Wednesday marks one year since the mass school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that claimed 21 lives, including 19 children. Since then, both federal and state lawmakers have worked to improve school safety while facing ideological and party differences on how to solve the growing epidemic of gun violence in the United States.
Several pieces of legislation have been proposed at the federal and state level, with some stalling and some becoming law. President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in June 2022, which strengthened background checks for firearms and poured money into mental health and school safety procedures.
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Since the Uvalde shooting, more than 1,700 gun-related bills have been introduced in state legislatures, with only 93 being signed into law. Of those bills, 56% expanded access to firearms or protected manufacturers from liability lawsuits.
Here are some bills or policy proposals that lawmakers put forward in Texas following Uvalde and where they stand now.
Limiting school entry
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) proposed in the days following the Uvalde school shooting that schools reassess their entrances. In Uvalde, the gunman entered through an open side door that could only be locked from the outside.
Cruz proposed that schools use one door as an entrance for all students and staff to enter and exit through.
"I sat down with families from Santa Fe. We talked about what we need to do to harden schools, including not having unlocked back doors, including having one door that goes in and out of the school," Cruz had said after the shooting.
Texas Democrats took their own approach to improving school entry. Democratic state Sen. Shawn Thierry introduced H.B. 801 in November 2022, which would require safety vestibules on public school campuses, and each campus "must limit the public entry to the campus to a main entrance that has a safety vestibule."
According to the bill, a safety vestibule would have one or more interior doors in addition to the main outside entrance door to the campus that can only be locked or unlocked by a school employee or campus safety personnel.
The bill has been filed in the Texas House but has not made any progress since then.
Hiring armed security
The Texas Legislature, in particular, focused on making significant investments to tighten school safety in the year following the deadly shooting.
In April, the House passed H.B. 3, which included hiring at least one armed security officer at every campus, providing incentives for school employees to get certified to carry a weapon, and installing silent panic buttons in every classroom.
The House bill would also force districts to set up strong active shooter protocols at the risk of state supervision should they fail to do so.
H.B. 3 is still being debated in the House and Senate, as both chambers are working through amendments. The Senate's version removed a requirement for the posting of an armed security guard and lowered the amount of money schools would receive for campus security from $100 per student to $10 per student.
This is the first legislative session since the Uvalde school shooting, and the legislature is set to go out of session on May 29 and begin again on Jan. 14, 2025.
Addressing mental health
Part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act included legislation addressing mental health and school safety resources. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) sponsored the bill and saw his legislation included in the final law.
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In Texas, a bill heading to Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) addresses a very specific area of mental health improvement. Senate Bill 728 closes a loophole and requires courts to report involuntary mental health hospitalizations of juveniles ages 16 and older for inclusion in the federal gun background check system.
This bill is likely to be the only gun safety measure that has a chance of being enacted in this legislative session.