Lombardo veto stirs anger among those touched by deadly UNLV campus shooting

Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

Students and staff affected by the 2023 on-campus shooting at UNLV that killed three professors and injured another are criticizing Gov. Joe Lombardo’s veto last week of legislation to create a special counsel position for developing prevention strategies and collecting data on gun violence.

Senate Bill 156, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Edgar Flores of Las Vegas and supported by UNLV students who experienced the Dec. 6, 2023, campus tragedy, would have established the position within the Nevada attorney general’s office and directed the special counsel to collaborate with experts to develop comprehensive data and resources.

The legislation also outlined key responsibilities: advising on prevention strategies, supporting educational campaigns on firearm safety and suicide prevention, and collecting data on arrests and prosecutions related to violations of certain firearms laws.

The bill passed through the Democratic-majority Assembly and Senate mostly along party lines, with Assemblymember Melissa Hardy, R-Henderson, the sole Republican to vote for the measure.

“This veto feels like a betrayal,” Alex Silva, an undergraduate student, president of the UNLV College Republicans and co-presenter of the bill, said in a statement. “We asked for leadership. We asked for action. Instead, we got silence — and now, a veto. What more do we have to endure before our safety matters?”

“Every year, hundreds of Nevadans lose their lives to gun violence,” Flores said in a statement Monday. “SB 156 was a focused, research-informed approach to preventing more tragedies. Vetoing this bill is a failure to act in the face of overwhelming need and public demand.”

Lombardo, in his veto message, wrote that SB 156 “takes the wrong approach” and accused the bill of “turning a public safety initiative into a political tool” through the special counsel. He added that the “broad authority” proposed for the counsel could “open the door to selective interpretation and ideological influence over firearms policy,” leading to “unchecked expansion and administrative overreach in shaping gun-related policies.”

“A more neutral, public health-oriented agency would be better suited to lead such efforts without the risk of politicization. Preserving public trust — and constitutional rights — requires that we address gun violence through nonpartisan, balanced means,” Lombardo wrote. “Because SB 156 injects too much political influence into an issue that demands careful, sensitive and impartial treatment, I cannot support it.”

The shooting, which took place inside Frank and Estella Beam Hall, put the campus on lockdown for hours as students and staff sheltered in place while law enforcement responded.

In the aftermath, the university shuttered Beam Hall for nearly a year as $2.5 million in enhanced safety measures were added to the building. By the time it reopened in August 2024, Beam Hall had been outfitted with more security cameras and new phones with large screens in each classroom, and the university had hired a security guard to be stationed on the first floor.

UNLV additionally hired an outside security firm to enhance overall campus safety and increased its mental health support services.

Flores, who teaches part time in UNLV’s public policy program, told colleagues at an April hearing of the state Senate Government Affairs Committee that “anybody who is a teacher, professor, administrator or a student in the state of Nevada, I think all of us were shaken to our bones.”

“Unfortunately,” Flores said, “we can’t change what happened, but one of the things we can do is take action.”

The UNLV shooting wasn’t the first active-shooter situation to terrorize the city in recent years.

The Las Vegas Strip on Oct. 1, 2017, was the scene of the deadliest mass shooting in modern United States history. The shooting at a music festival resulted in the deaths of 60 people and wounding of hundreds in attendance. Additionally, Nevada has the eighth-highest gun suicide rate in the nation, with overall gun death rates jumping by 37% over the past decade, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

“We will keep showing up, organizing and demanding solutions,” Imer Cespedes-Alvarado, a UNLV student and founder of the liberal advocacy group Youth Voice of Nevada, said in a statement. “This veto won’t be the end of the story.”

SB 156 wasn’t the only gun-related bill Lombardo vetoed.

He also rejected Assembly Bill 105, which would have broadly prohibited firearms near election polling stations. Lombardo maintained, in his veto message, that the bill’s objectives were already addressed in existing federal law making it illegal to threaten or intimidate voters to interfere with their voting rights.

Lombardo further contended that existing Nevada law makes it a felony to loiter near polling places with intent to disrupt elections.

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