From 3h ago
11.36 EDT
Texas tragedies raise questions about mass killings,
political violence
Many
developments are expected today in the twin tragedies that caused mayhem and
misery in Texas over the weekend and raised questions over the frequency of
mass killings in America, including via gun violence and politically-motivated
aggression.
There have
been no motives officially disclosed by authorities yet in Saturday’s mass
shooting in Allen, near Dallas, where a gunman killed eight and was then shot
dead. And in a car crash in Brownsville, south Texas on Sunday, where a vehicle
plowed into people outside a migrant shelter.
Authorities
in Brownsville have not yet even discussed whether the car was deliberately
driven into migrants or not, in a horrific incident that also killed eight
people.
But early
reports have noted that the gunman in Allen appears to have links and
sympathies with right wing, white supremacist beliefs. And witnesses to the
tragedy in Brownsville had said they heard the driver of the vehicle – who has
been detained – was shouting anti-immigrant messages prior to the crash.
Mass
shootings are increasing at a fast pace this year, even compared with
already-high figures previously. And concerns are rising about aggrieved people
taking out their anger in acts of lethal violence or vigilantism.
Texas has
had a string of mass shootings in recent years, more details to come.
And the
latest tragedies came less than a week after a Black man was killed when a
passenger on an underground train in New York City put him in a chokehold after
he was demanding help from the public while potentially suffering a mental
health breakdown.
16m ago
13.53 EDT
US president Joe Biden has repeatedly called on states
and on the US Congress to pass laws not just raising the age for buying assault
weapons but to ban the weapons for the general public overall.
In Texas,
hardline Republican governor Greg Abbott talked a lot on Sunday about mental
health problems and prayer but refuses to bend to the gun control argument.
On Sunday,
the White House issued a statement from Biden that read, in part:
Yesterday,
an assailant in tactical gear armed with an AR-15 style assault weapon gunned
down innocent people in a shopping mall, and not for the first time. Such an
attack is too shocking to be so familiar. And yet, American communities have
suffered roughly 200 mass shootings already this year, according to leading
counts. More than 14,000 of our fellow citizens have lost their lives, credible
estimates show. The leading cause of death for American kids is gun violence.
Since I
signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law and took two dozen
executive actions to stem the tide of gun violence, we have made some progress.
States are banning assault weapons, expanding red flag laws and more — but it’s
not enough. We need more action, faster to save lives….
…Once again
I ask Congress to send me a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity
magazines. Enacting universal background checks. Requiring safe storage. Ending
immunity for gun manufacturers. I will sign it immediately. We need nothing
less to keep our streets safe.”
27m ago
13.42 EDT
In the Republican-controlled state legislature in
Texas, lawmakers just voted in a committee to advance a bill to raise the
minimum age for buying a semi-automatic weapon to 21.
Democratic
state senator Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, initiated numerous gun
safety related bills in the senate, while the town’s representative in the
House, Democrat Tracy King, had introduced the bill to raise the minimum age
for buying an assault weapon and prohibit the sale of a firearm to someone who’s
intoxicated or who has an active protective order, CBS reported.
Today’s
vote doesn’t mean that the bill will survive votes in the full chamber or end
up becoming law, however it’s a small but significant step forward for gun
safety advocates.
Updated at
13.44 EDT
48m ago
13.22 EDT
Texas has been particularly blighted by mass
shootings, in a country awash in guns and with ever-more relaxed gun control
laws in some states.
Here are
some of the prominent recent mass shootings in the Lone Star state:
- Earlier this month a man was arrested after shooting dead five of his neighbors in in the rural town of Cleveland.
- In February, one person was killed and three wounded in a shooting at a shopping mall in El Paso, close to a Walmart where 23 were killed in a racist attack targeting Hispanic people in 2019.
- It’s less than a year since 18 children and three adults were cut down by a gunman who entered an elementary school in Uvalde, also injuring many others. That massacre in Texas came just 10 days after a white man with racists beliefs shot 10 dead in an attack on a supermarket in Buffalo, in upstate New York.
- A 17-month-old was among the victims of a shooting attack in the twin towns of Midland and Odessa, Texas, in September, 2019.
- In August 2019, a man with anti-immigrant beliefs killed 23 people at a Walmart store in El Paso, the city at the western end of the Texas-Mexico border. He admitted he was targeting Mexicans in the attack.
- Ten people were killed in a shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas in 2018, where the suspect was 17 and a student at the school.
- A total of 26 worshippers were shot dead in a modest church in the quiet little community of Sutherland Springs, Texas, in early November, 2017. It was just a month after a man killed 60 people and wounded more than 400 at a music event when he shot at them from a hotel window in Las Vegas, Nevada, in one of the worst such massacres America has seen.
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