Fifteen days after a gunman killed 19 of her classmates and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo told lawmakers Wednesday she thinks the shooting will happen again.
In a harrowing account of last month’s massacre in Uvalde, Texas, Miah said she called 911 to ask for the police, smearing her dead classmate’s blood on her face so she could play dead as the gunman remained in the classroom for more than an hour.
“He shot my friend that was next to me, and I thought he was going to come back to the room,” she told the House Oversight and Reform Committee. “So I grabbed the blood, and I put it all over me.”
The fourth grader, testifying through a recorded video at the recommendation of her pediatrician, told lawmakers she wanted “to have security” when she goes to school, where she no longer feels safe.
Cerrillo appeared before the committee alongside other survivors of recent mass shootings and victims’ loved ones in advance of the House voting on a swath of gun control measures.
Those measures include raising the purchasing age for semi-automatic weapons to 21 and banning civilian use of high-capacity magazines, among other proposals.
The bills face stiff opposition in the Senate, where 10 Republicans are needed to overcome a legislative filibuster. A bipartisan group of senators have been meeting to iron out a narrower package that is politically feasible, although it remains unclear whether a deal can be struck.
As Congress debates how to move forward, witnesses emotionally pleaded with the committee for action.
Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter, Lexi, was killed in the Uvalde shooting, demanded an assault weapon ban and an expansion of background checks.
“We understand that for some reason, to some people, to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns, that guns are more important than children, so at this moment we ask for progress,” she said.
Zeneta Everhart, the mother of Zaire Goodman, who was shot and injured in last month’s racist mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., detailed to the committee the multiple bullet holes now in her son’s body from an AR-15, calling on lawmakers to ban the weapon.
“If after hearing from me and the other people testifying here today does not move you to act on gun laws, I invite you to my home to help me to clean Zaire’s wounds so that you may see up close the damage that has been caused to my son and my community,” Everhart said.
Republicans were careful in the hearing room to avoid attacking the first panel, all of whom had recently witnessed gun violence in one form or another.
But at a simultaneous press conference, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) accused Democrats of exploiting the pain of witnesses to advance gun control measures. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a staunch conservative, boycotted the witnesses’ testimony.
When a second panel testified, this time with gun violence experts called by both parties, lawmakers took their ideological positions.
Democrats tied recent mass shootings to a lack of gun regulations. Republicans lambasted Democrats’ proposals as unconstitutional and ineffective, instead focusing on mental health funding and school security.
Amy Swearer, a legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, echoed many Republicans in her testimony, arguing Democrats’ proposals would largely target law-abiding citizens. She declared magazine limits as “effectively useless” and at times engaged in heated arguments with Democrats.
“Many of you are the same ones mocking anybody for ‘talking about doors’ when a single locked door in Uvalde would likely have saved 21 lives,” Swearer said.
The gunman in Uvalde entered the classroom as a teacher was attempting to lock the door.
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) pushed back on Republicans’ avoidance to consider gun control measures alongside her Democratic colleagues, calling gun violence a “uniquely American tragedy.”
“They have blamed everything but guns,” she said. “But we know the United States does not have a monopoly on mental illness, video games or any other excuse. What America does have is widespread access to guns.”
Democrats and some witnesses also took aim at the gun industry, calling for the repeal of a 2005 law granting firearm manufacturers broad immunity for crimes committed with their products. Some Republicans proposed arming teachers.
“To those who say that teachers or staff will not take up arms to protect their students, I say they will,” said Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.).
Democrats and most of its witnesses in the second panel decried those proposals, arguing they would turn schools into prisons and raising concerns about their impact on minorities.
“All of our educators are focused on making sure that they create a safe, welcoming environment for every single student,” said National Education Association President Rebecca Pringle. “We know that our Black and brown and Indigenous students are disproportionately impacted by the inequities and every single social system in this country.”