UVALDE, Texas — It’s been one year since the massacre at Robb Elementary School, where 19 children and two teachers lost their lives.
Wednesday has been spent remembering and reflecting as the Uvalde community continues to grieve.
State Senator Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat representing Uvalde, has been a staunch supporter of gun control legislation.
For weeks, he held press conferences and introduced 21 bills calling for change, including universal background checks and red flag laws.
But these didn’t pass, including House Bill 2744.
"It is frustrating, and it is sad, there's a whole lot of anger," he said. "We're only asking for common sense solutions, we're asking for an age limit increase, extreme risk protective order so we can take guns away from mentally ill people."
In the wake of the shooting, Governor Greg Abbott promised hope, saying "do we expect laws to come out of this devastating crime? the answer is absolutely yes."
But a year later, not much has changed.
"There's not a day I don't cry about it, i see those images before i go to bed at night," Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez still firmly believes it's common sense.
"You have to be 21 to buy a pack of cigarettes, a beer, or for that matter a pistol, so it just seemed not normal for you to be able to go buy an AR-15 at 18," he said.
The senator believes the next mass shooting is just around the corner.
"We are living in a time when the next mass shooting only comes with some other excuse, and some other pretend fix for Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick," Gutierrez said. "The fixes never come, the excuses just mount up, and in the end, all we have is more guns on the street in the hands of people who shouldn't have them."
A year later, Gutierrez's fight continues.
"This is the most important health crisis facing America. My only hope is we keep going forward in this country and in this state to fix these problems," he said.
The Surviving Parents of Southeast Texas visited Uvalde in 2022 to offer grief counseling. The group of mothers know how hard it is to not only lose a child, but to also have to find a way to carry on afterward.
They made a second trip to Uvalde in wake of the one-year anniversary to once again, offer their support and grief counseling to those impacted by this tragedy.
