President Joe Biden visited Uvalde after the massacre at the elementary school last Tuesday

First modification: 05/30/2022 – 05:26

US President Joe Biden, on his announced visit to Uvalde, Texas, visited the families of the victims of Tuesday’s shooting at an elementary school that killed 19 children and two teachers.

Biden, along with the first lady, Jill Biden, visited the Robb school, where the commemorations have been held. They carried white roses there and paid their respects to the makeshift shrines of the 21 people who lost their lives during the mass shooting carried out by an 18-year-old, who had previously announced his plans on social media.

From outside the Catholic church where mass for the deceased was being celebrated, people chanted: “Do something.” Leaving the ceremony, the president responded to the crowd, saying, “We will.”

After this first act, the presidential couple met with survivors and relatives for several hours.

From his Twitter account, the president said: “We cry with you. We pray with you. We stand in solidarity with you. And we are committed to turning this pain into action.”

The Governor of Texas was also present

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, accompanied the president on his visit and was shouted at by aides who told him “we need help Governor Abbott” and “shame on you Abbott!”

An 11-year-old girl, a friend of the victims, Bella Barboza, sent a message to the president: “This world is not a good place for children to grow up.”

One of the attendees, Ben González, a Uvalde resident, said they need “new gun laws. But we also need to focus on mental health. There is no single answer to this problem.”

This is Biden’s third presidential visit to a mass shooting site. A month ago the president was in Buffalo, New York, after the attack of a man who killed 10 people in a supermarket, in what was considered a racist massacre.

Mass shootings in the US opened another gap in the country

Both shootings brought to the fore the country’s deep divisions and its inability to reach a consensus on measures to reduce gun violence.

According to White House sources, it is very unlikely that Biden will take measures such as executive orders on weapons, which would be his only way out, although he wants to avoid confrontations with the already divided Senate, especially ahead of the mid-term elections, to be held on November 8, where the Democrats must fight to preserve their majorities.

Still, in Congress, a bipartisan group of senators spoke over the weekend to see if they could reach a compromise on gun safety legislation after a decade of largely unsuccessful efforts.

President Biden has on other occasions championed policies that have won an assault weapons ban in 1994, which expired in 2004, and lost other battles, such as when he was unable to pass new legislation after the 2012 school massacre. Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

The Republican opposition, led by Senator Ted Cruz, former President Donald Trump and the Texas governor himself, reject the call for new gun control measures and aim to treat mental illness or increase school safety.

With Reuters and AP