An 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two adults in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The incident took place on Tuesday (local time) after the 18-year-old gunman opened fire at the school. The gunman was later killed by law enforcement officers, CNN reported.
The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) in Texas said they are cancelling all school activities after the shooting at Robb Elementary School. This is the deadliest attack since the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed, according to CNN. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that an elementary school shooter is an 18-year-old male from Uvalde. “It’s believed that he abandoned his vehicle and entered into the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun and he may have also had a rifle, but that is not yet confirmed according to my most recent report,” Abbott said as quoted by CNN.
According to UCISD, the shooter on Tuesday was at Robb Elementary School at
12:17 pm (US time) and law enforcement was on site. Upon this incident, White House new press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that President Joe Biden has been briefed on the school shooting in Texas. “President Biden has been briefed on the horrific news of the elementary school shooting in Texas and will continue to be briefed regularly as information becomes available,” she tweeted. “His prayers are with the families impacted by this awful event, and he will speak this evening when he arrives back at the White House,” Jean-Pierre added.
Biden asked Americans to stand up to the gun lobby and urged the members of the Congress for an immediate gun control legislation as he highlighted that “sensible gun laws” needed to be passed in the wake of the Texas school shooting. “When we passed the Assault Weapons Ban (in 1994), mass shootings went down. When the law expired [in 2004], mass shootings tripled. The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy assault weapons, it’s just wrong,” the US President said hours after the deadliest school shooting in Texas.
Suggesting to reinstate the assault weapons ban and other “common-sense” gun laws, Biden said, “we have to act.” Pointing to Congress members, he said, “It’s time for those who have struck or delayed or blocked the common-sense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget.” Addressing the presser, Biden hoped that when he became the President, he would not have to do this, again. Biden drew on his own experience with grief, having lost his first wife and young daughter in a car accident in 1972 and an adult son to cancer in 2015. “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away,” he said. “There’s a hollowness in your chest you feel like you’re being sucked into it … you’re never quite the same”. The US President asked the nation to pray for them and “give the parents and siblings strength in the darkness they feel right now as a nation.” Biden mentioned the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, and said, “Since then they have been over 900 incidents of gun fires reported on school grounds.” He spoke of the shooting in Buffalo 10 days ago and lamented that in both incidents, an 18-year-old was able to purchase a gun and commit such heinous crimes.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres extended his heartfelt condolences over the mass shooting. Taking to Twitter, the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Abdulla Sahid said, “Deeply saddened to know about the horrific and indiscriminate firing at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Heartfelt condolences to the parents, siblings, family members, friends & community members bearing this unimaginable anguish.”