The Texas chapters of Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action released the following statements in response to a mass shooting today at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas — a predominantly Latinx community. According to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, fourteen students and one teacher were killed during the shooting.
“We are heartbroken for everyone impacted by this senseless act of violence in a predominantly Latinx community,” said Rena Estala, a volunteer with the Texas chapter of Students Demand Action. “School is the last place where kids should have to worry about gun violence. We need leaders at every level to prioritize gun safety now.”
“A hate-fueled shooting in Buffalo, a school shooting in Texas, and a Supreme Court on the verge of putting existing gun laws in jeopardy — these are all symptoms of our nation’s profoundly broken approach to guns,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “This needs to be the moment when our nation draws the line, and when our lawmakers start doing their job and pass common-sense laws to keep us safe. Tonight, 14 children and a teacher are dead, another community is forever scarred, and a shaken nation mourns on their behalf.”
“We’re devastated by this horrific act of gun violence that will forever traumatize the Uvalde community,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “School shootings are not acts of nature, they’re man-made acts of inaction, of cowardice, of corruption by all lawmakers who refuse to pass laws proven by data to stop preventable, senseless shootings like in Uvalde. We cannot and will not accept a reality in which our children aren’t safe in schools or their communities.”
Latinx communities bear a disproportionate brunt of the United States’ gun violence crisis. Each year, more than 4,100 Latinx people die from gun violence in the United States, and 13,300 are shot and wounded. Latinx people are twice as likely to die by gun homicide and four times as likely to be wounded by an assault with a gun as white people. Latinx children and teens are three times more likely to be killed by gun homicide than their white peers.
So far this year, there have been at least 77 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, resulting in 14 deaths and 45 injuries nationally. 6 of these incidents took place in Texas. These numbers are a continuation of an alarming trend — the first half of the 2021-2022 school year was the deadliest in recent history.
Texas has weak gun laws and a high rate of gun violence. Guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens in Texas. Statistics about gun violence in Texas are available here, and Everytown’s interactive gun law platform — which shows how Texas’ gun laws compare to the gun laws of other states — is available here.
