Facing yet another community grieving after a mass shooting, the president replied, ‘We will.’ But Congress hasn’t managed to change gun policy for decades.
Only 12 days after visiting a community center in Buffalo, N.Y., following a mass shooting that claimed 10 lives at a supermarket, President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived in Texas on Sunday morning to console victims of the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.
After landing at Kelly Field in San Antonio, the Bidens flew to the South Texas town of Uvalde, a majority-Latino community of 15,000 where 19 schoolchildren and two educators were slaughtered on Tuesday at Robb Elementary School.
While leaving a mass service in the town, a spectator called out to the president to “Do something!”
“We will,” Biden replied.
Upon arriving in Texas, the president and first lady were greeted by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas first lady Cecilia Abbott, Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio, Uvalde County Judge Bill Mitchell and Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin.
Uvalde County Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell, Robb Elementary School principal Mandy Gutierrez and state Sen. Roland Gutierrez joined the group at the site of the shooting.
Biden stopped to read the victims’ names and touched some of their photos. While there, he wiped away a tear.
When Abbott arrived at the school, one of the spectators shouted: “We need help!”
On the way to celebrating Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, the Bidens encountered Texans along the route. One man held up a “Uvalde Strong” sign, while another woman held up a blue and white flag with the word “BORDER” written across the top.
“Our hearts are broken,” San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller said at the Mass on Sunday.
The church service focused on the children of the 600 parish members in attendance. In both English and Spanish, García-Siller told the Uvalde children they would help their community heal.
Later in the afternoon, the Bidens met with victims and survivors of the shooting and with first responders.
Despite Biden’s promise to act, it remained far from clear whether Congress would do so.
As several federal and local Texas officials appeared on Sunday news shows, the lack of agreement on how to solve the problem, or even what the problem is, was readily apparent.
When asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on whether the country has “a gun problem or a security problem,” Roland Gutierrez, a Texas Democratic state senator who has been outspoken in favor of gun reform, was definitive.
“This is absolutely a gun problem, and it’s all of those things,” he said. Abbott thinks it’s a mental health problem. Sure it is. Well, then go fund it properly. We’re dead last in mental health funding in the United States. You know, we’ve got a crisis of infinite proportions in these United States.”
He added: “At the end of the day, if we don’t have accessibility to militarized weapons, this doesn’t happen, just like it doesn’t happen in the rest of the world.”
