US President Joe Biden addressed the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, which left 19 children and two teachers dead. The 18-year-old gunman, who reportedly bought his weapons legally just after his 18th birthday, was killed by responding officers. The gunman also posted private messages warning of his plans on Facebook before the attack.
This is the worst shooting of the kind since 2012, when a gunman killed 26 people (mostly first graders) at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The event also comes just 10 days after another mass shooting which claimed the lives of 10 shoppers at a Buffalo, New York grocery store.
For many years, Democrats have been trying to enact new gun-control policies. Yet, many of these proposals have been rejected by Republicans and some centrist Democrats. During his remarks on Tuesday, Biden asked, “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?”
Key comments:
“I hoped, when I became president, I would not have to do this again,” said US President Joe Biden at the White House. “Another massacre in Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school. Beautiful, innocent second, third and fourth graders.”
“I ask you, Mitch McConnell, I ask all of you senators who refuse to do anything about the violence in school shootings and supermarket shootings, I ask you: are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children and our elderly and our churchgoers?” said Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors, a basketball team based in San Francisco, in an emotional address during a pre-game press conference. “Because that’s what it looks like.”
“It would be very difficult,” said Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma on Tuesday, referring to his belief that gun control legislation is unlikely to prevent mass shootings like the one in Uvalde. “You’re talking about millions of people out there, and there have got to be some screwballs that are just totally unpredictable. And there’s no way to identify who they are.”
