The Uvalde Elementary School Shooting, things to think about #massshooting #trending #tragic #rifle

On May 24, 2022, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos fatally shot nineteen students and two teachers, and wounded seventeen others at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Earlier that day, Ramos had shot his grandmother in the face, severely wounding her. After firing shots outside the school for approximately five minutes,[5] he entered Robb Elementary School armed with an AR-15 style rifle and handgun through a propped open side entrance, left open by a teacher, without encountering armed resistance. Ramos locked himself inside a classroom where all his victims were killed and remained there for about one hour before being killed by a United States Border Patrol tactical team. It is the third-deadliest American school shooting, after the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, and the deadliest ever in the state of Texas.

Law enforcement officials were criticized for their long delay in response to the shooting. When police officers arrived at the campus, they waited for approximately 78 minutes before engaging with the suspect. In addition, police cordoned the school grounds during the shooting, resulting in violent conflicts between police and civilians who were attempting to enter the school to assist first responders. Afterwards, local and state officials gave conflicting reports of the timeline of police actions, and overstated actions police took to stop the shooter. The Texas Department of Public Safety acknowledged a series of errors, including the decision to delay an assault on the shooter's position.
Following the shooting, which took place only ten days after another high-profile mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, wider discussions ensued about American gun culture and violence, gridlock in politics, and law enforcement in the United States as an institution. Some have advocated for a policy to ban assault weapons in the country or to defund the police. Others criticized politicians for their perceived role in continuing to enable mass shootings. Republicans have responded by resisting the implementation of gun control measures,instead calling for increasing security measures in schools, such as armed teachers; they also accused their opponents of politicizing the shooting.

On May 24, 2022, Ramos and his 66-year-old grandmother had an argument at their home in Uvalde, during which he shot her in the forehead before taking her truck. She survived and sought help from neighbors while police were called. She was then airlifted to a hospital in San Antonio in critical condition. Using his Facebook account, Ramos sent three private messages to a 15-year-old girl from Germany whom he had met online prior to the shooting: the first to say that he was going to shoot his grandmother, a second to say that he had shot his grandmother, and a third, about 15 minutes before the shooting, to say that he was going to open fire at an elementary school. A spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said the posts were "private one-to-one text messages" discovered after the shooting took place.

Ramos crashed his grandmother's truck through a barricade and into a concrete ditch outside Robb Elementary School at 11:28 a.m. CDT (UTC–5). According to police and security camera footage, he was wearing a plate carrier—a type of tactical vest—without armor inserts, a backpack, and all-black clothing, while carrying an AR-15 style rifle and standard capacity magazines. A witness said he first fired at two people at a nearby funeral home, both of whom escaped uninjured. Police reported receiving 9-1-1 calls about a vehicle having crashed near the school. A school resource officer drove past Ramos and pursued a teacher who they erroneously believed to be the gunman. Ramos then dropped a black ammunition bag and ventured further into the school.[51] Ramos walked into the school through its south entrance at 11:33. That security door had been propped open minutes earlier by a teacher who had exited the building to retrieve a mobile phone. The majority of the shooting occurred inside the building within the first few minutes; Ramos was in the building for 40 to 60 minutes while armed police remained outside the classroom and building. Officers arrived four minutes after Ramos entered the school and attempted to make entry, but retreated after he fired at them. Officers were not successful in establishing negotiations with Ramos.