While many Americans and politicians offered thoughts and prayers over the news that 18 children and three teachers were killed Tuesday in a shooting at a Texas elementary school, many also shared their frustration that armed violence has continued. affecting the country for decades, and with little congressional action.
Gun control advocates were among the loudest on Twitter after the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which is the deadliest shooting at an American elementary school since the Sandy Hook massacre of the United States. 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut.
Moms Demand Action, a grassroots organization that advocates for armed violence that was founded after the Sandy Hook shooting, tweeted that “schools should be safe sanctuaries for our children, not where they are going to die.”
And the founder of the organization, Shannon Watts, published that school shootings are not acts of naturebut “acts of inaction, cowardice, man-made corruption by all lawmakers who refuse to pass data-proven laws to stop avoidable and senseless shootings like Ulvade.”
The arms control group Everytown for Gun Safety tweeted, “If the constant fear of armed violence is not a crisis, what is?”
Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was seriously injured in a mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona in 2011, tweeted that she was “devastated” by the Texas Elementary School shooting and described it as “a unique American problem “.
“How many more children will be killed by guns? How many truncated young lives, shattered families, traumatized communities because our leaders refuse to act?
In fact, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who was a Sandy Hook district congressman in 2012, went viral Tuesday to deliver a passionate speech in the Senate. “But I’m here on this floor to beg, literally to get on my knees to beg my classmates, to find a way forward,” he said. “By doing something, we should at least stop sending this silent message of support to those brainwashed killers, who see that the highest levels of government are doing nothing firing after firing.”
Read more: The shooting at Uvalde, Texas Elementary School prompts Senator Chris Murphy to ask lawmakers, “What are we doing? Why are we here?”
The White House has announced that President Biden will comment on the “horrible news” on Tuesday at 8:15 p.m., shortly after returning to DC.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted that “the president’s prayers are with the families affected by this terrible event.”
Former Secretary of State and Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted that “thoughts and prayers are not enough,” adding that “we are becoming a nation of cries of anguish.”
Among Republican leaders, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted that he was “horrified and heartbroken” by the “disgusting violence directed at innocent schookids in Uvalde, Texas.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement on the “horrific loss” saying that “Texans across the state are mourning the victims of this senseless crime,” and urged Texans to “unite.” to show our unwavering support to all who suffer. ”
American poet Amanda Gorman, who became a household name after reading her own poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, tweeted that “It takes a monster to kill children. But to see monsters kill children over and over again and do nothing is not just madness, it’s inhumanity. ”
Tuesday’s shooting is the 27th school shooting in the United States so far this year. And it comes less than two weeks after a gunman opened fire on a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 shoppers and black workers in what officials have described as a hate crime.
The Buffalo shootout led Biden to renew his push for a ban on assault weapons last week, although gun control bills continue to face a difficult path in the Senate 50-50 .