UVALDE, Texas — As Texas once again goes through the heart-wrenching rituals that come after a deadly school shooting, the state will no doubt also revisit the promises and the proposals from the last time it happened.
The 2018 shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, near Houston, took the lives of ten teachers and students. It also inspired Governor Greg Abbott to hold roundtable discussions that eventually led to a plan.
“More than 40 pages offering 40 specific recommendations,” the governor announced in Dallas almost exactly four years ago. Since then, there have been two legislative sessions in Texas, which have included progress on some of what the governor proposed.
He signed new bills to give more access to school-based mental health services and to approve more funding to “harden” campuses to make them less desirable to attackers.
But the governor couldn’t build momentum for some gun control measures he floated like a “red flag” law that would allow authorities to seize guns from someone if a court deems that person a threat.
Even as the governor talked about gun safety and school safety after Santa Fe, he also made this clear in 2018: “I can assure you I will never allow Second Amendment rights to be infringed”.
Last year, after a firearm-friendly legislative session, the governor signed one bill in defiance of new federal gun control regulations making Texas a so-called Second Amendment Sanctuary State. He signed another bill allowing Texans to carry a handgun without a permit or training.
Tuesday's shooting in Uvalde became the deadliest school shooting in Texas' history, with a death toll of 21 people, including 19 students.