Gun reform bill that passed US House is named after Santa Fe HS shooting victim Kimberly Vaughan
WASHINGTON (KTRK) -- A slew of bills related to gun safety passed in the U.S. House on Wednesday, including the Kimberly Vaughan Safe Storage Act.
"I am really relieved! It's been a lot of work and it's been a long time coming. It's been four years that we've been trying to educate people about safe storage and I feel like today, we made a little baby step forward," said Rhonda Hart, Kimberly's mother.
Kimberly was one of 10 people killed May 2018 inside her art class at Santa Fe High School by a teenage classmate who stole his father's unsecured guns.
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Hart joined other families from the Parkland, Florida, and Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings in Washington D.C. Wednesday, meeting with lawmakers to urge them to pass her daughter's bill.
"It says that if a company makes over a certain quantity of guns, they have to provide information inside of the gun packaging about safe storage along with websites and other educational materials on how to safe store," Hart said.
The bill also includes a 10-year, $10 million grant for Native American tribes to organize their own safe storage educational programs.
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"It's totally more education, which I love because Kimberly was a real smarty pants," Hart said.
Hart, along with Scot Rice, the husband of injured substitute teacher Flo Rice, and Christina Delgado, whose daughter was in the school during the shooting, know the House passage was just a small victory.
There is more work to do, as the Senate now takes up these bills. They are still hopeful for unity.
"It's also a time for us to come together for a common goal. As gun owners, as non-gun owners. As humans. As Americans. To save our children and our people in our communities. This is not a political issue. It should never be a political issue. We have got to come together to begin the process of coming back, to having responsible gun owners at the forefront of these conversations," Delgado said.
Hart and these Santa Fe families will continue traveling to D.C. until the Kimberly Vaughan Safe Storage Act becomes law.
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