Uvalde parents to join gun control protest in Austin

Families of children killed in the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting earlier this year will join a gun control protest in the state’s capitol on Saturday.

Gun safety advocacy group March for Our Lives will bring the families, along with survivors of the Santa Fe high school shooting in 2018, to Austin, Texas, to participate in its rally.

“March For Our Lives is rallying with parents who lost children in Uvalde, survivors from Santa Fe, TX, and youth activists from across Texas to show Governor Abbott that Texans are united in demanding immediate action on gun safety,” the organization told The Hill.

“Three months since the horrifying and preventable tragedy at Robb Elementary School, Governor Abbott still hasn’t taken action to keep kids safe and prevent gun violence.”

March for Our Lives, an organization first established by survivors of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., has hosted protests across the country since the Uvalde shooting in May, which killed 19 children and two adults.

Thousands attended the March for Our Lives protest held on the National Mall in early June, one of 450 demonstrations that took place in the wake of the Uvalde shooting and the racially motivated shooting that occurred in Buffalo, N.Y. the same month.

“All Americans have a right to not be shot, a right to safety. Nowhere in the Constitution is unrestricted access to weapons of war a guaranteed right,” said Parkland survivor David Hogg at the event.

March for Our Lives told The Hill that the rally aims to urge the Texas legislature to pass laws raising the minimum age to buy the semi-automatic guns used in mass shootings like the one in Uvalde.

“Every day he doesn’t take action is another day he gambles with our lives,” wrote the organization. “Governor Abbott must call a special session now and raise the minimum age to purchase an AR-15 to 21.”

The gun control rally will follow a decision made on Thursday blocking a Texas law that bans people under 21 years old from carrying handguns outside of their homes.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman ruled that the law violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution by limiting the individual rights of adults under 21.

March for Our Lives aims to pass “common-sense reforms” such as “implementing universal, comprehensive background checks; creating a searchable database for gun owners; investing in violence intervention programs, specifically in disenfranchised communities; funding the Centers for Disease Control to research gun violence so that reform policies are backed up by data, and banning high-capacity magazines and semi-automatic assault rifles,” according to the organization’s statement.