ORLANDO, Fla. – The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would raise the age to purchase an assault rifle from 18 to 21, among other items.

What You Need To Know

  • Pulse survivors are tired of talking without seeing change

  • House working to raise age of buying some guns

  • Sixth anniversary of Pulse shooting is this Sunday

The bill is expected to face a much tougher time in the Senate.

On the heels of the sixth anniversary of the Pulse terror attack shooting, survivors are speaking up about the ongoing gun debate in Washington D.C.

Promoter Orlando Torres will never forget June 12, 2016. He spent several hours inside a Pulse bathroom hiding.

 

“Thank God we barricaded ourselves in there hiding,” Torres, a Pulse survivor recalls. “Then the gunman came in, and then we were hearing these loud pow, pow, pow to the stall behind us.” 

Over the past six years, Torres continues to speak about the Pulse shooting, and other mass shootings after they happen. The problem is they say, he and other survivors talk with little change from government leaders.

“I’ll believe it when I see it because we have been screaming for this for mega years,” Torres states. “It’s a shame. Look what it had to take the latest shootings. Innocent little children that were 9, 10 years old.”

Patience Murray is also a Pulse survivor. A night out with friends turned into a lengthy hospital stay after multiple gunshots to her legs. Not only is she hopeful changes can be made, but offers suggestions how.

 

“Having universal background checks but also including mental health review,” Murray begins. 

She also is hopeful potential gun buyers can be restricted from purchasing military-style weapons.

“I think at this state of America, this state of society maybe one day it will be different, but I don’t think we are capable of being responsible with these styles of weapons,” Murray says.

From Pulse to Parkland and Buffalo to Uvalde, survivors of mass shootings are tired of seeing mass shootings continue to happen.

“Its like when is this ever going to stop or slow down?” Torres asks rhetorically. “And apparently it doesn’t.”

The House on Wednesday passed wide-ranging gun control, but the country now waits to see what the Senate will do.

The House vote was a party-line vote. As for the Senate split, the U.S. senate has 50 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and two Independents.