On Wednesday, the commissioners court of Zavala County—the 11,000-person county immediately south of Uvalde—passed a resolution urging Republican Governor Greg Abbott to call a special legislative session to consider increasing the age of purchase for assault-style rifles from 18 to 21.
“You gotta start somewhere. … If that’s just a little piece of the puzzle, well so be it, but we gotta do something; everybody’s gotta do their part to minimize situations like we had in Uvalde,” said Zavala County Commissioner Joe Cruz, reached by phone. Zavala does not livestream its meetings, but Cruz and the county judge’s secretary both confirmed the resolution’s passage.
The Zavala County vote came 78 days after an 18-year-old man—with a history of threatening online behavior—legally purchased two AR-style rifles in Uvalde and proceeded to carry out the deadliest school shooting in Texas history. The five most deadly school shootings in the United States were executed by attackers under 21 years old. Raising the age for buying mass-murder machines to that required for buying cigarettes is now a top-of-mind demand for the country’s gun control movement.
