The governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, minimized today at a press conference the impact of gun regulation on mass shootings.
The day after the murder of nine children and two teachers, the governor tried to divert the discussion on gun control, a burning issue that the events in Texas have once again brought to the surface. «The possibility of an adult buying a long gun has existed for 60 years. And we had not had episodes like that. What has changed in this time is the challenge of mental health,” said the official, publicly known for defending free access to weapons. “Anyone who shoots another person has a mental problem. And period », he stressed.
But Democrat Beto O’Rourke cut him off. In the middle of the conference, held in the auditorium of Robb Elementary School, the scene of yesterday’s events, O’Rourke got up from his seat and said, “You’re not doing anything. This is his fault, it was totally predictable.”
“You’re out of line and you’re a disgrace,” Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, a Republican, told O’Rourke. Minutes later, O’Rourke was led out of the room.
On the other hand, it was learned that Salvador Ramos, the author of the massacre, had no criminal record. No records of mental illness have been found in his medical records either. The 18-year-old had dropped out of high school and lived with his grandparents. His 66-year-old grandmother tried to stop his plans, but Ramos shot her in the face and left with the guns towards the school.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott reported that the shooter posted what he was doing on Facebook that day. About half an hour before the massacre, he wrote on the social network: “I’m going to shoot my grandmother.” Shortly after, he specified: “I already shot my grandmother.”
Ramos shot him in the face. Even so, the woman managed to call the police to notify them that the young man was on his way to school. Fifteen minutes before crashing his vehicle and breaking into it, the killer wrote on his last post: “I’m going to shoot up an elementary school.”
The spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, Chris Olivares, announced that all the victims were in the same class, where the shooter barricaded himself to carry out the massacre. “This just shows the total evil of this shooter,” he told CNN.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2020 the United States suffered 19,350 homicides with firearms, almost 35% more than in 2019.
