“Governor Abbott, I have to say something,” said O’Rourke, a former congressman who represented El Paso, Texas, and a former Senate and presidential candidate as he approached the stage in Uvalde, Texas. .
“The time has come to stop the next shooting right now and do nothing,” O’Rourke told Abbott. The two will face race for governor of Texas in November.
“You said this is unpredictable. This is totally predictable,” he said of Tuesday’s shooting at a local elementary school where 21 people, including 19 children, were killed and 17 injured.
This is far from the first time O’Rourke has spoken out about armed violence. The former MP used his platform during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary to advocate for stricter arms control measures, including a mandatory assault weapons purchase program. His focus on the issue was exacerbated by a racist massacre in August 2019 at a Walmart store in El Paso.
In a Democratic debate the following month, he did not apologize for the stance, which provoked a quick reaction from Republicans and would have gone beyond most of the proposals his candidates were discussing in rival primaries.
“Yes, we’ll take your AR-15, your AK-47,” O’Rourke said amid applause in the debate room. “We will no longer allow it to be used against our American compatriots.”
At the time, his statement, long before he decided to run for governor this year, set a stark contrast to Abbott, who has often promoted any measures to ease restrictions on access to and possession of weapons. Abbott is scheduled to speak at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Houston this week.
O’Rourke addressed Abbott directly when he left the room on Wednesday: “It’s up to you, until you decide to do something different.”
“This will continue to happen. Someone must defend the children of this state or they will continue to kill them, as they were killed yesterday in Uvalde,” he added.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Abbott argued that tougher gun laws are not a “real solution.”
“People who think maybe we can implement tough gun laws and we can solve it: Chicago, New York and LA deny this thesis. Chicago teaches you that what you’re talking about is not a real solution,” Abbott said.
Abbott also said there are ongoing discussions about how to address people with mental health issues in the state, as well as ways to keep schools safe.
Confrontation with officials
Before O’Rourke left, Texas Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick told the former congressman, “You’re offline and it’s a shame.”
“Sit down,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, O’Rourke’s opponent in the 2018 Senate race, shaking his head.
Another official on stage, the mayor of Uvalde, Don McLaughlin, shouted insults at O’Rourke and appeared to direct authorities into the room to remove the former congressman from the auditorium.
O’Rourke was then taken away by officers.
“(Abbott) said he was going to do something. He didn’t do anything. In fact, all he did was make it easier to carry a gun in public,” O’Rourke told reporters after leaving. of the press conference.
The former congressman said that “the only interest of the governor of Texas is the gun lobby.”
He told reporters that Abbott plans to speak at the National Rifle Association convention this Friday in Houston, “a few days after these children were sacrificed right here in Uvalde, after they were sacrificed at Santa Fe High School. , in Sutherland Springs, In Midland-Odessa, in El Paso, Texas “.
“Five of the worst massive accommodations in U.S. history, right here in this state in the last five years. He was governor of each of them,” O’Rourke continued.
Less than an hour before O’Rourke interrupted the press conference, he sent an e-mail to his supporters in which he said that the shooting of Uvalde was a “direct consequence” of “the election made by Greg Abbott”.
“These massacres are not natural disasters, acts of God or random. They are direct and entirely predictable consequences of the election made by Greg Abbott and most of those in the Texas legislature,” he wrote.
This story has been updated with additional details of the event.
CNN’s Jamiel Lynch, Amanda Musa, Ashley Killough and Brian Rokus contributed to this report.