âItâs something that could happen at either the state or federal level, but I donât see movement on either front,â said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a criminal law professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
Only six states â Florida, Washington, Vermont, California, Illinois and Hawaii â have increased the minimum purchase age for long guns to 21, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The majority did so following the 2018 massacre in Parkland, Florida, where a then-19-year-old assailant killed 17 people at a high school.
Several states have since faced legal challenges.
The National Rifle Association sought to repeal the Florida law.
âThe ban infringes the right of all 18-to-20-year-olds to purchase firearms for the exercise of their Second Amendment rights, even for self-defense in the home,â the NRA argued in a court filing, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. âThe ban does not just limit the right, it obliterates it.â
Government attorneys, however, argued that because â18-to-20-year-olds are uniquely likely to engage in impulsive, emotional, and risky behaviors that offer immediate or short-term rewards, drawing the line for legal purchase of firearms at 21 is a reasonable method of addressing the Legislatureâs public safety concerns.â
A federal judge upheld the law last year; the NRA is appealing.
A U.S. Court of Appeals recently ruled that Californiaâs version of the law was unconstitutional, though it did uphold a provision that requires adults under 21 to obtain a hunting license before buying a rifle or shotgun.
After the shooting in Uvalde this week, lawmakers in New York and Utah also called on their states to raise the age limit for long gun purchases to 21. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced federal legislation earlier this month â less than a week before the Uvalde shooting â that would raise the minimum age to purchase assault weapons to 21 from 18; the California Democrat said in a statement that it was in response to a shooting that killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket. That gunman also was 18 years old.
âIt makes no sense that itâs illegal for someone under 21 to buy a handgun or even a beer, yet can legally buy an assault weapon,â she said.
Lindsay Nichols, federal policy director at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said that increasing the age requirement at the federal level may be more effective because federal authorities can inspect and discipline licensed firearm sellers.
âState authorities often donât have a system in place for enforcing the laws governingâ licensed dealers, Nichols said.
In the hours after the shooting in Uvalde, there was some confusion about what types of firearms Ramos had used. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott initially said that Ramos had a handgun and possibly a rifle. That prompted some to speculate that Ramos had been able to get hold of the weapons more easily because of recent changes to the gun laws in Texas, including a bill passed last year that allows Texans to carry handguns without a permit or training. But those early reports turned out to be inaccurate.
After it became clear that the weapon used was a rifle, Texas Democrats questioned why Ramos was able to purchase one at the age of 18.
âWhy do we accept a government that allows an 18 year old to buy an assault rifle, but not tobacco products?â state Rep. Nicole Collier, a Fort Worth Democrat who chairs the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, said in a statement. âThe hypocrisy of government is deafening. We can develop gun policy that does not infringe upon oneâs constitutional right, while preserving and protecting life; thatâs called multitasking and we can do that.â
State Rep. Jarvis Johnson, a Houston Democrat, called on Abbott to convene a special session of the Legislature so lawmakers could âpass real gun reforms,â including raising the minimum age to purchase long guns.
âEnough is enough,â he said.
Such a move would reverse a decades-old Texas system that treats handguns differently from long guns, which have long been exempted from state rules on open carry.
The disparate rules date back to the post-Civil War era, when the state â counter to its modern-day reputation â adopted some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation.
âDespite its stereotype of being a state where cowboys promiscuously tote six-shooters, Texas is one of the few states that absolutely prohibits the bearing of pistols by private individuals,â wrote firearms attorney Stephen Halbrook in a 1989 Baylor Law Review article, six years before former Texas Gov. George W. Bush relaxed rules on handguns considerably.
Following spasms of violence that were then plaguing the young state in the 19th century, lawmakers âstarted specifically targeting weapons that they equated with crime,â said Texas historian Brennan Rivas, who is writing a book about the stateâs early gun laws. âThey equated bowie knives, daggers and pistols with interpersonal violence and crime.â
Muskets, rifles and shotguns, by comparison, were excluded because they were used for hunting or participating in a militia.
âThey didnât consider long guns to be deadly weapons,â Rivas said. âThose had valuable uses. Whereas these other weapons were kind of like a plague on polite society.â
Lawmakers of that time could not have envisioned that long guns would evolve from lumbering hunting rifles into AR-15s capable of firing dozens of rounds per minute, Rivas added.
But any tighter requirements appear unlikely to pass in Texas.
Just last year, following high-profile massacres in El Paso and in Midland and Odessa in 2019, lawmakers approved a variety of measures that loosened gun regulations. In addition to authorizing the carrying of handguns in public without a permit or training, the laws ban the governor from limiting gun sales during an emergency and allow gun owners to bring their weapons into hotel rooms.
During a Wednesday press conference at Uvalde High School, Abbott repeated a claim he and other Republican state leaders have often made, that mental health issues are to blame for the streak of mass shootings, not lax gun regulations. Officials conceded that they were not aware that the gunman had any criminal or mental health issues.
âThe ability of an 18-year-old to buy a long gun has been in place in the state of Texas for more than 60 years,â Abbott said. âAnd why is it that for the majority of those 60 years we did not have school shootings? And why is it that we do now?â
