An 18-year-old teenager opened fire Tuesday at an elementary school in
Texas, killing 18 children in the deadliest US school shooting in years.
The attack in Uvalde, Texas, a small town an hour from the border with Mexico, is the latest in a wave of deadly shootings in the United States, where the horror of gun violence it has failed to galvanize enough action to end it.
(Also: Shooting in Texas leaves at least 21 dead: 18 are children)
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said the shooter, identified as Salvador Ramos, was believed to have shot his grandmother before driving to Robb Elementary School around noon, abandoning his vehicle and entering with a handgun and possibly also a rifle.
“He heinously and senselessly shot and killed 18 students and killed a teacherAbbott said at a news conference.
The governor said the suspect, whom he described as a local teenager and US citizen, had also “passed away,” adding that he was “believed to have been killed by responding police officers.”
When, for God’s sake, are we going to take on the gun lobby?
Small groups of children were seen weaving between parked cars and buses, some holding hands as they walked out under police escort from the school, which has students between the ages of seven and 10.
The shooting was the deadliest since the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut in 2012, which killed 20 children and six employees. The White House ordered flags to be flown at half-staff for the victims, whose deaths caused a wave of shock. President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting and planned to address the nation later Tuesday.
Biden’s harsh reaction
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, asked himself this Tuesday in an address to the nation when his country will stand up to the gun lobbyafter the death of 18 minors in a shooting at an elementary school in Texas.
“As a nation we have to ask ourselves when in God’s name are we going to stand up to gun lobbyists, when in God’s name are we going to do what deep down we know to do,” Biden said. .
After pointing out that since then there have been 900 shootings with firearms in schools in the countryincluding the one at Parkland High School in 2018 with 17 deaths, Biden regretted having to relive such an episode.
“I’m tired. We have to act. We all know what to do,” stressed the president, visibly affected, once again sending a message to his country’s legislators to regulate gun control.
He wondered why Americans have to continue to live with these “butcher shops” and why this is the only country in which massacres of this type take place.
And he insisted on the need to turn “pain into action” and have the “courage” to confront pressure groups in favor of arms. “For every parent, for every citizen of this country, we have to make it clear to every elected official in America that now is the time to act,” he repeated.
‘Stop!’
“Enough is enough,” said the vice president, Kamala Harris, and called for “acting” for gun control. “Our hearts continue to break,” she said, referring to the litany of school shootings. “We have to have the courage to act.”
The White House ordered flags to be flown at half-staff for the victims, whose deaths caused a wave of shock.
“President Biden has been briefed,” his spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, tweeted. “His prayers are with the families affected by this terrible event, and he will speak tonight when he returns to the White House” from his trip to Asia.
The Government of Mexico regretted the tragic incident and “strongly” condemned this act of violence. “Mexico extends its most sincere condolences to all affected families and will offer all consular support to Mexicans who require it,” he said on Twitter.
The school, which has more than 500 second through fourth graders, mostly Hispanic and economically disadvantaged, asked parents not to pick up their children until they were all accounted for.
‘Nowhere else’
This is not inevitable, these children were not unlucky. This only happens in this country and nowhere else.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, tweeted that he and his wife were praying for the children. and the families “in the horrible shooting in Uvalde”.
But Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, where the Sandy Hook shooting took place, made an impassioned call for his colleagues to take concrete steps to prevent further violence.
“Nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking they might get shot that day,” Murphy said, pleading “to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely.”
Robb Elementary School in Texas, where a minus killed 15 people
allison dinner / AFP
violence on the rise
Attacks carried out by an active shooter have increased dramatically in recent months. According to official FBI figures, 103 people died in 2021 in these incidents, which grew by 50 percent compared to 2020.
This month there were other mass shootings in the United States. On May 14, an 18-year-old self-proclaimed white supremacist shot 10 people to death at a store in Buffalo, New York, in an area with a large African-American population.
The next day, a man who said he was “upset by political tensions between China and Taiwan” fired on the Taiwanese-American congregation at a church in Laguna Woods, California, killing one person and wounding five.
But despite repeated mass shootings, multiple initiatives to reform gun regulations have floundered in the US Congress, leaving states and local councils to enact their own restrictions.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has been instrumental in the fight against the passage of stricter gun laws. Abbott and Cruz are listed as speakers at a forum organized by that powerful lobbying group in Houston, Texas, later this week.
The United States recorded 19,350 homicides with firearms in 2020almost 35% more than in 2019, according to official data.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With AFP and Bloomberg
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