It was only on Tuesday evening that there was talk of two fatalities and the arrest of the alleged perpetrator. A short time later, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott revised the death toll up dramatically.
The perpetrator, he said, drove to Robb Elementary School in a vehicle, entered the building and shot students and staff with a handgun. Some reports said the perpetrator was also armed with a rifle.
“A Terrible Tragedy”
The small town of Uvalde is about 135 kilometers west of San Antonio. The alleged perpetrator is said to be from the city. “He killed – appallingly, incomprehensibly – 14 students and one teacher,” Gov. Abbott said. The 18-year-old was shot dead by police officers after previously shooting and wounding two officers, sources said.
Fatal gun attacks are a regular occurrence in the United States. Schools are also often affected. The US TV broadcaster CNN quoted Abbott as saying the act was “a terrible tragedy”.
Again and again schools as a goal
In December 2012, a 20-year-old gunman shot dead 20 children and six adults in an attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School in the city of Newtown, Connecticut. On Valentine’s Day 2018, a then 19-year-old opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle on students and teachers at his former school in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people.
FBI counted 61 rampages last year
Last year, the FBI counted 61 gun shootings in the United States. The FBI recently announced in Washington that this was more than 50 percent more than in the previous year. The number has doubled since 2017.
Dead in US school shooting
A gun attack at a Texas elementary school has killed 15 children and a teacher. The attacker was also dead, said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott today. The attack happened at an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde, 135 kilometers west of San Antonio.
In 2021, 103 people were killed and 140 injured in “ramping sprees”. That, too, is an increase of almost 50 percent compared to 2020. According to the US Federal Police, 60 of the 61 shooters were men. The FBI uses a strict definition for the count: it only includes cases in which a perpetrator shoots at people in public in order to kill them. “Classic” criminal cases involving armed violence or shootings among gang members are not taken into account.
Over 45,000 gun deaths a year
The level of gun violence overall in the United States is high. Fatal incidents involving firearms, which are readily available there, occur regularly. The health agency Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded a total of 45,222 gun deaths in the United States in its most recent statistics from 2020 – more than 120 per day.
Criticism of loose gun laws
The mayor of the Texan metropolis Houston, Sylvester Turner, also spoke up on Tuesday evening on the occasion of the crime in the elementary school in the small town of Uvalde. He recalled more than 20 deaths from gun attacks in the last few days alone. Politicians must finally act and enact sensible gun laws, CNN quoted Turner from a broadcast. “How many more children have to lose their lives through senseless gun violence?”