PM calls shooting ‘inexplicable’ as political tempers flare in Texas
‘Somebody needs to stand up for the children,’ O’Rourke says
A well-known political renegade confronted the governor of Texas on Wednesday, jabbing an angry, accusatory finger at the political establishment he said is the reason Americans are once again grappling with the aftermath of another deadly school shooting.
Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman and presidential hopeful who is now aiming to unseat Gov. Greg Abbott, interrupted a news conference in Uvalde, Tex., where state officials were briefing reporters on the previous day’s unspeakable tragedy.
“This is on you until you choose to do something different,” O’Rourke said over the din of camera shutters and the angry shouts of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who then accused O’Rourke of being “out of line and an embarrassment.”
“This will continue to happen,” O’Rourke continued. “Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed, just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.”
Nineteen preteen students and two teachers were gunned down in a classroom by an 18-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15 rifle.
It also laid bare one of the most persistent chasms in American life: the gulf between those willing to defend their right to bear arms at any cost, and those who insist the cost is already too great.
That chasm was on clear display Wednesday in Uvalde.
“There are family members who are crying as we speak; there are family members whose hearts are broken,” Abbott said as O’Rourke was escorted out of the auditorium.
“There’s no words that anybody shouting can come up here and do anything to heal those broken hearts.”
In Saskatoon, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described Tuesday as a “terrible, terrible day,” the conversation also quickly pivoted to what the government has done to date and will do going forward to keep guns out of the wrong hands.
“As a parent, I’m going to have to go home to my kids, including my eight-year-old, and talk to them again about the inexplicable school shooting that we saw in the United States,” Trudeau said.
“I think of the trauma that community is going through. I think of a shock that Americans and indeed people all around the world are facing right now, and yet another incredibly senseless, violent act in innocent communities, in schools,” he added.