Attacker shoots dead 19 kids at Texas Uvalde School

A terrible act of violence took place at a school in Texas. An assassin shot dead 21 people, including 19 children. The suspected shooter was apparently shot dead by police.

A shooting at a Texas elementary school has reportedly killed 21 people, including 19 children and two adults. Public Safety Agency Sgt. Erick Estrada confirmed this to CNN.

A total of 19 fatalities had previously been mentioned. A local hospital confirmed on Twitter that four other people are being treated, including a 10-year-old and a 66-year-old in critical condition.

According to the police, an attacker opened fire on Tuesday afternoon in the elementary school in the small town of Uvalde. According to initial findings, he was finally killed by officials. The suspected shooter is said to be an 18-year-old, police said.

The head of the local police, Pete Alons, said in a press conference that he assumes that the alleged perpetrator Salvador R. acted alone. He was armed with a handgun and possibly a rifle. Two officers were also hit by bullets, but were hardly injured.

The incident happened at an elementary school in the city of Uvalde, about 135 kilometers west of San Antonio. About 600 children are taught here.

According to unconfirmed information, the perpetrator is said to have published pictures of machine guns on Instagram. The account has since been deleted. A user on Instagram wrote that she received a text from a stranger: “I have a little secret. I want to tell you.” The message apparently came from the now-deleted account. Its owner followed several students from Uvalde in the network. Read more here.

Allegedly, the 18-year-old also tried to shoot his grandmother. According to CNN, she was taken to a clinic in San Antonio by helicopter in critical condition.

US flags at half mast

In an address to the nation, US President Joe Biden recalled the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting that killed 20 children and six adults.

“Since then, over 900 incidents of school shootings have been reported. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Santa Fe High School in Texas, Oxford High School in Michigan – the list goes on,” Biden said. “I’m fed up and tired of it. We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have any say in this slaughter,” he added.

The White House also ordered the US flag to be flown at half-mast by May 28 at the seat of government and public facilities.

Repeated gun attacks in the United States

Numerous people in public life expressed their grief over the massacre on social networks. In addition, there were renewed calls for stricter gun laws in the country. Read the emotional reactions to the crime here.

Deadly gun attacks are common in the United States. Schools are also often affected.

Just over a week ago, a gunman with an assault rifle opened fire in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing ten people and injuring three. The 18-year-old suspect was arrested at the scene. According to investigators, the act was racially motivated – 11 of the 13 victims were black.

The leader of a broken nation

An 18-year-old gunman kills 19 children at an elementary school. In the US, the horror is great. again. But nothing will change in the liberal gun laws.

“Losing a child,” begins Joe Biden, addressing his nation after a 17-hour flight from Japan, “losing a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away.” . The US President’s nightly speech is like a 19-fold obituary, a eulogy to a paralyzed nation.

Only a few days after Joe Biden had traveled to Buffalo to mourn the ten dead of the right-wing terrorist attack in a supermarket, the next catastrophe breaks out in the USA: another mass murder. While the President is still on Air Force One on the return flight to Washington, 19 children and two other people, including a teacher, are brutally murdered at an elementary school in the small Texas town of Uvalde. The perpetrator: the just 18-year-old teenager Salvador R. (Read a summary of what happened here.)

“There’s this emptiness in your chest, and you feel like you’re being sucked in there. It feels like you’re never going to get out, like you’re suffocating,” Joe Biden said in his speech. He knows what he’s talking about. He also lost a daughter and a son with Naomi and Beau Biden. Naomi along with his first wife in a traffic accident. Beau died of cancer.

Speechless, helpless and powerless

“Never again will they be able to hop in their parents’ beds to cuddle with them,” Biden said. Next to him is his wife Jill, First Lady and herself a teacher. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep allowing this to happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone to stand up to the lobbies?”. The most powerful man in the world seems at the same time the most helpless at this moment. Instead of answers, Joe Biden only has questions for the people he is actually supposed to protect.

Since then, numerous politicians and celebrities have spoken out and called for action to be taken. Steve Kerr, coach of the San Francisco-based Golden State Warriors basketball team, was particularly explicit. 90 percent of Americans are in favor of tougher controls. But 50 senators would hold 90 percent of Americans hostage and do nothing. “It makes me sick,” Kerr said. Then he leaves the podium and exclaims: “It’s pathetic! I’ve really had enough!”. Read more emotional reactions here.

Everything as before

But gun laws in the United States remain as they are. In Congress, the Democrats lack the majority they need to really change anything. The power of the gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, is too great and the will of the elected deputies and senators too weak to finally act after all the massacres of the past decades. More than 300 million guns are in private hands in the United States. In no other country do so many people die from gun violence.

Ironically, next weekend it’s that time again. The National Rifle Association (NRA) convenes in Houston, Texas for its annual meeting. Former President Donald Trump, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Senator Ted Cruz are all expected to speak there. They are all supporters of liberal gun laws in the USA.

Political games

While the horror is great, especially in the political camp of the Democrats, the Republicans are trying to distract themselves. There is talk of “absolute evil” that has befallen the United States. About the fact that the massacre should not be used as a political instrument. About teachers finally having to be armed.

The questions asked in this political camp are: “Was the shooter an illegal immigrant?” or “Did he have mental health problems?”. Not much is known about the perpetrator. Except that he had already boasted about his weapons on Instagram before the assassination.

Given the political situation in the country and the apparent unwillingness to address the root causes of gun violence, it’s safe to assume that everything will stay the way it is.

The committed speech by the Democratic US Senator Chris Murphy will therefore simply fade away, like so many before it. Late at night he asked his colleagues to finally act. “What are we here for?” the Connecticut man pleaded. First Lady Jill Biden tweeted, “God it’s enough.” Vice-President Kamala Harris remained stubborn as usual. “As a nation, we must have the courage to take action and prevent this from ever happening again,” she told the country. She didn’t say how.

In his funeral address to the nation, Joe spoke of the emptiness and hollowness that parents feel when their child is taken from them. It is nothing but emptiness that will remain in the soul of this nation again.

From Columbine 1999 to Sandy Hook 2012 to Uvalde 2022: empty words. Again and again. And nothing else.