New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Connecticut officials, gun-reform advocates condemn Texas shooting
Nearly a decade after 20 elementary school students and six staff members were fatally shot in Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary, officials said a teen killed at least 18 children at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday.
The death toll also included three adults, but it was not immediately clear whether that number included the gunman, according to the Associated Press.
The shooting at Robb Elementary School outside of San Antonio gave sharp focus to what has become a grim reality in the United States in the years since the Sandy Hook shooting: Even the most vulnerable
are not safe from the ravages of gun violence.
Addressing the nation Tuesday night, President Joe Biden said he is “sick and tired” of the violence.
“It’s been 3,448 days, 10 years, since I stood up at a … grade school in Connecticut where another gunman massacred 26 people, 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary school. Since then, there have been over 900 incidents of gunfire reported on school ground,” he said. “The list goes on, and the list grows when it includes mass shootings at places like movie theaters, houses of worship, as we saw just 10 days ago at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y.”
“These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world,” Biden said. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Where in God’s name is our backbone?”
“It’s time to turn this pain into action,” he continued, calling for Americans to stand up to gun lobbyists. “It’s time to act.”
While details were still limited immediately after Tuesday’s shooting, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the 18-year-old shooter was dead, apparently shot by responding officers. Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo identified the shooter as Salvador Ramos.
According to Abbott, the shooter entered the building with a handgun and possibly a rifle, before opening fire.
It was the deadliest shooting at a U.S. grade school since Sandy Hook on Dec. 14, 2012.
“The news of another mass shooting, this time from Texas, is devastating. One life taken by gun violence is too many, but 15 innocent lives, including 14 children, is an utter tragedy,” Gov. Ned Lamont said earlier in the day, ordering the flags in the state to fly at half staff.
“Nearly 10 years after Sandy Hook, Connecticut knows this feeling all too well. Our collective hearts and prayers go out to the families in Uvalde trying to process the unimaginable.”
While federal gun reform has been elusive following the Sandy Hook shooting, nine families of the victims successfully challenged whether a gunmaker could be held accountable if their weapon is used in a mass shooting.
In what has been described as a landmark case, Remington, a manufacturer of the rifle used in the Sandy Hook shooting, agreed to a $73 million settlement with families to resolve the wrongful death suit.
On Tuesday, representatives of the families of Sandy Hook victims reached an agreement with InfoWars host Alex Jones that will move along the trial to award damages in the defamation lawsuit the families won last year. A federal judge’s ruling last week in Texas will allow a similar defamation trial to begin as soon as June.
Two defamation lawsuits were filed in Texas, while a third was filed in Connecticut after Jones called the Sandy Hook shooting “staged,” “a giant hoax” and “completely fake with actors.”
Po Murray, the chairwoman of Newtown Action Alliance and a former neighbor of the Sandy Hook shooter, said the community was reeling Tuesday over the similarities between the two incidents and the age of the victims.
“Obviously, we’re all devastated by what happened and the similarity between that shooting and the Sandy Hook shooting breaks our heart because we know exactly what they’re going through right now,” Murray said.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who has been on a political mission for a decade to pass gun violence legislation, immediately took to the Senate floor Tuesday to draw a parallel between the devastation in Sandy Hook and the shooting in Texas. As he has often done over the past decade, Murphy pleaded with fellow senators to pass gun control legislation.
“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,” he said. “Work with us to find a way to pass laws that makes this less likely. I understand my Republican colleagues may not agree to everything that I may support, but there is a common denominator that we can find.”
Murphy said he didn’t expect gun control laws to end mass shootings or altogether eliminate gun violence, but would represent at least an attempt to address the problem.
“It will not solve the problem of American violence by itself, but by doing something we at least stop sending this quiet message of endorsement to these killers whose brains are breaking, who see the highest levels of government doing nothing shooting after shooting,” he said.
Murphy ended his brief speech by repeating a simple question: “What are we doing?”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, DConn., who, like Murphy, has ardently pushed for stricter gun control measures since the Sandy Hook shooting, similarly raised the call for action in Congress to stymie the violence.
“My heart breaks as I relive the shock and grief of Sandy Hook 10 years ago, knowing the infinite pain that will hit these families in Texas . ... This senseless violence will stop only when Congress matches thoughts and prayers with action,” Blumenthal said.
Like Blumenthal and Murphy, Lamont echoed the calls for gun reform both locally and federally.
“We clearly have a gun problem in America. There are more damn guns on the street than ever before, especially illegal guns,” Lamont said. “We must test our capacity as a nation in this moment to strengthen public safety and health. I want to be clear — gun violence is a public health crisis. It is incumbent upon lawmakers everywhere, whether it’s Connecticut, Texas, or our nation’s capital, to rise to the moment in addressing this problem.”
The killings in Uvadle, Texas, come less than two weeks after a mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store where 10 Black shoppers and workers were killed in upstate New York.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, DConn., said Tuesday “enough is enough” with the deadly gun violence.
“This is an avoidable American tragedy, but unfortunately, it is not unusual. Last week, it was a racist mass shooting in Buffalo. Today, 14 students and their teacher have been lost forever. I am terrified about what will happen next,” DeLauro said in a statement.
“Mass shootings are taking the lives of babies, parents, brothers and sisters. In my home state of Connecticut, the tragedy that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School has traumatized our community and we will never be the same. We lost 26 beautiful souls on that cold December day, and we now mourn for those taken from us at Robb Elementary School today.”