Every weekday, parents wake their children and send them to school; what they believe to be a safe place. But the parents of 19 young students at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas sent their kids to school Tuesday May 24th only to receive news that their young children’s lives had been taken. 

Gunman 18-year old Salvador Ramos entered the elementary school with a rifle in hand, killing 19 students, 2 teachers and injuring 17 others. Ramos was killed on scene by law enforcement.

Police officials said Ramos barricaded himself in a fourth-grade classroom and began shooting at the students and teachers with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, which he had bought a day after turning 18. According to Gov. Greg Abbott, Ramos had taken to social media before the attacks and posted first, about plans to shoot his grandmother, second, that he had, indeed, shot his grandmother, and third, about his plans to shoot up the elementary school.

The Texas school shooting is now being described as the deadliest school shooting in state history since Sandy Hook.

The US has a long history of school shootings. The July 26th, 1764 Pontiac’s Rebellion school massacre is the earliest known school shooting where a school master and approximately 9-10 students died. Since then, there were approximately 13 known school shootings in the 1800s and that number has only risen since. 

The 30 year-period between 1960-1990 saw 53 school shootings; a number which almost tripled over a 24-year period from 1990-2014 with 190 school shootings recorded. Since 2018, the Gun Violence Archive reports over 2,000 overall Mass Shootings across the country. 

Data from the Homeland Defense and Security shows last year, 2021, had the most school shootings, at 240, in the history of the US despite the pandemic closing schools for most of that year. 

Now, there have been at least 118 school shooting incidents, including yesterday’s shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. 

In Michigan, another 18-year-old was arrested Wednesday, May 25th after taking to social media and threatening to shoot up an unspecified school.

A 46-year-old from Lexington Park in Maryland also threatened ‘mass violence’, according to authorities, against a Maryland elementary school. The man was arrested Wednesday morning and police are still investigating this case.

These threats come only a day after the devastating attack on the Robb Elementary School students and teachers. 

It’s been 10 years since the Sandy Hook Elementary school attack where a gunman killed 26 people and gun laws haven’t changed much. 

President Biden said yesterday in a news conference that he is pushing for tighter gun control laws.

Senate Democrats quickly made a move on a House-passed bill that was proposed in 2019; the bill HR 1446. This bill would increase background check times from 3 to 10 business days to retrieve a full background check before licensing for firearms. But, whether or not the bill will be voted into effect is still uncertain.