Photo: The Canadian Press
Democrat Beto O’Rourke is holding a press conference on Wednesday, chaired by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
For two days, in two acts, the small town of Uvalde, southwest Texas, has been the unconscious global stage for a real-world illustration of the stress that defines American life.
Act 1 came on Tuesday, when an 18-year-old gunman, armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, killed 19 pre-teen children and two teachers in a fourth grade before dying himself at the hands of police forces. order.
The second act took place on Wednesday: Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman and progressive, slammed an angry finger on rival Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, accusing him of not doing enough to prevent a recurring tragedy.
“It’s up to you,” O’Rourke told Abbott, Calgary-born Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who was standing behind him while the lieutenant governor. Dan Patrick shouted in response, accusing O’Rourke of choosing the worst possible time to try to add political points.
“In each case, we have seized it, despite obstacles we can scarcely imagine.” Most jeans and most Americans agree with him, he added.
“Most of Texas is not reflected by this governor, or by those people around this table who talk about mental health care, or say that this was pure harm, or that it was absolutely unpredictable,” he said. dir O’Rourke.
“That’s predictable. It will happen, and it will continue to happen, unless we change course. We need to change course.”
Outside the United States, the outpouring of pain and sympathy also followed a familiar pattern. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said all of Canada was mourning Texas after what he called a “terrible, terrible day.”
“As a parent, I’m going to have to go home with my kids, including my eight-year-old son, and talk to them again about the unexplained school shooting we saw in the United States,” Trudeau told Saskatoon on Wednesday. . .
But on U.S. soil, the all-too-familiar horror had already given way to rampant anger, even from some unexpected sectors, over how key lawmakers remain loyal to the unparalleled financial influence of the arms lobby.
“We are held hostage by 50 senators in Washington who refuse to even vote for us, despite what we want, the American people,” said Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors of the United States. ‘NBA, before Tuesday’s playoffs. game against the Dallas Mavericks.
“They won’t vote for him, because they want to hold on to their own power. It’s pathetic.”
The attack came less than two weeks after a gunman killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, and echoed the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, which killed 20 children and six adults. It remains to this day as a monument to the inability of a divided country to protect its own people.
He also exposed one of the most persistent abysses of American life in the 21st century: the abyss between those who are willing to defend their right to bear arms at any cost and those who insist that the cost is too great. great.
This chasm was clearly shown on Wednesday in Uvalde.
“There are family members crying while we talk; there are family members who have a broken heart,” Abbott said as O’Rourke was escorted out of the auditorium.
“There are no words that someone shouting can come here and do anything to heal those broken hearts.”
Tensions were also rising in Washington, DC, where mostly Democrats attended Wednesday’s Senate confirmation hearing for Steven Dettelbach to head the Office of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives.
If confirmed, Dettelbach would be the first permanent nominee for office in seven years, a delay largely due to tensions between Democrats and Republicans over guns.
One of the few Republicans in hand, Mike Lee of Utah, went so far as to accuse gun control advocates of trying to take advantage of the Uvalde tragedy as a fundraising opportunity.
“The left is once again calling for more gun control,” Lee said. “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 quickly accused Lee of blaming the victims, “not the person who can come in and buy a gun that should be used in a war zone, not a school zone.”
“The kind of weapons that Russians use in Ukraine have no place in school,” he said. “It’s not the time to blame the victims. It’s the time to blame those who sell weapons of war in this way.”
President Joe Biden said more or less the same thing during an appearance at the White House, where he confirmed his plans to travel to Texas in the coming days to reunite with the families of the victims.
“When, in the name of God, will we do what needs to be done to, if not completely stop, fundamentally change the amount of carnage going on in this country?” He said.
Significant arms control in the United States should not pose a threat to the constitutional right to bear arms, a right, he added, that has more leeway than most people might think.
“The second amendment is not absolute,” Biden said. “When it was passed, you couldn’t have a cannon, you couldn’t have certain types of weapons. There were always limitations.”
He hinted at the possibility of reviving the ban on assault weapons, something former President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994 before it expired 10 years later. Subsequent efforts to recover it have failed.
“These actions we have taken before have saved lives,” Biden said. “They can do it again.”