A week after the shooting at the school in Uvalde, Texas, which shocked the United States, the small town buried the first victims of the massacre on Tuesday, one of the worst in recent years in the United States.
The funerals of the 19 children and the two teachers who died on May 24, shot by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, will last until mid-June.
One of the first ceremonies was at 2 p.m. for Amerie Jo Garza, a girl who had just celebrated her 10th birthday when she was killed.
The funeral of another victim, Maite Rodríguez, 10, will take place at 7 p.m. The girl, who wanted to be a marine biologist, was “kind, charismatic, loving,” wrote her mother, Ana Rodríguez. “This horrible, meaningless nightmare, which I can’t wake up from, absolutely shattered my life and heart,” she added.
The inhabitants of Uvalde, like many Americans, have expressed these days their anger and misunderstanding at the delay in intervening by the police.
Nineteen officers stood in the hallway of Robb Elementary School without intervening for almost three quarters of an hour, while Salvador Ramos was locked in a classroom with students. The police eventually came in and neutralized him.
This drama has sparked a wave of calls to more strictly regulate access to weapons in a country with more weapons than people and regularly experiencing deadly shootings.
President Joe Biden was able to hear Uvande’s claims firsthand when he went to school on Sunday. The crowd told him, “Do something!”
The president “must pass laws so that we can protect children from AR-15s,” the semi-automatic weapon used at Robb School, claimed Robert Robles, 73.
On Monday, Biden vowed to “keep pushing” for stricter firearms regulation. “It doesn’t make sense to be able to buy something that shoots up to 300 bullets,” he stressed.
But moving from words to actions will be difficult. The narrow majority of Democrats in Congress does not allow him to adopt this type of legislation alone.
Any bill on this matter needs a majority in the Senate, and for this the approval of the Republicans, or at least part of them, traditionally not inclined to legislate on the subject, is necessary.
