Deadly shooting takes place at Texas elementary school

An indiscriminate shooting took place at an elementary school in Texas, killing 19 children and two teachers. The shooter, an 18-year-old male attending a high school nearby, was killed on site by the police.

According to CNN and New York Times on Tuesday (local time), the gunman Salvador Ramos drove his car to Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, a small city in Texas, entered the school, and shot a rifle and a pistol indiscriminately at students. Nineteen students in the second, third, and fourth grades and two female fourth-grade teachers were killed. The number of deaths may increase as several students were taken to a hospital with serious injuries. Ramos barricaded himself against the police and was shot by the police. The police are investigating his crime motive and believe that he acted alone.

It is the deadliest shooting at an elementary school in 10 years since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, in which a total of 26 people, including 20 children, were killed. American society is in shock as it took place just 10 days after a shooting in Buffalo, New York where an 18-year-old white man killed 10 people in a supermarket in a black neighborhood.

“To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Where in God's name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with it and stand up to the lobbies?” President Joe Biden said in his speech at the White House right after his tour to South Korea and Japan, sternly calling for the revision of gun laws.


Jae-Dong Yu jarrett@donga.com