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Mo News: Texas School Massacre & Guns in America
Mosheh Oinounou
May 25, 2022
Good morning,
Here we are, just days after the mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, talking about yet another mass shooting-- this time at an elementary school in Texas, about 80 miles from San Antonio. It's the worst mass shooting at an elementary school since Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut almost a decade ago.
The shooting prompted Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut (who represents the Sandy Hook area) to beg his fellow senators Tuesday to find a compromise that would address the country's problem with gun violence: "What are we doing?"
There have been 212 mass shootings so far this year, and the number of active shooting incidents is up by more than 50% since last year.
We're going to break down what we know so far about this horrific massacre.
But first, a montage of American presidents condemning school shootings over the last 25 years.
🚨 TEXAS SCHOOL MASSACRE
A gunman wearing body armor opened fire Tuesday afternoon at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and at least two adults. The students at the school were in 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades. Police say the gunman crashed his car outside the school, got into a shootout with law enforcement before then making his way into the school. The 18-year old, who was a student at a nearby high school, was eventually killed by law enforcement. ~ NY Times
The Victims: We are starting to learn the names of some of the victims, who were just two days away from starting their summer vacations.Eva Mireles, fourth grade teacherAmerie Jo Garza, 10Xavier Lopez, 10Uziyah Garcia, 9
The Gunman: Salvador Ramos entered the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun and possibly a rifle. He bought two assault rifles on his 18th birthday (just about a week ago). It's not clear if those were the guns Ramos used in the shootings. ~ Daily BeastPolice say he shot and killed his grandmother and then crashed his car near the elementary school. “As soon as he made entry into the school he started shooting children, teachers, whoever was in his way, he was shooting everybody.” - Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Lt. Chris OlivarezSocial Media: Shortly before the shooting, the gunman appeared to send ominous and cryptic messages on Instagram to friends. He recently posted images of two rifles, including an AR-15 with a high-capacity magazine. A TikTok account also allegedly linked to the gunman featured the line “Kids be scared IRL.”Deteriorating Mental State: A former friend spoke to reporters about increasingly concerning and bizarre behavior by the shooter in the last year. ~Washington Post
📈 BY THE NUMBERS
There have been 27 school shootings so far this year (and it's only May). In all of 2021 there were 34 school shootings, the highest since the organization Education Week started keeping track. In 2020, with schools remote for much of the year, there were 10 shootings. In both 2019 and 2018 there were 24 shootings. Firearms injuries (including suicide and accidents) are officially the leading cause of death for American children and adolescents, recently surpassing traffic accidents (see chart below). ~ NPR
There was a 50% jump in active-shooter incidents from 2020 to 2021. The FBI says that over the past five years, active shooter incidents have steadily increased. ~ ABC News
via CDC
The Shooters: According to the FBI, nearly all of the shooters were male. More than half of the shootings took place in areas of commerce. The youngest shooter was 12 and the oldest was 67.
Gun Sales and Production: The annual number of firearms manufactured in the US has nearly tripled since 2000 to more than 11 million in 2020---and spiked sharply in the past three years. A relatively small percentage of guns produced domestically are exported overseas, so those numbers are an accurate reflection of American gun-buying habits, according to the A.T.F. It is estimated based on background check data (not comprehensive) that Americans own more than 400 million guns. ~NY Times
🇺🇸 GUN LAWS IN AMERICA
Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg
It's been nearly a decade since the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school, and congressional efforts to tighten gun laws have mostly failed, facing roadblocks mainly from Republicans and pro-gun lobbyists, like the NRA, who threaten to fund primary competitors if incumbents try to pass gun control measures. Here is a quick history. ~ Associated Press
In 2004, Congress and President George W. Bush let the ban on semiautomatic assault weapons and large capacity magazines (passed in 1994) expire.
In 2013, Senators Joe Manchin (D, West Virginia) and Patrick Toomey (R, Pennsylvania) pushed for a bipartisan proposal in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting to expand the nation’s background check system. But they couldn't get enough votes to clear the 60-vote filibuster. President Obama and then-VP Biden held a Rose Garden event, calling the failure a "shameful day for Washington."
In 2018 and 2021, the U.S. House passed two bills (including HR8) to expand background checks on firearms. One bill would have closed a loophole for private and online sales. The other would have extended the background check review period. Neither could get through a 50-50 Senate, where Democrats need at least 10 additional Republican votes to overcome the filibuster.Late Tuesday night, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he will have the full Senate vote on the background check measures for gun purchasers. But passage looks very unlikely. ~NY Times
FYI: The below slide is by the nonpartisan Small Arms Survey in 2018 documenting countries with the most amount of weapons in civilian hands and overall guns-per-residents (The US has more guns than people). It got a lot of reaction on my Instagram feed Tuesday night.
🗞 THE SPEED READ
Election Results: Trump rebuked in Georgia as Republicans reject his hand-picked midterm challengers
Georgia Republican voters on Tuesday dealt Donald Trump his biggest defeat so far in his bid to play kingmaker in this year's U.S. midterm elections, choosing Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger despite Trump's efforts to oust them. The former president had waged a revenge campaign against them for refusing to overturn his 2020 election defeat. (Reuters)
The Ukrainian army is under more pressure than at any time since the first desperate weeks after the Russian invasion. It could be fighting a losing battle in Luhansk, the northern part of Donbas region. The Ukrainian General Staff says the Russians appear to be concentrating their forces for another push. In the last day the Russians have intensified their attacks across the Donbas front line - getting closer to completing the encirclement of Severodonetsk, a city of 80,000 before the invasion. (BBC)
An Iraqi national allegedly linked to a bizarre plot to assassinate former President George W. Bush appeared in court Tuesday after his arrest hours earlier by FBI terrorism task force agents as part of yearlong investigation. Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab, 52, who has lived in Columbus, Ohio, and Indianapolis since arriving in the U.S. in 2020, allegedly pursued a plan to smuggle operatives affiliated with the Islamic State terrorist group into the country to murder the former president in revenge for the US invasion of Iraq. (USA Today)
Sales of new single-family homes plummeted in April as rising mortgage interest rates and skyrocketing house prices took a toll on the market. New-home sales fell 16.6 percent last month from the revised March figures, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. Sales were down 26.9 percent from April 2021. (Politico)
Snap lost an astounding 43.1% of its market cap on Monday. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel warned of an environment that’s worsened since his company reported quarterly results in April, when guidance was already disappointing. Social media companies were already having a rough year from the cutback in digital ad spending caused by rising inflation, supply chain challenges and the war in Ukraine. (CNBC)
U.S. births increased last year for the first time in seven years, according to federal figures released Tuesday that offer the latest indication the pandemic baby bust was smaller than expected. American women had about 3.66 million babies in 2021, up 1% from the prior year. It was the first increase since 2014. The rebound spanned age groups, with birthrates rising for every cohort of women age 25 and older. (Wall Street Journal)
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[Top Photo Banner Credit: Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images]