New-York.
A fugitive shadow, hooded and dressed in black, enters an American school, an assault rifle in hand. This vision of horror has become familiar in the United States since the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado in 1999. Sordidly commonplace, as cable channels repeatedly broadcast images of toddlers being evacuated in single file and readjust the balance sheet of each new killing. That of Uvalde, Texas, is now added to the list.
It was 11:43 a.m. on Tuesday morning when the first warning message was posted online by the administration of Robb Elementary School, which has 600 children from CE1 to CM1: “Pupils and staff are safe. . The building is secure and cordoned off). The shooting had already started 11 minutes ago. Thirty minutes later, the tone changed: “There is a killer active in the building.”
An 18-year-old boy named Salvador Ramos managed to break into the school compound, shooting every living soul. Panic spreads through the corridors. In the general confusion, police officers who came to save their own children were themselves shot and wounded. The aggressor, long black hair, taciturn gaze, will be shot at 1:06 p.m. by a security guard, himself injured in a final exchange of fire. Nineteen children were mowed down, as well as two supervisors, including a mistress adored by all, Eva Mireles. Two people are still between life and death in hospital, fifteen others are injured to varying degrees.
America is once again frozen in amazement. Uvalde is the 212th mass shooting since the beginning of the year, the twenty-seventh in a school environment. At the White House, it seems that Joe Biden took some time to collect his thoughts and find the desire to speak before appearing in front of the cameras on Tuesday evening, to confide his disgust.
The assassin, who also shot his own grandmother, bought an assault rifle on his 18th birthday for $1,370 on Georgia-based online retailer Daniel Defense. According to CNN’s Jim Sciutto, he acquired two more from local gunsmiths last week, along with 375 rounds. How is it possible to acquire such weapons of war when you are not allowed to order a beer until you are 21? To cross the meshes of a minimal safety net, when it is even more difficult to adopt a dog? On Twitter, Joe Biden continues his tirade: “The idea that an 18 year old can walk into a store and buy assault rifles is just intolerable. Why, by the grace of God, do you need such a weapon, if not to kill someone? On behalf of all parents, of every citizen, it is time to act. We can do more. We need to do more.”
Terrence K. Williams, a pro-Trump comedian, retorts on behalf of the NRA (National Rifle Association), the arms lobby with 5.5 million members: “It’s not guns that kill people, it’s guns that kill people. people who kill people.” It would therefore be better to concentrate on the individuals who have “pulled the trigger”, these “bad guys” to whom we simply have to oppose more “good guys” who are better armed. “It is not the NRA which is in question here, he claims. It’s a case of good versus evil. All schools need to be equipped with metal detectors and armed guards at the gate to search all visitors.”
These are the measures advocated by a compact bloc of NRA-backed elected officials in Congress, rather than a moratorium on assault rifles adopted in 1994 and expired since 2004, or the imposition of a federal database for all individuals at risk.
This general paralysis is unbearable to Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors basketball team. Livid, the one who lost his father in a shooting in 1984 hammers the table with his fist at a press conference. “When are we going to do something? I am so tired of offering my condolences to devastated families. I am tired of these minutes of silence. In the past ten days, black people have been killed in a supermarket in Buffalo, Asian parishioners have been killed in Southern California, and now children are being murdered at school. There are 50 senators, at the moment, who refuse to vote on the HR8 law (checking of criminal and psychiatric records for transactions between individuals or via unauthorized resellers, Editor’s note) that the House of Representatives passed (submitted in 2019 , adopted in 2021). And there’s a good reason they won’t vote on it: They cling to power. I ask you, you who refuse to lift a finger, if you will put your thirst for power aside to take care of the lives of our children, our elderly and our parishioners. Fifty senators (Republicans, editor’s note) are holding us hostage. Do you realize that 90% of Americans want universal background checks?”
The exact figure even fluctuates between 93 and 95%, according to polls published since 2019. As for background checks, experts recognize that they are not a panacea. The author of the Buffalo massacre on May 14 (10 dead), another 18-year-old teenager named Payton Gendron, was also able to buy an assault rifle without the seller finding anything wrong with it. “The irony is that we all agree on the need to impose restrictions on weapons,” notes Nicholas Kristof, former columnist for the New York Times. “No one would appreciate people being allowed to drive a tank through the streets, or have an air defense battery in their backyard. Thanks to God, we succeeded in banning these weapons” for the general public. It remains to find a way to do the same for semi-automatic rifles, high-capacity magazines and other paramilitary “gadgets” accessible online or at arms fairs in deep America.
