Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez (D), whose district includes the city of Uvalde, introduced four gun safety bills following the 2022 Robb Elementary School mass shooting that left 21 people dead.
Note: One month after the Robb Elementary massacre, Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which is considered the most sweeping gun violence prevention measure in 30 years.
Upon learning of the school shooting in Nashville on Wednesday, Gutierrez responded by writing on X: “Yesterday Trump eliminated the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Today two students were shot by another student at Antioch High School in Nashville, TN. We aren’t going to ‘get over it.’ We’re going to keep fighting gun violence.”
Yesterday Trump eliminated the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
— Senator Roland Gutierrez (@RolandForTexas) January 22, 2025
Today two students were shot by another student at Antioch High School in Nashville, TN.
We aren’t going to “get over it.” We’re going to keep fighting gun violence. pic.twitter.com/lhR26HQF9B
[CNN reports that in Nashville, “17-year-old Solomon Henderson fired multiple rounds inside a cafeteria shortly after 11 a.m. –– killing Josselin Corea Escalante” while “another student suffered a graze wound.”]
More than one Trump supporter, aligning with the MAGA position that federal bureaucracies aren’t solving the problems, asked Gutierrez: “What did the office do?”
President Biden announced the opening of the first federal office dedicated to gun violence prevention in September 2023, and named VP Kamala Harris as its supervisor; Biden staffer Stefanie Feldman was the director.
The mission of the office was “to encourage state-level policy changes to create state-level gun violence prevention offices and programs,” including safe storage legislation and a model for reporting lost or stolen firearms.
Upon Trump’s return to the White House, the official webpage for the office has been removed.
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), who helped to lead the effort to create the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, reported: “Since its establishment in 2023, this office has helped reduce gun violence by 20%, and delivered the lowest violent crime rate in over 50 years. The office wasn’t about politics, it was about saving lives and even had bipartisan support from members in this chamber.”
Frost: I was so proud to be one of the people to help lead an effort to create the first ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Since its establishment in 2023, this office has helped reduce gun violence by 20%, and delivered the lowest violent crime rate in over 50… pic.twitter.com/Sn0uL0tzQf
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 22, 2025
As seen above on the House Floor this week, Frost reported the progress of the Office “was recklessly dismantled by President Donald Trump. Just today, one day after the office was shut down, students were shot at a high school in Nashville and one was killed… After every mass shooting, the cries of grieving families begged us to do something over the last four years and we did by making this office. But here we are again, forced to abandon the efforts that have saved lives. Leaders on both sides of the aisle need to come together to pass commonsense gun reform and we can’t stop fighting until we have another Office of Gun Violence Prevention.”
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