LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Tuesday marks the seventh year since the deadly 1 October mass shooting, and Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui, a survivor of the event, plans on reintroducing two bills aimed at preventing gun violence that Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed during the 2023 legislature.
This time, however, Jauregui expects to win.
One bill would ban firearms at polling places, the same way they're banned now at schools, airports, federal buildings, and courthouses. The other bill would raise the age for buying semi-automatic rifles from the age of 18 to 21, the current age to legally purchase a handgun.
Jauregui says both ideas are common-sense reforms that will keep people safe.
"And if we know that someone under the age of 21 is more likely to use a semi-automatic firearm to commit a mass shooting, then we need to do everything we can to keep that from happening," Jauregui said.
Gov. Lombardo disagrees.
In 2023, he vetoed the age requirement, saying a Ninth Circuit Court ruling would have made it unconstitutional.
He also rejected the polling place gun ban, saying there were already laws in place to prevent intimidation at the polls and that the bill's language was vague.
He also objected to a provision regarding ghost guns, but that will not be in the new bill after a Nevada Supreme Court ruling on the issue.
In an interview with me in April, Lombardo said he may be open to the polling place bill.
"If it had been a standalone bill. A clean bill on no firearms at polling places... Yeah, I would evaluate it," Lombardo said.
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In 2023, both of Jauregui's bills passed on party-line votes, but Jauregui says solving gun violence should not be partisan.
"This isn't a Republican or Democratic issue. A bullet doesn't know if you're a Republican or a Democrat when it hits you. It just hits you," she said.
Partisanship is part of life in Carson City, and Democrats are currently battling to secure a veto-proof majority in 2025, a move that nulls attempts of a veto from Lombardo or opposition from the GOP.
Either way, Jauregui says she's going to keep fighting.
