, Santa Fe and Sutherland Springs, Texas,
where a gunman fatally shot 26 churchgoers in November.
Abbott, a staunch supporter of gun rights, said any changes to
state laws would need to protect Second Amendment rights to bear
arms as enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
In contrast to Florida, where the killing of 17 teens and
educators at a high school in February sparked a youth-led
movement calling for new restrictions on gun ownership, the
Texas tragedy saw many elected officials and survivors alike
voicing support for gun rights.
Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, has been charged with murder in the
killing during a rampage at Santa Fe High School on Friday.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by William Maclean and Tom
Brown)
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