Response to horror school shooting proves America still doesn’t get it
As the US reels from yet another deadly school shooting, one response from the Texas governor proves America still doesn’t get it.
The US is once again reeling from another horrific mass shooting which has left more than 20 people dead at Texas primary school.
At least 19 children and two adults were killed when a gunman stormed Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and opened fire.
The suspect, who is now deceased, is believed to be 18-year-old Salvador Ramos who was a senior student at Uvalde High School.
As the world reacts to this sickening tragedy, one response from the Texas governor has proved one thing that so many people in America still don’t understand when it comes to the continued mass shootings plaguing the country.
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Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, said Ramos “incomprehensibly” gunned down students and teachers.
“It’s believed that he abandoned his vehicle and entered 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,” he said.
His claim that this shooting was “incomprehensible” is proof that the US is blind to a truth that the rest of the world sees as glaringly obvious.
Joe Biden speaks after massacre
US President Joe Biden spoke after the shooting, questioning “why do we keep letting this happen?”
“Where in God’s name is our back-bone? To have the courage to deal with it and stand up to the lobbyists,” he said.
“It’s time to turn this pain into action. For every parent. For every citizen of this country.
“We have to make it clear to every elected official, it’s time to act. It’s time for those who have obstructed or delayed or blocked the common sense gun laws, we need to let you know we will not forget. We can do so much more.”
How can these shootings still happen?
How can such an event be incomprehensible when it happens every single year, with 27 school shootings with injuries and deaths already occurring in 2022 alone?
The problem is, undeniably, rooted in America’s gun laws – a fact which many citizens have continually refused to acknowledge, likely for fear of losing their “right” to bear arms.
Education Week has been tracking school shootings that have resulted in injuries or deaths since, with 119 occurring since 2018.
Of those, 27 have occurred in this year alone. The highest number of shootings in this category, 34, occurred last year.
There were 10 shootings resulting in injury or death in 2020, and 24 each in 2019 and 2018.
This number explodes when looking at every school shooting instance across the country.
So far in 2022 there has been a total of 136 school shooting incidents, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database run by the Centre for Homeland Defense and Security.
The database tracks every school shooting incident that has occurred in the US since 1970, with the graph showing shootings have exponentially increased in the past five years alone.
In 2021 there was 149 school shooting incidents across the country.
US Senator Chris Murphy has led renewed calls for the government to actually do something to put an end to these shootings.
Taking to the Senate floor, Mr Murphy said he was there to “beg” his colleagues to work together to pass new laws.
“This only happens in this country and nowhere else, nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day. Nowhere else do parents have to talk to their kids as I have had to do about why they got locked into a bathroom and told to be quiet for five minutes just in case a bad man entered that building,” he said.
“Nowhere else does that happen except here in the United States of America. And it is a choice. It is our choice to let it continue.”
Mr Murphy fired up while speaking to reporters afterwards, lashing the claim that mental illness, not guns, is to blame for children repeatedly being killed at school.
“Spare me the bulls**t about mental illness. We don’t have any more mental illness than any other country in the world,” he said.
“You cannot explain this through a prism of mental illness because we’re not an outlier on mental illness. We’re an outlier when it comes to access to firearms and the ability of criminals and very sick people to get their hands on firearms. That’s what makes America different.”
Mr Murphy’s calls have been echoed by many in the wake of the shooting.
Doctor and Liberal candidate for Toronto, Nathan Stall, claimed gun violence was a public health crisis.
“Gun violence is a public health crisis — just like in any epidemic, the key to reducing harm is to reduce exposure to the cause, which in this case is guns,” he said in a Twitter post.
“The only way to respond is #GunControlNow.”
Lieutenant governor of Connecticut, Susan Bysiewicz, urged Congress to pass “commonsense” gun laws immediately.
“There are no words to describe the callousness of this event, and to do nothing to adress rampant gun violence is yet another avoidable tragedy,” she wrote on Twitter.
We shouldn't act shocked. Why do we let this happen. It isn't normal.
— Nirmal Ghosh (@karmanomad) May 25, 2022
- Fred Guttenberg, father of Parkland school shooting. #Texaselementary
You need a heart to be heartbroken.
— Charles Booker (@Booker4KY) May 25, 2022
Another mass shooting. Young children lost. You act powerless when you specifically blocked any chance for common sense gun safety.
Mitch McConnell, you are a liar. https://t.co/1f5xITuNqH
My school shooting talk to my teenager — a talk we have been having since she was in KINDER — is now "I'm sorry Republicans are evil and they care more about guns and capitalism than people. But- your generation can vote in a few years, vote every one of them out."
— Yolanda Machado (@SassyMamainLA) May 24, 2022
When does it end? When do we tell the gun cult enough is enough? 14 children, 1 teacher killed in Texas elementary school shooting, governor says https://t.co/6G7OJiQhMA via @Newsday
— Michael O'Keeffe (@MOKNYC) May 24, 2022
Mr Murphy also made an impassioned speech to Congress, questioning why they choose to “do nothing” when tragedies like this occur.
“Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate, why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in a position of authority, if your answer, is as the slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing?” Mr Murphy asked.
“What are we doing, why are you here, if not to solve a problem as existential as this?”
Mr Murphy claimed this tragedy echoed the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Connecticut.
“What are we doing? What are we doing? Just days after a shooter walked into a grocery store to gun down African American patrons we have another Sandy Hook on our hands,” he said.
“There were more mass shootings than days in the year. Our kids are living in fear every single time they set foot in the classroom because they think they’re going to be next.”
He noted that his Republican colleagues may not agree with everything he supports, but urged them to find a common denominator to help stop these tragic events occurring.
“It will not solve the problem of American violence by itself, but by doing something, we at least stop sending this quiet message of endorsement to these killers whose brains are breaking, who see the highest levels of government doing nothing shooting after shooting,” Mr Murphy said.
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