Manuel Rizo found some hope this week—even though he has little faith that a Texas bill raising the minimum age to buy certain semi-automatic rifles will become law.
Gun control advocates celebrated an unexpected victory when a house committee approved a bill on a bipartisan 8-5 vote on May 8 that would raise the legal age to buy certain semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, days after a shooter in Allen, Texas killed eight people at an outdoor mall. “It took the Allen shooting to bring it out of the Public Safety Committee sadly, but that’s the truth,” Rizo says.
While the bill likely wouldn’t have prevented the Allen shooter from getting his gun, Rizo believes it could have saved the life of his 9-year-old niece, Jacklyn “Jackie” Cazares, who was killed last year in Uvalde by a gunman using an AR-15 style rifle bought days after he turned 18. “If it was a bill previous to the Uvalde massacre, Jacklyn would be with us today. It’s a fact,” Rizo says.