Researched by: Sara Varghese & Prafula Grace Busi

The Texas school massacre

Here’s the chilling timeline of events: 

• On Tuesday morning, in Uvalde, Texas, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos was annoyed at his 66-year old grandmother—who he lived with—and shot her in the face.
• He then texted a girl he liked in Germany: “I just shot my grandma in her head. Ima go shoot up a elementary school rn.”
• Ramos then got into a pickup truck with two guns and ammunition and drove to the Robb Elementary School—crashing to a halt outside the building around 11:30 am. 
• School security spotted Ramos and unsuccessfully tried to stop him. Two were injured in the encounter.
• Ramos then barricaded himself inside a fourth grade classroom—with about 25-30 kids—and opened fire on the children and teachers. All those killed were in that one room.
• A special tactical team of officers arrived on the scene. They were finally able to breach the room just after 1 pm—when Ramos was shot dead. 

The victims: The children were all around 10 years old—and judging by the names identified by the New York Times, most were Latino. As were the two women teachers who lost their lives trying to save the kids: Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles. Officials have not released the names of all the victims as yet. Below are photos of two of the kids: Amerie Jo Garza and and Jose Flores:

The teenage gunman: Salvador Ramos fits the profile of the typical male shooter. The high school student was a loner—who was bullied as a child for having a stutter and strong lisp. His friend in middle school said: “He was the nicest kid, the most shyest kid. He just needed to break out of his shell.” And with a mother who has a drug problem, his family life was chaotic. 

A ticking bomb: Ramos became increasingly angry and violent in high school—and soon stopped attending classes. His fantasies became increasingly nasty. Ramos once told a friend he wanted to join the Marines just to be able to kill people. And he once threatened his co-workers at the fast food restaurant where he worked—telling one of them: “I’m going to shoot up the Wendy’s.” Ramos was also self-harming—he told another friend “he’d cut up his [own] face with knives over and over and over” for fun. 

Inevitably, Ramos developed a great fascination for guns. A year ago, he posted photos of automatic rifles that “he would have on his wish list.” He fulfilled that wish by buying 

an AR-style rifle on May 17, a day after his 18th birthday—and bought another one three days later.  Ramos also purchased 375 rounds of ammunition. All this from a local gun store. 

Point to note: Ramos had no criminal record or history of mental illness.

An epidemic of gun violence

The monstrous size of America’s gun problem is best summed up in damning numbers:

One: There have been 1.5 million firearm deaths between 1968 and 2017—which is higher than the number of US troops lost in every war since 1775. 

Two: 79% of all homicides in the US in 2020 were gun-related—compared to 37% in Canada, 13% in Australia and 4% in the UK. Nearly 53 people were killed each day due to a firearm that year.

Three: Mass shootings are not the exception but the norm. There were 345 incidents between 2000 and 2020—resulting in 1,024 deaths and 1,828 injuries. And it is getting worse. In just this year, there have been 213 incidents of mass shootings—where four or more people have been killed or injured. The number for 2021: 693. 

Point to note: The worst of these was the Las Vegas shooting in 2017 which left 50 dead. The most recent: The shooting in Buffalo, New York, that resulted in 10 deaths—just weeks ago. This Texas tragedy is the second worst school shooting in US history. The worst: Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 that resulted in 26 deaths, including 20 children.

Four: For almost 60 years, the leading cause of death for American kids aged 1 to 19 was car accidents. Then in 2020, firearms suddenly took the lead. A recent study identified this big spike:

“But then from 2019 to 2020, ‘firearm-related deaths of all types (suicide, homicide, unintentional, and undetermined) among children and adolescents [jumped] 29.5 percent—more than twice as high as the relative increase in the general population,’ the researchers said. Most of those deaths were homicides.”

Five: School shootings are also on the rise. More kids have been shot dead at school this year than police officers have been killed by guns. And there were more school shootings in 2021—42—than in any year since the Columbine killings in 1999. And this year, there have been 27 school shootings so far. Also this: About 70% of the school shooters were under the age of 18.

Point to note: The US had 288 school shootings between 2009 and 2018—which is 57X the number in other developed countries like Canada, Germany, the UK etc.

Finally, this: A shocking 311,000 children at 331 schools have experienced school shootings since Columbine. Why this matters: “Beyond the dead and wounded, children who witness the violence or cower behind locked doors to hide from it can be profoundly traumatised.”

The great divide over guns

Red vs Blue: As with almost every issue, there is an intractable Red vs Blue divide over gun ownership and laws. Nearly all Democrats (91%) are in support of stricter gun laws—compared to only 24% Republicans. Also this: “In 2001 Democrats were more likely than Republicans to call for stricter gun laws, by a margin of 17 percentage points. In two decades this gap has quadrupled, to 67 percentage points.” 

Point to note: In red states like Texas, gun laws have become even more liberal. Its governor recently signed a law that allows anyone to carry a handgun without a licence or training.

A lack of urgency: Despite the gruesome statistics, only 48% of Americans view gun violence as a big problem—and only 53% want stricter laws. That number is significant but simply not enough to break the partisan deadlock. Worse, far too many believe gun control is not the answer. Only 49% say there would be fewer mass shootings if it was harder for people to obtain guns—compared to 42% who say it will make no difference.

It is impossible to find a solution when you can’t agree on the problem:

“[A]fter a mass shooting occurs, people who don’t own guns tend to identify the general availability of guns as the culprit. Gun owners, on the other hand, are more likely to blame other factors, such as popular culture or parenting.”

The result: The die-hard gun advocates always win. As Robert Gebelhoff points out in the Washington Post:

“Rarely do Americans who support gun control make it their top priority—and this is especially true of people without strong party affiliation…By contrast, Americans who oppose gun control are intensely focused; so much so that for some of them, it’s a core part of their political identity. In a primary-driven electoral system such as ours, the latter group wins out every time.”

The bigger problem of gun ownership

As many experts point out, America cannot solve the problem of gun violence without addressing the real underlying culprit: gun ownership. 

A nation of gun owners: Americans make up less than 5% of the world’s population, but own roughly 45% of all the world’s privately held firearms. There 120.5 firearms per 100 residents—i.e. more guns than people. And more and more people are buying guns—with 7.5 million becoming new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021. What this means: At least 11 million people—including 5 million children—are exposed to firearms just in their homes. Point to note: “Of those, approximately half of all new gun owners were female and nearly half were people of color.”

Cause & effect: Over and again, research has shown that the higher number of guns is closely linked to the higher level of gun violence. See the chart below:

And that means just gun control for future purchases won’t bring those death counts down. German Lopez concludes in Vox:

“If the fundamental problem is that America has far too many guns, then policies need to cut the number of guns in circulation right now to seriously reduce the number of gun deaths. Background checks and other restrictions on who can buy a gun can’t achieve that in the short term.”

What is really needed is a gun confiscation program—similar to other countries like Australia. And even Democrats have no appetite for that kind of political suicide.

The bottomline: is that America has just way too many guns.

Reading list

Washington Post has the best profile of the gunman, Salvador Ramos. New York Times has a grim interactive feature documenting school shootings since 1970. For more data on America’s gun culture, see the charts over at BBC News—and the findings of Pew Research. German Lopez in Vox has a detailed analysis on why gun control is just not enough. Spencer Bokat-Lindell has a great New York Times column summing up all the reasons why Americans can’t fix their gun violence problem. David Frum in The Atlantic pens an emotional essay on the Texas tragedy.