Three days after a 7-year-old boy was shot in the head at Houston’s Lakewood Church, his grandmother reported that surgeons had removed parts of the frontal lobe of his brain and of his skull. The boy, Samuel, had “lost a major part of what makes us who we are,” Walli Carranza wrote in a Feb. 14 Facebook post. Carranza blamed the tragedy on “the very same legislators who claim to be ‘pro-life’ (and) believe that unbridled gun rights matter and the right to life does not! Insanity!”
Carranza’s son is Samuel’s father and the ex-husband of the boy’s mother, Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36. Authorities say Moreno entered the megachurch with Samuel just before its weekly Spanish-language service was to begin on Feb. 11. Moreno began firing an AR-style rifle, officials said, and law enforcement officers working security at the church returned fire, killing Moreno. Authorities have not disclosed who fired the shots that wounded Samuel and a 57-year-old man who was shot in the leg and was treated and released from a hospital.
Samuel’s grievous wounds, the pain endured by his grandmother and other loved ones, and the trauma experienced by everyone present when bullets began flying at Lakewood might have been prevented. Genesse Moreno should not have had access to the weapon she fired that afternoon.
Gun safety advocates say the Lakewood shooting is vivid evidence of the need for a “red flag” law, authorizing courts to prevent people deemed a threat to public safety from possessing certain firearms. In the wake of the tragedy, local leaders renewed their calls for such a law. Twenty-one states have passed red flag laws, and research shows they can be an effective tool in preventing gun violence.
In Texas, though, bills that would authorize red flag laws routinely end up in the legislative slush pile. A bill introduced last year by Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, didn’t even get a committee hearing; similar measures introduced by other legislators all died. This is hardly surprising in a state whose leaders seem determined to remove any barriers to gun ownership — even eliminating the need for a license and training to publicly carry a handgun.
Republican legislators beholden to primary voters, who are more likely to focus on single issues such as gun rights or abortion, believe that they “cannot give an inch on gun policy,” said Liz Hanks, the Texas chapter leader of Moms Demand Action, a gun safety advocacy group. “They make the ‘slippery slope’ argument every time.” She referred to the nonsensical assertion that any new firearm regulation will lead to government officials storming homes to clear out gun closets and snatching rifles from pickup truck gun racks.
Moreno had a lengthy history of mental health issues and, according to public records, was arrested at least six times between 2005 and 2022 on charges including unlawful carrying of a weapon, assault, theft and marijuana possession. Even so, current Texas laws probably permitted Moreno to purchase the two rifles she carried that day, experts told the Chronicle’s John Wayne Ferguson.
“I think this particular incident is a great example of how a red flag law could and should work, because the family was so involved and had reached out to different agencies,” including law enforcement and child safety officials, Hanks said. “There were people here seeing these warning signs and taking action on the warning signs, but there is no process, no tool in the state of Texas, that could help them ensure that she did not have access to weapons.”
Johnson agreed: “You had neighbors talking about threats and fear of her,” she said. “Any of those people could have filed that petition with a court, gone through a hearing, and presented clear and convincing evidence” that Moreno’s access to firearms should be restricted. Johnson said her bill was drawn narrowly; restrictions would apply only to people with “extreme” mental health problems and would have to be renewed after a year. Her bill included a provision making a false accusation in such a hearing a misdemeanor.
“All of this ‘the sky is falling, people are coming to take your guns,’ talk, the fear-mongering about a nonexistent problem, is keeping us from addressing a real and existing crisis, the epidemic of gun violence,” Johnson said.
Still, she sees some hopeful signs. Johnson noted that two Republicans, Sam Harless of Spring and Justin Holland of Rockwall, joined Democrats in a 2023 House committee vote to advance a bill that would have raised the age from 18 to 21 to purchase certain firearms. The session ended before the bill reached the floor, she said.
“That is progress,” Johnson said. “People have to be committed to small steps on progress. Now, you would hope that as you go into (the next session) in January of ’25, the fact that you have had some bipartisan support should allow for broader discussion.”
Local leaders, forbidden by the state from passing their own gun regulations, are doing what they can. In 2022, Harris County officials started a pilot project, the Violence Interruption Program, that provides counseling and other services to gun violence survivors. A key goal of the program is to prevent survivors from retaliating — breaking the bloody cycle of retribution after retribution.
It’s a laudable effort, but it’s not enough. Johnson, Hanks and other supporters of reasonable gun regulations believe the tide will turn when a critical mass of Texans — led by parents of children murdered in school shootings, members of churches where congregants have been mowed down by gunfire and thousands of others affected by gun violence — bring the same single-minded focus to their voting choices as do those who reflexively oppose such measures.
Their refusal to submit to a sense of despair is commendable, even inspiring. More sensible Texans should join their efforts to stop another preventable tragedy such as Lakewood.
Houston Chronicle
