AUSTIN (KXAN) — Uvalde native Matthew McConaughey met with President Biden and different lawmakers in Washington Tuesday urging them “to speak with each other” and make legislative adjustments following the Texas school taking pictures that left 19 college students and two academics lifeless.
McConaughey met with the households of a lot of the victims of the taking pictures, he stated. The common actor shared a few of their tales throughout a news briefing Tuesday together with the story of 1 younger sufferer who wore inexperienced high-top converse with a coronary heart drawn on the toe to remind herself how a lot she liked nature.
“These are the same green converse on her feet that turned out to be the only clear evidence to identify her after the shooting,” McConaughey stated. He smacked the podium along with his fist earlier than persevering with. “How about that?”
McConaughey stated by way of his conversations with folks in Uvalde — together with accountable gun homeowners, border patrol and households of the victims — it’s clear that folks overwhelmingly are calling for “secure and safe schools” together with “gun laws that won’t make it so easy for the bad guys to get these damn guns.”
He listed the following as options he desires lawmakers, together with the president, to contemplate:
- Investing in psychological well being care
- Making faculties safer
- Restraining sensationalized media protection of mass shootings
- Restoring household and American values
- Background checks
- Raising the age to purchase a rifle to 21
- Implementing a ready interval
- Passing ‘red flag’ laws and penalties for individuals who abuse them
“Responsible gun owners are fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and hijacked by some deranged individuals,” he stated.
Texas doesn’t at present have a purple flag regulation, which usually permits regulation enforcement or household to petition a decide to take away somebody’s weapons for a time frame if that particular person is deemed to be a hazard to themselves or others.
Under Texas regulation, you solely need to be 18 to purchase a rifle and 21 to purchase a handgun. You can learn extra about Texas gun laws right here.
“We start by making the right choices on the issue that is in front of us today. We start by making laws that save innocent lives and don’t infringe on our Second Amendment rights.”