President Joe Biden decries death of second, third and fourth graders

UVALDE, TX (TIP): 19 students killed in Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas  shooting, and the 18-year-old shooter is dead. The  Teen gunman shot his grandmother before killing 19 students and 2 adults. By now, the story of American gun violence is unsurprising. Mass shootings happen frequently. The list from just the past decade includes supermarkets in Buffalo and in Boulder, Colo.; a rail yard in San Jose, Calif.; a birthday party in Colorado Springs; a convenience store in Springfield, Mo.; a synagogue in Pittsburgh; churches in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and in Charleston, S.C.; a Walmart in El Paso; a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis; a music festival in Las Vegas; massage parlors in the Atlanta area; a Waffle House in Nashville; a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.; and a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. Even school shootings happen often enough that we know some of the names: Sandy Hook Elementary School, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Oxford High School, Santa Fe High School, Columbine High School. Robb Elementary School in Uvalde has joined this horrific list.

If American gun violence is no longer surprising, it still is shocking. On an average day in the U.S., more than 35 people are murdered with a gun. No other affluent country in the world has a gun homicide rate nearly as high.

‘We have to act,’ Biden says after Texas massacre, but  offers no specifics: “I hoped when I became President, I would not have to do this, again,” Biden said, decrying the death of “beautiful, innocent” second, third and fourth graders in “another massacre.”

Their parents “will never see their child again, never have them jump in bed and cuddle with them,” he said.

“As a nation, we have to ask, ‘When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?’”

“We have to act,” he said and suggested reinstating the assault weapons ban and other “common sense gun laws.”

 CONNECTICUT DEMOCRATIC SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: “Spare me the bullshit about mental illness … We don’t have any more mental illness than any other country in the world. You cannot explain this through a prism of mental illness because we’re not an outlier on mental illness. … We’re an outlier when it comes to access to firearms and the ability of criminals and very sick people to get their arms on firearms.

That’s what makes America different.”

UTAH REPUBLICAN SENATOR MITT ROMNEY: “Grief overwhelms the soul. Children slaughtered. Lives extinguished. Parents’ hearts wrenched. Incomprehensible. I offer prayer and condolence but know that it is grossly inadequate. We must find answers.”

WEST VIRGINIA DEMOCRATIC SENATOR JOE MANCHIN: “That makes no sense at all, why we can’t do common-sense, common-sense things and try to prevent some of this from happening.”

PETE BUTTIGIEG, SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION: “How many more lives? How many more children? And how much longer before we reject the choices that have made ours the one country where this happens routinely? It is not inevitable, it is horrific. It must end.”

REPUBLICAN TEXAS GOVERNOR GREG ABBOTT: “Texans are grieving for the victims of this senseless crime & for the community of Uvalde.

“Cecilia & I mourn this horrific loss & urge all Texans to come together.”