'Terrible, terrible day': Canada grieves as outrage grips U.S. following Texas horror & More News Here

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WASHINGTON — Over two days, in two acts, the small southwest Texas city of Uvalde has been the unwitting world stage for a real-world illustration of the defining pressure in American life.

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Act 1 got here Tuesday, when an 18-year-old gunman, armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, killed 19 preteen kids and two academics in a fourth-grade classroom earlier than dying himself by the hands of regulation enforcement.

Wednesday noticed the second act: Beto O’Rourke, the previous congressman and upstart Texas progressive, jabbing an offended finger at Republican rival Gov. Greg Abbott, accusing him of not doing what is required to forestall a recurring tragedy.

“This is on you,” O’Rourke mentioned to Abbott, Calgary-born Republican Sen. Ted Cruz standing sentry behind him, whereas Lt.-Gov. Dan Patrick shouted again, accusing O’Rourke of selecting the worst doable time to attempt to rating political factors.

“In each case, we say this isn’t the time. Now is the time, literally right now,” a visibly agitated O’Rourke mentioned outdoors the auditorium. Most Texans and most Americans occur to agree with him, he added.

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“The majority of Texas is not reflected by that governor, or those people around that table who talk about mental health care, or say this was pure evil, or that it was absolutely unpredictable,” O’Rourke railed.

“This is predictable. It will happen, and it will continue to happen, unless we change course. We’ve got to change course.”

Outside the U.S., the outpouring of grief and sympathy additionally adopted a well-known sample. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mentioned all of Canada was grieving with Texas after what he referred to as a “terrible, terrible day.”

“As a parent, I’m going to have to go home to my kids, including my eight-year-old, and talk to them again about the inexplicable school shooting that we saw in the United States,” Trudeau mentioned Wednesday in Saskatoon.

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But on American soil, the too-familiar horror had already given strategy to unbridled anger — even from some sudden quarters — about how key legislators stay loyal to the unequalled monetary affect of the gun foyer.

“We’re being held hostage by 50 senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote, despite what we, the American people, want,” mentioned Steve Kerr, the top coach of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, earlier than Tuesday’s playoff sport in opposition to the Dallas Mavericks.

“They won’t vote on it, because they want to hold on to their own power. It’s pathetic.”

The assault got here lower than two weeks after a gunman killed 10 individuals at a grocery retailer in Buffalo, N.Y. And it echoed the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary bloodbath in Newtown, Conn., which killed 20 kids and 6 adults. It stands to this present day as a monument to a divided nation’s lack of ability to guard its personal individuals.

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It additionally laid naked some of the persistent chasms in American life within the twenty first century: the gulf between these prepared to defend their proper to bear arms at any price, and people who insist the associated fee is already too nice.

That chasm was on clear show Wednesday in Uvalde.

“There are family members who are crying as we speak; there are family members whose hearts are broken,” Abbott mentioned as O’Rourke was escorted out of the auditorium.

“There’s no words that anybody shouting can come up here and do anything to heal those broken hearts.”

Tensions had been additionally working excessive in Washington, D.C., the place it was principally Democrats who turned out for Wednesday’s Senate affirmation listening to for Steven Dettelbach to steer the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives.

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If confirmed, Dettelbach can be the primary everlasting appointee to the place in seven years, a delay largely attributable to tensions between Democrats and Republicans in relation to firearms.

One of the few Republicans available, Utah’s Mike Lee, went to this point as to accuse gun-control advocates of making an attempt to capitalize on the Uvalde tragedy as a fundraising alternative.

“The left once again is calling for more gun control,” Lee mentioned. “They want to crack down on law-abiding Americans and federal firearms licensees who want to follow the law, instead of armed criminals.”

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy promptly accused Lee of blaming the victims, “not the person who’s able to walk in and buy a weapon that should be used in a war zone, not in a school zone.”

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“The kind of weapons being used by the Russians in Ukraine have no place in school,” he mentioned. “It’s not the time to blame the victims. It’s time to blame those who sell weapons of war this way.”

President Joe Biden mentioned a lot the identical factor later within the day throughout an look on the White House, the place he confirmed plans to journey to Texas within the coming days to fulfill with the households of the victims.

“When in God’s name will we do what needs to be done to — if not completely stop — fundamentally change the amount of carnage that goes on in this country?” he mentioned.

Meaningful gun management within the U.S. needn’t pose a menace to the constitutional proper to bear arms — a proper, he added, that has extra wiggle room than most individuals would possibly understand.

“The Second Amendment is not absolute,” Biden mentioned. “When it was passed, you couldn’t own a cannon, you couldn’t own certain kinds of weapons. There’s always been limitations.”

He hinted at the opportunity of resurrecting a ban on assault weapons, one thing former president Bill Clinton signed into regulation in 1994 earlier than it expired 10 years later. Subsequent efforts to convey it again have all failed.

“These actions we’ve taken before have saved lives,” Biden mentioned. “They can do it again.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed May 25, 2022.