USA: 19 children and two adults killed in a gun attack on a Texas school

LAST UPDATE: 08.23

An 18-year-old boy opened fire on a Texas elementary school on Tuesday, killing 19 children and two adults, one of whom was a teacher, a tragedy that plunges the United States back into the ever-returning nightmare of gun attacks in schools.

It is unknown at this time what prompted 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a high school student in Uwalde, to kill the young students, opening fire inside the halls of Rob’s school in the small town of Texas, some 130 miles from San Antonio.

The young man – pictured with shoulder-length hair and an expressionless style in a selfie he had uploaded to his account on the social networking site Instagram, while in another photo of him two rifles can be seen on the carpet – committed the massacre after first shooting his grandmother. It is not clear whether the two events are related. According to Texas law enforcement non-commissioned officer Eric Estranda, who spoke to CNN, the grandmother was admitted to University Health Hospital, where she is being treated in “critical condition”.

Wearing a bulletproof vest, equipped with at least one assault rifle, the young man initially escaped in a van, which was involved in a “spectacular car accident”, before leaving it and going to Rob Primary School around 11:30 (19:30 Greek time), trying to phenomena to escape from police.

For the students – up to ten years old – and the teachers in this school with about 500 children, most of them from Latin America, the lessons were completed tomorrow Thursday.

The school, with the slogan “Live. Learn. Love. Lead”, will be closed today and tomorrow, the last days of the school year.

The young perpetrator was killed in the exchange of fire with police that followed. Two police officers were slightly injured, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said earlier.

According to Pete Arendo, a police officer who undertook the investigation, the teenager acted alone. Officer Estranda said he did not know if he was known to authorities. Authorities are still trying to gather information “about his profile”, “his motives”, “the types of weapons he used and whether he possessed them legally”, according to Governor Abbott.

In each case, the people have, for the first time, been offered a chance to vote.

US President Joe Biden had earlier ordered the flags to fly at half-mast until Saturday.

Children under 10 years

The massacre, the worst of its kind since then at Sandy Hook Elementary School (2012), is forcing many in the United States to relive the torment of repeated school attacks in recent years, with shocking images of physically and mentally injured children being forced to they are locked in the classrooms before they are removed by law enforcement forces, parents in a state of insanity who beg desperately to find out the fate of their shoots …

Speaking shortly after returning from a tour of Asia, US President Joe Biden yesterday called for “action” to tackle the scourge of gun attacks, urging members of Congress to defy the lobby. of gun ownership.

“How many more dozens of young children, who saw what happened, will be forced to watch their friends die as if they were on a battlefield,” while at school, “for God’s sake?” asked the head of state.

“When, for God’s sake, will we stand tall in the arms lobby?” the 78-year-old Democratic head of state wondered. “I’m heartbroken and tired,” he added.

He stressed that he considers it “simply wrong” for any 18-year-old to be able to buy assault rifles. “Mass shootings like this rarely happen anywhere in the world – why? They have mental health problems elsewhere, other countries in the world have broken families, lost people. But this kind of mass shootings do not happen anywhere with the frequency they do in “America,” he added, using the term “US law enforcement agencies” for attacks using firearms that have four or more casualties.

“Why are we willing to go through with this massacre?”

He said neither he nor other Americans would forget those who obstruct or delay the passage of “common sense” gun legislation. Not all gun crimes will be prevented if stricter laws are passed, but the situation could improve, he added.

“It’s time to dump her and move on,” Biden said. “We can do a lot more”, “transform this pain into action”.

“Stumbles,” said Vice President Kamala Harris, who also called for “action” on the scourge of weapons. Stating that “our hearts continue to crack” every time something like this happens, he stressed that as a nation, Americans must find the courage to take action so that there is “never” another massacre at school.

The massacre took place 10 days after the one in Buffalo, New York, where a young racist attacked a supermarket and killed 10 people, mostly African Americans.

Sterile dialogue

Yesterday’s tragedy bears similarities to that in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, where a 20-year-old with mental health problems killed 26 people, including 20 children aged 6 to 7, before committing suicide.

Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator of this state, “begged” yesterday, addressing his colleagues in the semicircle to take action, assuring that tragedies of this kind are not “inevitable”. “Such massacres occur” only in this country – in no other country. In no other country do children who go to school think they can be shot, “he said, adding that members of Congress” are not powerless, “and reminded that in the United States , “weapons flow like water”, hence one massacre after another.

In 2018, after the attack of a student who was expelled from Parkland High School in Florida (17 dead, most of them teenagers and teenagers), massive demonstrations were organized, especially by young people, who had demanded that politicians legislate. But the dialogue on the issue remained barren.

Despite President Biden’s intervention, there is no real possibility that Congress – in which the arms lobby has had a strong influence for decades – will vote in favor of any ambitious gun reform, an issue that has long divided Americans.

According to the Small Arms Survey research institute, in 2017 there were 393 million firearms in the country, more than the population.