The taking pictures at an elementary faculty in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday jolted a nation numbed by a drumbeat of mass shootings and evoked painful recollections of one other time a gunman crossed the sacred threshold of an elementary faculty and opened hearth in Newtown, Conn., 10 years in the past.
The taking pictures at Robb Elementary College on Tuesday “horrifically, incomprehensibly” killed 14 college students and a trainer, Gov. Greg Abbott introduced.
It was the deadliest taking pictures at an elementary faculty since Newtown, in keeping with Everytown for Gun Security, a gun management advocacy group.
The taking pictures at Sandy Hook Elementary College in Newtown, Conn., in 2012 killed 20 first graders and 6 adults and plunged the nation right into a surprised grief. The picture of 6-year-old and 7-year-old kids sprayed with bullets and stripped of life was initially seen as a possible turning level in a nationwide effort for stricter gun legal guidelines, however did not result in fast leads to Congress. Within the 12 months after Newtown, newly enacted state legal guidelines extra usually loosened gun legal guidelines than strengthened them.
Although shootings at faculties quieted in the course of the starting of the pandemic, when faculties throughout the nation shut down, they started once more in earnest final 12 months as society reopened and extra college students returned to studying in particular person.
Earlier than Tuesday, there had been 26 shootings at faculties to this point this 12 months, leading to six fatalities, according to a tally by the news outlet Education Week.
And there are indications that instances of gunfire at schools have been increasing. Schooling Weekly recorded 34 faculty shootings final 12 months, a rise from earlier than the pandemic. The outlet tallied 24 faculty shootings every in 2019 and 2018.
Most shootings on faculty grounds don’t lead to mass fatalities, however mass shootings at faculties have been among the many highest profile in a nation ravaged by gun violence.
In 2018, 17 folks have been killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College in Parkland, Fla., giving a platform to highschool college students who grew to become activists. That very same 12 months, 10 folks have been killed in a taking pictures at Santa Fe Excessive College, in Santa Fe, Texas.
The taking pictures at Sandy Hook in Newtown has been the nation’s deadliest taking pictures on a Okay-12 faculty campus, adopted by Parkland. Tuesday’s taking pictures at Robb Elementary was the third deadliest, in keeping with Everytown for Gun Security.
In a statement, Newtown Motion Alliance, an advocacy group based by residents in Newtown after the taking pictures in 2012, referred to as for fast motion in Congress.
“We’re devastated by yet one more coronary heart wrenching faculty taking pictures incident in America,” the group’s chairwoman, Po Murray, mentioned in a press release. “For the previous decade, we have now warned all Individuals, together with elected politicians throughout the nation, that if a mass taking pictures can occur in Sandy Hook then it might probably occur anyplace.”