Facing renewed calls for stricter gun control after a mass shooting near Dallas, a Republican-led Texas House committee advanced a bill Monday that would raise the purchase age for semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21 even though the proposal has little or no chance of actually becoming law.
The Select Committee on Community Safety voted 8-5, with two Republicans joining six Democrats, to advance the bill to the full House after protesters' chants of “Do Something!” echoed through the hallways of the Capitol building in the country's largest red state. Some families whose children were killed in the attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde last year cried following the vote.
