All the victims were reportedly in the same fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary School.
WEB DESK
The United States was in mourning Wednesday in the aftermath of the country’s latest mass killing, a teenage gunman’s assault on an elementary school in the southwestern state of Texas that left at least 19 children and two adults dead. It was one of the deadliest rampages at a school in the country’s history.
The attack unfolded in the small city of Uvalde, where authorities said the 18-year-old gunman first shot his grandmother at her home, then crashed a car and entered the school, carrying out the shootings before law enforcement killed him.
All the victims were in the same fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary School, a law enforcement official told CNN.
U.S. President Joe Biden, in an emotional White House address late Tuesday, expressed condolences to the victims’ families, while questioning why mass shootings are so common in the U.S. and urging lawmakers to support what he called “common sense gun laws.”
“I am sick and tired,” he said. “We have to act.”
“Why are we willing to live with this carnage?” he asked. “Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone? When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?”
It was not immediately clear that the latest mass killing changed the minds of any opposition Republican lawmakers in the Senate, who in the past have blocked restrictive gun measures favored by Biden and Democratic senators.
At least 10 Republican lawmakers would need to join all 50 Democrats in the chamber to pass restrictive gun control legislation.
Some lawmakers talked of trying to reach legislative compromises that would require further background checks of gun buyers, extend the time frame for such checks or ban the sale of guns over the internet. The U.S. banned the sale of assault weapons, often used in mass killings and, according to police, deployed by the gunman in Tuesday’s attack, from 1994 to 2004. Congress then failed to renew the law.
Legislative attempts to tighten gun laws have been adamantly opposed by lobbyists for gun manufacturers and pro-gun lawmakers who cite Americans’ rights to gun ownership that is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
Biden said he learned about the shootings as he was returning from a trip to Asia.
“What struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world,” Biden said. “Why? They have mental health problems. They have domestic disputes in other countries. They have people who are lost. But these kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency they happen in America. Why?”
Texas Department of Public Safety Sergeant Erick Estrada told CNN that officers saw the gunman leave the crashed car carrying a rifle, and that officers “engaged” the suspect, but that he was still able to get into the school.