AFP

A teenage gunman killed at least 19 young children and two adults at an elementary school in Texas on Tuesday, prompting a furious President Joe Biden to denounce the US gun lobby and vow to end the nation’s cycle of mass shootings.

The attack in Uvalde — a small community about an hour from the Mexican border — was the deadliest US school shooting in years, and the latest in a spree of bloody gun violence across America.

“It’s time to turn this pain into action for every parent, for every citizen of this country,” Biden said, his voice heavy with emotion.

“It’s time for those who obstruct or delay or block commonsense gun laws — we need to let you know that we will not forget,” he said.

“As a nation, we have to ask when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, addressing an earlier news conference, named the suspect as Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old local resident and a US citizen.

“He shot and killed, horrifically and incomprehensibly,” Abbott said.

Texas Department of Public Safety officials told CNN the gunman is believed to have shot his grandmother before heading to Robb Elementary School around noon where he abandoned his vehicle and entered with a handgun and a rifle, wearing body armor.

The gunman was killed by responding officers, the officials said, adding later two adults also died in the attack.

Footage showed small groups of children weaving through parked cars and yellow buses, some holding hands as they fled under police escort from the school, which teaches students aged around seven to 10 years old.

It was the deadliest such incident since the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut, in which 20 children and six staff were killed.

The White House ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in mourning for the victims — whose deaths sent a wave of shock through a country still scarred by the horror of Sandy Hook.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Robb Elementary — which teaches more than 500, mostly Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students — called on parents not to rush in to get their children.

“You will be notified to pick up students once all are accounted for,” the school said on its website soon after the attack.

– ‘Happens nowhere else’ –

Ted Cruz, a pro-gun rights Republican senator from Texas, tweeted that he and his wife were “lifting up in prayer the children and families in the horrific shooting in Uvalde.”

But Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, where the Sandy Hook shooting took place, made an impassioned appeal for concrete action to prevent further violence.

“This isn’t inevitable, these kids weren’t unlucky. This only happens in this country and nowhere else. Nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day,” Murphy said on the Senate floor in Washington.

“I’m here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues: Find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely.”

The deadly assault in Texas follows a series of mass shootings in the United States this month.

On May 14, an 18-year-old man shot 10 people dead at a Buffalo, New York grocery store.

Wearing heavy body armor and wielding an AR-15 rifle, the self-declared white supremacist livestreamed his attack, having reportedly targeted the store because of the large surrounding African American population.

The following day, a man blocked the door of a church in Laguna Woods, California and opened fire on its Taiwanese-American congregation, killing one person and injuring five.

Despite recurring mass-casualty shootings, multiple initiatives to reform gun regulations have failed in the US Congress, leaving states and local councils to strengthen — or weaken — their own restrictions.

The National Rifle Association has been instrumental in fighting against stricter US gun laws. Abbott and Cruz are listed as speakers at a forum that is being held by the powerful lobby in Houston, Texas later this week.

The United States suffered 19,350 firearm homicides in 2020, up nearly 35 percent compared to 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its latest data.

A mass shooting that left 18 schoolchildren dead in the deeply pro-gun state of Texas on Tuesday increased pressure on US politicians to take action over the ubiquity of firearms — but also brought the grim expectation of little or no change.

It was the eighth mass shooting this year, according to the Everytown gun control group, and came 10 days after another 18-year-old murdered 10 African Americans at a supermarket in New York.

But nearly 10 years after a man slaughtered 20 children and six others in an attack on the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, and four years after 17 were killed at a Florida high school, restrictions on gun purchases and ownership have not significantly changed.

“I had hoped, when I became president, I would not have to do this, again,” a distraught President Joe Biden said as he led national mourning, vowing to overcome the US gun lobby and find a way to tighten gun ownership laws.

“Another massacre… an elementary school. Beautiful, innocent, second, third, fourth graders,” he said. “I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.”

But guns of all kinds, especially high-powered assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols are cheaper and more widely available than ever across the United States.

And the all-too-familiar arguments over guns, public safety and rights re-opened immediately on the news of Tuesday’s mass shooting.

– Gun massacres ‘politicized’? –

The debate is set to intensify going into the weekend when Houston, Texas hosts the annual convention of the country’s leading pro-gun lobby, the National Rifle Association.

Scheduled to speak at the convention is former president Donald Trump, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and other prominent Republicans.

Senator Chris Murphy, who represents Connecticut, made an emotional call on the Senate floor on Tuesday for lawmakers to take action.

“Nowhere else does that happen except here in the United States of America and it is a choice. It is our choice to let it continue,” he said.

But Cruz quickly pushed back, saying people will use the shooting to attack the right of people under the US Constitution’s 2nd Amendment to own guns.

“When there’s a crime of this kind, it almost immediately gets politicized,” Cruz said.

Attacking constitutional gun rights “is not effective in stopping these sort of crimes,” he added.

– More guns, more shootings –

Yet data shows the grim national cost of gun crime.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the number of gun deaths in the United States underwent a “historic” increase in 2020.

And the US racked up 19,350 firearm homicides in 2020, up nearly 35 percent over 2019, and 24,245 gun suicides, up 1.5 percent.

At 6.1 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020, the firearm homicide rate was the highest in a quarter century. 

Mass shootings have also risen, according to Everytown.

“Since 2009, there have been 274 mass shootings in the United States, resulting in 1,536 people shot and killed and 983 people shot and wounded,” the group says.

The country is swamped with guns. US firearms makers produced over 139 million guns for the commercial market over the two decades from 2000, and the country imported another 71 million.

That includes high-powered assault rifles, which can be found for $500, and 9 millimeter pistols that combine ease of use, high accuracy and semi-automatic triggers with prices as low as $200.

– Gun laws eased in Texas –

But at every incident, proposals by state and federal lawmakers to tighten laws are rebuffed by conservative colleagues, who count on voter support from a sizeable portion of the public opposed to gun control.

Last year, a Pew poll said just 53 percent of Americans want stricter gun laws, and only 49 percent think tougher laws would decrease mass shootings.

Politicians like Abbott have instead moved to ease controls. Last year, the Texas governor signed a law allowing anyone in the state over 18 to openly carry a handgun without a license or training.

Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand, an activist arm of Everytown, pointed out that Texas is one of the country’s largest gun markets and has a high firearms death rate.

“If more guns and fewer laws made Texas safer, it would be the safest state with declining rates of gun violence,” Watts wrote on Twitter. 

“But it has high rates of gun suicide and homicide, and is home to four of the 10 deadliest mass shootings.”

A group of US Democratic lawmakers urged Google on Tuesday to stop collecting smartphone location data that could be used to identify women who have had abortions.

The move came amid fears that the US Supreme Court was considering overturning Roe v. Wade, a landmark 1973 ruling that guaranteed nationwide access to abortion.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders along with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were among more than 40 lawmakers who signed a letter to Google chief executive Sundar Pichai.

“We are concerned that, in a world in which abortion could be made illegal, Google’s current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records of cell phone location data will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care,” said the letter, which was published online.

“That’s because Google stores historical location information about hundreds of millions of smartphone users, which it routinely shares with government agencies.”

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

Polls show that a majority of Americans support some form of access to abortion.

But in recent months, Republican-controlled states have taken steps to restrict abortion rights — with some seeking an outright ban of the procedure without any exceptions — and overturning Roe would grant them greater freedom to enact their policies.

“If this decision becomes final, the consequences will be dire,” the lawmakers said.

“Republicans in Congress are already discussing passing a law criminalizing abortion in all 50 states, putting the government in control of women’s bodies.”

In their letter, the lawmakers urged Google to stop gathering location data from smartphones that could be used by prosecutors keen to identify women who have visited health care facilities that provide abortions.

Google routinely receives court orders compelling it turn over user location information, including “geofence” orders, that demand data about everyone who was near a particular place at a certain time, the letter said.

“If abortion is made illegal by the far-right Supreme Court and Republican lawmakers, it is inevitable that right-wing prosecutors will obtain legal warrants to hunt down, prosecute and jail women for obtaining critical reproductive health care,” the letter said.

“The only way to protect your customers’ location data from such outrageous government surveillance is to not keep it in the first place.”

Nonprofit digital rights group Fight For The Future echoed the legislators’ plea in an online petition demanding that Google get rid of its location data stockpile the could be “weaponized against abortion patients and doctors.”

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr made an impassioned plea for gun control in the wake of the Texas school shooting that left 18 children dead on Tuesday as the US sporting world reacted with horror over the tragedy.

Kerr refused to talk about his team’s NBA playoff match with the Dallas Mavericks in a pre-game press conference, held hours after a teenage gunman opened fire at a school in the Texas town of Uvalde.

An emotional Kerr, one of the most outspoken and articulate voices on social issues in American sport, slammed his hand on a table as he accused US lawmakers who refuse to vote on tougher gun laws of “holding the American people hostage.”

“I’m not going to talk about basketball,” Kerr told reporters shortly before Tuesday’s Eastern Conference finals game four in Dallas. “Any basketball questions don’t matter.

“Since we left shootaround, 14 children were killed 400 miles from here, and a teacher. In the last 10 days, we’ve had elderly black people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo, we’ve had Asian churchgoers killed in Southern California, now we have children murdered at school.

“When are we going to do something? I’m tired. I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there. 

“I’ve had enough. We’re going to play the game tonight. But I want every person here, every person listening to this, to think about your own child or grandchild, mother or father, sister, brother. 

“How would you feel if this happened to you today” asked Kerr, whose father was murdered by Islamic militants in Beirut in 1984.

Kerr reserved toughest criticism for members of the US Senate who have refused to vote on legislation that would introduce stricter background checks for gun owners. 

“Fifty Senators in Washington are going to hold us hostage,” Kerr said. “Do you realize that 90 percent of Americans, regardless of political party, want background checks, universal background checks? Ninety percent of us. 

“We are being held hostage by 50 Senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote, despite what we the American people want.”

– LeBron fury –

Kerr’s sense of outrage was shared by Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, who also called for change.

“Like when is enough enough man!!!,” James wrote on Twitter. “These are kids and we keep putting them in harms way at school. Like seriously, “AT SCHOOL” where it’s suppose to be the safest!

“There simply has to be change. HAS TO BE!!”

NFL athletes also demanded change. The Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl-winning quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who grew up in Texas, wrote on Twitter: “Has to stop man…prayers to all the families in Texas.”

Dallas Cowboys defensive star DeMarcus Lawrence meanwhile tweeted directly at Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

“Who is going to stand up and DEMAND we have better security at all these schools that can’t afford it????” Lawrence wrote. “How are our tax dollars not going to those who need the most protection??!! OUR CHILDREN! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!”

Former Houston Texans icon J.J. Watt added: “Devastated doesn’t even begin to describe it. Horrifying horrifying news out of Texas.”

Fourteen students and a teacher were shot dead Tuesday when an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at their Texas elementary school, the latest in the United States’ relentless cycle of school mass shootings.

Here are America’s deadliest classroom gun massacres in the last two decades.

– Columbine High School (1999) –

Two teenagers from Columbine, Colorado, armed with an assortment of weapons and homemade bombs, went on a rampage at their local high school.

Twelve students and a teacher were killed during the April 20 massacre. Another 24 people were wounded.

Columbine, whose name has become synonymous with school shootings, is one of the first — and still among the deadliest — such shootings in the United States.

– Virginia Tech (2007) –

A South Korean student at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute opened fire on the Blacksburg, Virginia, campus, killing 32 students and professors before committing suicide.

Thirty-three people were wounded.

The gunman had apparently idolized the Columbine shooters, referring to them as “martyrs” in a video, part of a hate-filled manifesto he mailed to police during the shooting.

– Sandy Hook Elementary School (2012) –

A 20-year-old man with a history of mental health issues killed his mother in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14 before blasting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Twenty children, aged six and seven, were shot dead, as well as six adults. The shooter then committed suicide.

The parents of Sandy Hook victims have led numerous campaigns to toughen gun control laws, but their efforts have largely failed.

Some conspiracy theorists insist the massacre was a government hoax, claiming the shooting involved “actors” in a plot to discredit the gun lobby.

– Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (2018) –

On February 14, a 19-year-old former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who was expelled for disciplinary reasons returned to the Parkland, Florida, school and opened fire.

He killed 14 students and three adult staff.

Stoneman Douglas students have become crusaders against gun violence under the banner “March for Our Lives,” lobbying for tougher gun control laws and organizing protests and rallies.

Their campaign has taken off on social media, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of young Americans.

– Santa Fe High School (2018) –

Ten people, including eight students, were killed when a 17-year-old student armed with a shotgun and a revolver opened fire on his classmates in rural Santa Fe, Texas.

Classes had just started on the morning of May 18 when the shooting began.

Following the tragedy, Texas Governor Greg Abbott unveiled 40 recommendations, mainly focused on increasing armed security on school campuses and stepping up mental health screenings to identify troubled children. 

Gun ownership can be a point of pride for many Texans, and even some Santa Fe High School students spoke out against linking the shooting to the need for better gun control.

The early morning sun has barely poked through the clouds, but Luz-Hazel Walrath and Pam Cuddapah have already been huddled outside a courthouse in the suburbs of Washington for nine hours — determined to show their support for Johnny Depp.

The two substitute teachers, both 23, drove five hours from their homes in North Carolina to Fairfax, Virginia, arriving at 10:00 pm on Monday evening to try to snag one of the 100 public seats for the next day’s hearing.

They were among scores who gather each day — and night — at the court, hoping to catch a glimpse of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star as he battles ex-wife Amber Heard in a blockbuster defamation case.

“We just wanted to support Johnny,” Walrath said, explaining she had grown up watching movies featuring the actor.

Walrath and Cuddapah may be biased, but they say they are not convinced by evidence presented by Heard’s legal team, who allege the actress suffered “rampant physical violence and abuse” from Depp.

“I usually believe victims, but in this specific case… I just don’t really fully believe her,” Cuddapah said. 

She says she came to her conclusion based on research via social media, while adding “also he’s a great actor.”

Almost all those waiting in the queue are loyal to Depp, who says Heard is actually the one who was violent toward him.

A few carry signs, some calling for “#JusticeforJohnny.” One group has come with a bouquet of heart-shaped balloons and a poster declaring their love for the troubled former pinup.

– Card games, and makeup –

In the small hours of Tuesday, many waited under the building’s colonnade to shelter from the rain.

They passed the time trying to sleep — wrapped up in blankets on the ground — playing cards, or chatting with new friends.

Early arrivals bided their time across the street before rushing across the courthouse lawn to secure a place in line when the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Department finally allowed them on the premises.

Office manager Glenna Bobb, who drove three hours from Philadelphia, described the scene as a “mad dash.” “Honestly, it was chaos,” she said.

By the time the sun comes up, the crowd is ready for breakfast and coffee ordered via delivery apps.

Some, still in their sweatpants, do their makeup as 7:00 am approaches — the moment when sheriff’s deputies hand out the wristbands that are the fans’ prized tickets into the courtroom.

Bobb, 44, started following the trial when it began back in April, when she was in isolation recovering from Covid.

“I had nothing else to do,” she said. “And then it was just like a train wreck.”

After all the wristbands are distributed, those who didn’t get in traipse to the back of the courthouse, hoping for the next best thing: a glimpse of Depp as he drives in through a rear entrance.

Barricades are erected as the street corner quickly fills with spectators, baby strollers and dogs — one wearing its own “Justice for Johnny Depp” sign.

A lone pro-Heard voice, Christina Taft holds up her sign blasting what she calls a social media “operation” against the “Aquaman” star.

Facing down the Depp crowd is “really hard,” the 28-year-old from Los Angeles said.

She uses a bullhorn to shout “Go Amber Heard!” as the actress’s car rolls through the parking lot gates, but she is drowned out by boos and taunts.

A few minutes later, Depp drives past, waving and smiling through the car’s open window at his cheering fans.