Sen. John Cornyn(R-Texas), the top Republican in the bipartisan Senate group seeking gun safety legislation, was booed on Friday as he spoke at the Texas GOP convention in Houston.
“I will not under any circumstance support new restrictions for law-abiding gun owners, that will always be my red line. And despite what some of you may have heard, the framework that we are working on is consistent with that red line,” Cornyn confirmed.
“That primarily means enforcing current law,” the senator added. “That’s what I’ve heard from many of you here today and this week, and that’s what we’re working on, nothing more, and nothing less.”
The bipartisan group formed in response to last month’s mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store where 10 were killed and at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where the lives of 19 children and two teachers were also taken in the last days of the school year.
The Senate group, comprised of 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans, sought to find common ground between the two parties in the evenly split Senate where they need to find 10 Republican votes to reach the 60-vote threshold and avoid the filibuster.
They reached an agreement on gun safety framework early last week, which includes implementing an incentive for states to pass red flag laws, stronger background checks for those who are purchasing guns while under the age of 21, funding for mental health support in schools and increasing school security. The framework is in the process of being written into legal language.
