Pastor Daniel Myers places his hand on crosses bearing the names of Tuesday's shooting victims at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.Jae C. Hong/The Associated Press
Jazzlyn Noriega was sharpening a pencil in her Grade 4 classroom at Robb Elementary School late Tuesday morning when a bullet crashed through the wall and hit the ceiling.
Her teacher, a substitute, shut off the lights and had the children hide under tables. They remained crouched there for more than an hour as America’s gun violence epidemic found its way to their quiet corner of Texas.
By the time it was over, 19 students and two teachers were killed in the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook nearly a decade earlier.
“How crazy is it that you have to be 21 to buy cigarettes and beer, but you can buy an assault rifle at 18? That’s out of control. That’s ridiculous,” said Jennifer Gaitan, Jazzlyn’s mother, as she and her daughter relayed the story. “I don’t understand what it’s going to take to stop this.”
Less than two weeks after a gunman shot 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket in an attack that appeared to have been motivated by white supremacist beliefs, the killings in Uvalde are a reminder of America’s status as the only developed country to experience such persistent mass shootings.
The Uvalde shooting has also reignited debate over America’s lax gun-control laws. And the killings have left those mourning the dead in this blue-collar town of 15,000 near the Mexican border shaken over how close to home the carnage had come.
Gun violence in America, told through seven charts
Tony Gruben, pastor at the Baptist Temple Church, was taking his wife to a doctor’s appointment late Tuesday morning when he received an alarming text. His parishioner Donna Connell, a school counsellor at Robb, told him about the massacre as it was unfolding.
“She said there was an active shooter at the school, and to begin to pray,” he said.
He went to the town’s civic centre, where families gathered to await news of their children. School staff had to provide photos of the students so first responders could correctly identify those who had lost their lives, he said. After an agonizing 10-hour wait, the authorities were able to inform the parents around 10:30 p.m.
Mr. Gruben’s own children went to the school when they were younger, he said as he stood in the 40-degree heat outside the civic centre on Wednesday afternoon.
Nearby, Josh Palacios, 31, handed out free tacos to the gathered families of the victims and first responders.
Mr. Palacios, the San Antonio-based owner of El Remedio, a food truck business, said the shooting had made him anxious when he was dropping off his own two daughters at a different elementary school on Wednesday morning. So he brought one of his trucks 90 minutes down the highway, vowing to keep serving people until he ran out of food.
He expressed disbelief that the killer – 18-year-old Salvador Ramos – had been able to legally buy AR-15 rifles shortly before carrying out the shooting.
“They need to fix this whole gun policy. They make it so easy on the background check,” he said. “The idea that you’re just allowed to carry a firearm. After all these tragic losses, I don’t know why that change hasn’t happened. How many more people have to go through losing family members before they understand?”
The U.S. murder rate is nearly four times that of Canada, more than six times Britain’s and 25 times that of Japan – all countries with more stringent gun laws than America’s. Texas’s rules for gun ownership are particularly lax. The state allows people to buy assault-style rifles, avoid background checks in some instances and carry handguns without licences.
Earlier on Wednesday, former congressman Beto O’Rourke had confronted Texas Governor Greg Abbott over Mr. Abbott’s loosening of gun laws last year.
“The time to stop the next shooting is right now, and you are doing nothing,” Mr. O’Rourke, the Democratic nominee challenging Mr. Abbott in this year’s gubernatorial election, said at the Uvalde civic centre. Republicans standing with the governor, who was holding a news conference, shouted down Mr. O’Rourke, who was escorted out by security.
Deadliest mass shootings in the U.S.
By number of fatalities since 1982, School/university shooting in bold
Shooting
Date
Fatalities
Las Vegas Strip
2017-10-01
60
Las Vegas, Nev.
Orlando nightclub
2016-06-12
49
Orlando, Fla.
Virginia Tech
2007-04-16
32
Blacksburg, Va.
Sandy Hook Elementary
27
2012-12-14
Newtown, Conn.
Texas First Baptist Church
2017-11-05
26
Sutherland Springs, Texas
Luby's
1991-10-16
24
Killeen, Texas
El Paso Walmart
2019-08-03
22
El Paso, Texas
San Ysidro McDonald's
1984-07-18
22
San Ysidro, Calif.
Robb Elementary School
2022-05-24
21*
Uvalde, Texas
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
2018-02-14
17
Parkland, Florida
United States Postal Service
1986-08-20
15
Edmond, Okla.
San Bernardino mass
2015-12-02
14
San Bernardino, Calif.
Binghamton
2009-04-03
14
Binghamton, N.Y.
Fort Hood
2009-11-05
13
Fort Hood, Texas
Columbine High School
1999-04-20
13
Littleton, Colo.
Virginia Beach municipal building
2019-05-31
12
Virginia Beach, Va.
Thousand Oaks nightclub
2018-11-07
12
Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Washington Navy Yard
2013-09-16
12
Washington, D.C.
Aurora theatre
2012-07-20
12
Aurora, Colo.
Tree of Life synagogue
2018-10-27
11
Pittsburgh, Penn.
*As of Wed. afternoon
the globe and mail, Source: mother jones
Deadliest mass shootings in the U.S.
By number of fatalities since 1982
School/university shooting
Shooting
Date
Fatalities
Las Vegas Strip
2017-10-01
60
Las Vegas, Nev.
Orlando nightclub
49
2016-06-12
Orlando, Fla.
Virginia Tech
2007-04-16
32
Blacksburg, Va.
Sandy Hook Elementary
2012-12-14
27
Newtown, Conn.
Texas First Baptist Church
2017-11-05
26
Sutherland Springs, Texas
Luby's
1991-10-16
24
Killeen, Texas
El Paso Walmart
2019-08-03
22
El Paso, Texas
San Ysidro McDonald's
1984-07-18
22
San Ysidro, Calif.
Robb Elementary School
2022-05-24
21*
Uvalde, Texas
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
2018-02-14
17
Parkland, Florida
United States Postal Service
1986-08-20
15
Edmond, Okla.
San Bernardino mass
2015-12-02
14
San Bernardino, Calif.
Binghamton
2009-04-03
14
Binghamton, N.Y.
Fort Hood
2009-11-05
13
Fort Hood, Texas
Columbine High School
1999-04-20
13
Littleton, Colo.
Virginia Beach municipal building
2019-05-31
12
Virginia Beach, Va.
Thousand Oaks nightclub shooting
2018-11-07
12
Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Washington Navy Yard shooting
2013-09-16
12
Washington, D.C.
Aurora theatre
2012-07-20
12
Aurora, Colo.
Tree of Life synagogue
2018-10-27
11
Pittsburg[h, Penn.
*As of Wed. afternoon
the globe and mail, Source: mother jones
Deadliest mass shootings in the U.S.
By number of fatalities since 1982
School/university shooting
Shooting
Date
Fatalities
Las Vegas Strip
2017-10-01
60
Las Vegas, Nev.
Orlando nightclub
2016-06-12
49
Orlando, Fla.
Virginia Tech
2007-04-16
32
Blacksburg, Va.
Sandy Hook Elementary
27
2012-12-14
Newtown, Conn.
Texas First Baptist Church
2017-11-05
26
Sutherland Springs, Texas
Luby's
24
1991-10-16
Killeen, Texas
El Paso Walmart
2019-08-03
22
El Paso, Texas
San Ysidro McDonald's
1984-07-18
22
San Ysidro, Calif.
Robb Elementary School
2022-05-24
21*
Uvalde, Texas
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
2018-02-14
17
Parkland, Florida
United States Postal Service
1986-08-20
15
Edmond, Okla.
San Bernardino
14
2015-12-02
San Bernardino, Calif.
Binghamton
14
2009-04-03
Binghamton, N.Y.
Fort Hood
2009-11-05
13
Fort Hood, Texas
Columbine High School
1999-04-20
13
Littleton, Colo.
Virginia Beach municipal building
2019-05-31
12
Virginia Beach, Va.
Thousand Oaks nightclub
2018-11-07
12
Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Washington Navy Yard
2013-09-16
12
Washington, D.C.
Aurora theatre
2012-07-20
12
Aurora, Colo.
Tree of Life synagogue
2018-10-27
11
Pittsburgh, Penn.
*As of Wed. afternoon
the globe and mail, Source: mother jones
In Washington, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was ready to negotiate with Republicans over new gun control laws, including legislation that would red-flag people at risk of violence, to stop them from buying firearms.
But attempts at passing tougher laws – including measures that would have banned assault weapons and expanded background checks after Sandy Hook – have been repeatedly blocked by congressional Republicans. Few supporters of tighter controls are optimistic anything will change.
“It’s been 10 years since Sandy Hook. Nothing has happened. Nothing has been done,” said Joseph Avila, 38, after kneeling with a bouquet of yellow flowers and saying a prayer outside Robb on Wednesday. “It’s just happening over and over and over again. We’ve gotten nowhere with gun violence.”
A San Antonio native who grew up playing sports against kids from Uvalde, Mr. Avila is now trying to write algorithms to predict when people online are on the verge of committing mass shootings or hate crimes.
Throughout the afternoon, a steady stream of mourners arrived at the site.
Adriel Gonzalez, who brought flowers with his grandmother to lay outside the school, attended Robb years earlier. His Grade 3 teacher, Irma Garcia, was among the dead. A married mother of four who had taught at Robb for 23 years, she tried to protect her charges alongside fellow teacher Eva Mireles. They both paid for it with their lives.
“She was a sweet lady,” he said of Ms. Garcia, as he took in the hordes of camera crews and television vans set up around the brick, ranch-style building. “It’s just crazy. I didn’t think something would happen here in Uvalde, like that.”
Pastor Jaime Cabralez, the uncle of shooting victim 10-year-old Eliahana Cruz Torres, is surrounded in prayer at his church in Uvalde, Tex., on May 25.LISA KRANTZ/Reuters
A Grade 10 student at Uvalde High, Mr. Gonzalez had just completed a test on Tuesday when his teacher’s cellphone pinged with a lockdown alert. The class was huddled in the back of the room when Mr. Gonzalez’s mother sent him a message about the school shooting. As he scanned social media and realized the death toll, he was stunned.
“I couldn’t imagine how the kids were feeling in that classroom,” he said.
A mostly Hispanic town of clapboard houses and tangling water oaks, Uvalde is best known as an agricultural centre halfway between the metropolis of San Antonio and the Mexican border at Del Rio.
Next to the town’s central square, Raven Vasquez and her friends held signs that said “Remember Their Names.” In this town, she said, “everyone knows everyone and everyone loves everyone.” She added that now isn’t the time to sort out what caused the shooting.
“Honestly, I don’t care about politics. That’s why we came out here. We’re telling our friends to support the town, don’t do anything political,” said Ms. Vasquez, 21. “We want to remember the people in our community. We don’t want to argue about politics right now.”
Beto O'Rourke, the Democratic candidate running for governor against Greg Abbott, confronts the Texas governor at his press conference over Mr. Abbott’s loosening of gun laws last year.VERONICA CARDENAS/Reuters
On the sidelines of an evening vigil at the county fairgrounds, Ms. Gaitan recounted her daughter hearing the shooter’s voice during the rampage. He killed the children in a classroom two rooms down from Jazzlyn’s.
“She kept hearing him say to leave him alone in Spanish. I figure by that time, he was talking to the cops, telling them to leave him alone,” Ms. Gaitan said.
A stay-at-home mother, Ms. Gaitan, 30, arrived at the school almost immediately after seeing police cruisers racing past her house. But it was an excruciating wait to find out whether her daughter was alright.
One of her nephews and nieces also attend the school. She also used to mind one of the children who was killed, a boy named Jose. “He was such a good kid. So happy,” she said. “He obeyed. He never acted in any type of way.”
A day after the attack, Ms. Gaitan’s thoughts were also with the substitute whose quick actions may have been responsible for her daughter coming home to her.
“She thought so fast,” Ms. Gaitan said. “And she saved a lot more lives.”
A mother describes her daughter's experience of surviving the massacre at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook nearly a decade earlier.
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