It is still unknown to authorities what drove 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a high school student in Uvalde, to murder 19 young students and two adults, at least one of whom was a teacher, by opening fire in the halls of Rob Elementary School in the small Texas town, about 130 kilometres from San Antonio.
The young man - pictured with shoulder-length hair and an expressionless face in a selfie he posted on his Instagram account, while another photo shows two assault rifles on a carpet - committed the massacre after shooting his grandmother. It is not clear if the two events are connected. According to Texas law enforcement petty officer Eric Estrada, who spoke to CNN, the grandmother was admitted to University Health Hospital, where she is being treated in «critical condition.».
Wearing a bulletproof vest, equipped with at least one assault rifle, the youth initially fled in a semi-truck, which was involved in a «spectacular traffic accident», before abandoning it and going to Rob's primary school at around 11:30am (19:30 GMT), apparently trying to escape from police officers.
For the students - aged no more than ten years - and teachers in this school of about 500 children, the majority of whom are of Latin American origin, classes were to end tomorrow, Thursday.
The school, with the motto «Live. Learn. Love. Lead» («Live. Learn. Love. Lead. Learn. Love. Lead», will be closed today and tomorrow, the last days of the school year.
The young gunman was killed in the ensuing shootout with police officers. Two officers were slightly wounded, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said earlier.
According to Pete Arendondo, the police officer in charge of the investigation, the teenager acted alone. Petty Officer Estrada said he did not know if he was known to authorities. Authorities are still trying to gather information «about his profile,» «his motives,» «the types of weapons he used and whether he possessed them legally,» according to Gov. Abbott.
In any case, the massacre he committed has plunged the US back into the ever recurring nightmare of attacks with firearms in school institutions.
US President Joe Biden earlier ordered the flags to fly at half-mast until Saturday.
Children under 10 years old
The massacre, the worst of its kind since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre (2012), is forcing many in the US to relive the torment of school attacks, which has been repeated endlessly in recent years, with shocking images of children physically and mentally traumatized, forced to lock themselves in classrooms before being removed by law enforcement, parents in a state of desperate despair pleading to know the fate of their offspring...
Intervening in a speech immediately after returning from his tour of Asia, US President Joe Biden yesterday called for «action» to tackle the scourge of gun attacks, urging members of Congress to defy the gun lobby.
«How many more dozens of young children, who saw what happened, will be forced to watch their friends die as if they were on a battlefield» while at school, «for God's sake?’ the head of state asked.
«When in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?’ the 78-year-old Democratic leader asked. »I'm discouraged and tired,« he added.
He stressed that he considers it «just wrong» for any 18-year-old to be able to buy assault rifles. «These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen elsewhere in the world - why? They have mental health problems elsewhere, they have other countries in the world with broken families, people lost. But these kinds of mass shootings don't happen anywhere with the frequency that they do in America,» he added, using the U.S. law enforcement term for firearms attacks that have four or more victims.
«Why are we willing to experience this carnage?» he insisted, recalling the endless litany of such incidents, the nearly 900 instances of firearms use in schools since the Sandy Hook massacre.
He also said that neither he nor other Americans will forget those who obstruct or delay the advancement of «common sense» gun control legislation. Not all gun crimes will be prevented if stricter laws are passed, but the situation can be improved, he added.
«It is time to act,» Biden said. «We can do much more» to «turn this suffering into action.».
«It's too much,» Vice President Kamala Harris said, also calling for «action» on the scourge of arms. Saying that «our hearts continue to break» every time this happens, she stressed that as a nation Americans must find the courage to take action to ensure that there is «never» another school massacre.
The massacre came 10 days after the one in Buffalo, New York state, where a young racist attacked a supermarket and murdered 10 people, mostly African-Americans.
Sterile dialogue
Yesterday's tragedy has similarities to the one in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, where a 20-year-old man with mental health problems killed 26 people, including 20 children aged 6 to 7, before killing himself.
Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from that state, «pleaded» yesterday to his colleagues in the House to take action, assuring them that tragedies of this kind are not «inevitable.» Such massacres happen «only in this country - in no other. In no other country do children who go to school think that they can be shot,» he said, adding that members of Congress «are not powerless» and recalling that in the US, «guns flow like water», hence one massacre after another.
In 2018, after the attack on a student who had been expelled from Parkland High School in Florida (17 dead, mostly teenagers and teenage girls), massive demonstrations were organised, especially by young people, who demanded that politicians legislate. However, dialogue on the issue remained sterile.
Despite President Biden's intervention, there is no real chance that Congress - in which the gun lobby has maintained a strong influence for decades - is likely to pass any ambitious gun reform, an issue that has divided Americans for decades.
According to the Small Arms Survey Institute, in 2017 there were 393 million firearms in the country, more than there were people.
