Sandra Jauregui
Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023 | 2 a.m.
This time of year always feels strange for Nevada Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui. Perhaps it always will.
It’s been six years since a gunman in a hotel tower overlooking the Route 91 Harvest music festival opened fire on the crowd of 22,000, shooting off thousands of rounds from a cache of modified assault rifles in a span of roughly 10 minutes. Caught in the Oct. 1, 2017, rampage — which remains the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history — was Jauregui, who was at the concert.
“I remember having a very difficult conversation with my sister because she was the first person that reached out that evening as the shooting started,” Jauregui told the Sun. “I let her know, like, ‘We’re being shot at … I don’t know what to do,’ and during that evening I ended up dropping my phone as the shooting started again.”
The Las Vegas Democrat has since used her experience to become a driving force behind gun safety legislation in Nevada. Still, Jauregui believes Nevada — and the country at large — has a way to go to make sure a tragedy like the Las Vegas shooting never happens again.
“I think after surviving 1 October and knowing that I was in a position to do something, gun violence prevention is probably the No. 1 issue that I know I will always fight for,” Jauregui said, “because I never want another family to have to go through what so many of us went through.”
Jauregui credits Nevada voters for passing, though narrowly, Question 1 in the 2016 general election. The measure, which was approved by fewer than 10,000 votes out of more than 1 million cast, requires most private gun sales to involve a background check through a licensed gun dealer. That law was further bolstered in 2019 by Senate Bill 143, which required a state agency, instead of the FBI, to conduct background checks on gun sales through the state’s criminal records repository and prohibited gun dealers from charging a fee for those background checks.
The legislature in 2019 also passed Senate Bill 291, legislation signed into law by then-Gov. Steve Sisolak that established procedures for so-called red flag protective orders, allowing people to file court petitions to temporarily confiscate firearms from high-risk individuals. That bill also outlawed attachments for semi-automatic weapons that can alter the rate of fire — technology often referred to as a bump stock, which was used by the Las Vegas gunman during the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting.
Sisolak also signed into law a bill in 2021 that prohibits the sale or transfer of unfinished firearm frames or receivers without serial numbers, unless that person is a licensed gun dealer. That was in response to a rise in unserialized “ghost gun” kits that enabled buyers to effectively construct a gun themselves.
That bill, AB 286, is being challenged in the Nevada Supreme Court.
Legislative Democrats (who control the state Senate and Assembly) during this year’s session were unsuccessful enacting a trio of gun safety bills — two of which Jauregui carried as the primary sponsor — after they were vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo. The Republican governor was Clark County sheriff during the Las Vegas shooting.
Jauregui was the lead sponsor of ABs 354 and 355; the former would have prohibited carrying a firearm within 100 yards of an election polling place, and the latter would have raised the legal age to purchase an assault weapon from 18 to 21, with an exception allowed for active-duty military personnel.
Lombardo also vetoed SB 171, which sought to bar individuals convicted of hate crimes from owning a firearm for 10 years following their conviction.
Months later, Jauregui still vehemently disagrees with the vetoes.
“That was so surprising to me,” she said of the AB 355 veto. “I was hopeful that because of policies that have been supported by other Republican governors because Republicans support it, that he would sign it.I was just floored when his veto letter came.”
Jauregui was referring to a bill signed into law by then-Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that raised the age to buy firearms in Florida to 21.
Jauregui didn’t publicly acknowledge she was a Las Vegas shooting survivor until an April 2019 hearing for AB 291, in which she shared a letter penned to a loved one five days after the rampage. The letter explained why she was physically unable to speak about what she saw.
She said it was only after the mass shooting in Parkland that she felt the need to leverage her trauma into advocacy.
Years went by before Jauregui began to feel like herself, and the lingering toll of the shooting still occasionally weighs on her.
As a public official from Las Vegas, Jauregui in each of the past five years felt an obligation to be present for the vigils and tributes that commemorated the shooting. But this year, she decided to go on a weekend camping trip several states away — opting for a chance to get away from the public spectacle rather than run the risk of reopening an old wound.
“It’s hard to be reminded of what happened,” Jauregui said. “You’re hearing about the losses that happened that day and people are calling and asking you if you’re OK. And no matter how far removed you are from that day, you’re never prepared for that day until it arrives again.”
Nationwide actions
In the wake of racially motivated mass shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, President Joe Biden in June 2022 signed into law the first major gun safety legislation passed by Congress in roughly 30 years.
The bill toughens background checks for young gun purchasers, provides incentives for states to pass red flag laws like Nevada’s, and expands an existing federal law to prevent individuals convicted of domestic abuse involving a dating relationship from owning a firearm.
Federal law previously only pertained to domestic abuse cases involving spouses or former spouses.
That measure was opposed by Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., who states on his website he supports taking “responsible” steps to keep firearms “out of the hands of mentally disturbed” individuals and criminals attempting to bypass background checks. Most of Nevada’s federal congressional delegation members, however, have supported several federal gun safety proposals in recent years.
Rep. Steven Horsford, a Democrat who chairs the powerful Congressional Black Caucus, in July introduced the Break the Cycle of Violence Act. The House had passed a similar bill in 2022 but the legislation died in the Senate. Horsford’s bill aims to provide federal funds to community violence prevention and intervention programs, and provisions of it were included in the federal bill signed into law by Biden last year, according to Horsford’s office.
Rep. Dina Titus, a Democrat whose district encompasses the site of the Oct. 1 shooting, has routinely introduced measures to ban bump stocks.
After bump stocks were used by the shooter in the Las Vegas massacre, a federal ban was enacted preventing the use of the devices. However, a federal appeals court in April struck down the ban.
Rep. Susie Lee, a Democrat and a member of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, is a vocal proponent of using discharge petitions as a mechanism to move legislation to the House floor for a vote and essentially force lawmakers to take a side. Discharge petitions allow legislators to bypass committee chairs who refuse to advance certain legislation and have been used during this Congress on legislation requiring safe firearm storage, enhanced background checks and a ban on assault weapons.
Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen., both Nevada Democrats, have also been proponents of legislation pushing for bump stock bans and expanded mental health care. Cortez Masto’s office told the Sun via email she was able to include $950,000 in funding for mental health professionals for Clark County School District during fiscal year 2022.
On Wednesday, Rosen during a speech on the Senate floor urged colleagues to continue pursuing gun safety reform.
“No community should ever have to experience the same pain and suffering that we went through in Las Vegas,” Rosen said. “We can take commonsense, bipartisan steps like permanently banning bump stocks and high-capacity magazines — these things allowed the shooter to fire so many rounds and cause so much carnage.
“Doing nothing … is not an option. We owe it to those who have experienced the pain of gun violence to do more, and we owe it to future generations to do more.”
