Sister of Uvalde victim calls for assault weapons ban before Congress 

Faith Mata, whose sister Tess was murdered in the Uvalde school shooting earlier this year, urged lawmakers on Thursday to pass an assault weapons ban to prevent future mass shootings. 

“Is it important for this weapon of death to be banned?” asked Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), chairwoman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. 

“I believe it is,” Mata responded. 

“If it’s being used multiple times to murder children and teachers then it’s the issue, right,” the 21-year-old added. “I can’t even explain to you how it felt looking at my sister slain in her coffin.” 

A gunman brought an AR-15-style rifle into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24 and shot dead 19 students and two teachers. 

Thursday’s hearing examining the shooting literally started with a bang as Jackson Lee began her opening statement by playing sounds of rapid-fire gunshots into the microphone.  

“The sound we just heard was the rapid fire on that day,” said Jackson Lee, with photos from the shooting in Uvalde displayed behind her. 

A number of witnesses backed Mata’s call for an assault weapons ban during the hearing, which came about a month after President Biden said that he would try to get such a ban passed during the lame-duck session.

On Wednesday, two survivors of the November Club Q shooting testified before Congress about their experience and urged lawmakers to take more action on gun reform. 

Dr. Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician who responded to children injured in the Uvalde shooting, was among the witnesses at Thursday’s hearing. 

“AR-15s or any semiautomatic weapon that holds high-capacity magazines don’t belong in the hands of everyday civilians, especially when they are not even old enough to buy a pack of beer,” he said. 

Guerrero also said that the counterargument that the problem is not guns but people didn’t stand up to close scrutiny.  

“This is a meritless argument — how else does an anti-Mexican extremist walk into Walmart and kill 23 people in minutes without a semiautomatic rifle? How does an anti-LGBTQ radical slaughter 49 club goers without his SIG Sauer MCX?” Guerrero asked. 

However, other witnesses at the hearing disputed the effectiveness a ban on assault style rifles would have on curbing mass shootings.  

“Banning all semiautomatic guns as President Biden has repeatedly called for over the years would mainly affect law-abiding citizens,” said John Lott, president of the gun rights group Crime Prevention Research Center. “It would make it much more difficult for Americans to use guns defensively.”  

Lott also argued that arming teachers could be an effective way to combat school shootings, echoing proposals from some GOP lawmakers, citing research by his organization that 94 percent of mass shootings between 1950 and 2019 occurred in gun-free zones. 

Nicole Melchionno, a survivor of the Sandy Hook shooting — the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, which occurred 10 years ago this week — said that she was skeptical of arming teachers. 

“I think coming from a high schooler’s point of view, arming teachers sounds terrifying, and adding more guns to the equation is just accepting that we failed,” said Melcionno. 

Mata said that she was tired of incidents like Uvalde occurring every year. 

“Are we not tired of hearing the stories of victims, of hearing them from victims’ families? Are we not tired of hearing yet another tragedy because of gun violence,” said Mata. “When is enough, enough?” 

Jackson Lee said advancing a ban on assault weapons was crucial.  

“I think it is imperative that we have an assault weapons ban signed by the president of the United States,” said Jackson Lee.