Salvador Ramos: Why can an 18-year-old have rifles in Texas?

The Tuesday shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, has renewed the debate on how easy it is to acquire weapons in the United States. And about why an 18-year-old was able to buy two rifles without problems, days before perpetrating the massacre.

Carrying firearms has been allowed in Texas since 1995. A federal regulation states that the minimum age to acquire long weapons, such as a shotgun or rifle, is 18 years, while for short firearms it is 21 years.

Persons under the age of 21 who acquire a weapon must have a license, and undergo a background check. It is still unknown if Salvador Ramos met those requirements when you purchased, on your 18th birthday, two AR-15 rifles, one of which he used to kill 19 children and two teachers before being shot down.

Less than a year before the massacre, Texas lawmakers expanded gun ownership rights. At that time, the governor Greb Abbott I affirm that Texas would remain a “bastion of freedom” on the issue of guns, and signed seven laws, one of which authorizes Texans to carry guns without a license.

“Texas It will always be a leader on the Second Amendment (which protects the right to buy and own guns).”

The law that authorizes the “constitutional porte” and allows people 21 and older to carry handguns without a license went into effect on September 21.

Another of the laws, recalled the NBC News network, made Texas a “Second Amendment sanctuary state”and totally opposed to federal gun control regulations.

Other laws have made it legal for hotel guests to keep guns in their rooms.

Nevertheless, Texas law does not allow carrying firearms without a license in colleges and universities and they can decide, in a particular way, to prohibit the entry of weapons to the facilities.

People convicted of felonies or on domestic violence injunctions are prohibited from carrying firearms.

After the shooting President Joe Biden said he was “fed up” with gun violence and wondered when the country will confront the gun lobby.

Republicans argue that restricting access to guns is not the solution, and some call for arming teachers. At the moment there is no contemplated debate in Congress on the issue of the purchase and carrying of weapons.