These Tweets Are Full Of Grief And Rage At the Uvalde School Shooting

There’s no other word but devastating. On May 24, at least 21 people were killed in a deadly mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Carried out just days before the end of the school year, this tragic event has quickly become the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history — and the second-deadliest school shooting in the United States. People all over the country are using online platforms to express their sadness, rage, and grief, and these tweets about the Uvalde school shooting all ask the same question: Why do we keep letting this happen?

Several local news sources state the shooting at the school started on May 24 at at 11:30 am local time, when the gunman barricaded himself in a classroom at the elementary school. At least 19 children and two teachers were killed, as well as the suspected shooter. It’s the deadliest school shooting since 2012, when a gunman killed 26 people, 20 of whom were children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

As the 27th school shooting in 2022 per NPR, the tragedy in Uvalde is yet another incident of gun violence in the United States. According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, these tragedies are a growing problem: In 2014, there were 269 mass shooting events, while in 2020, there were 611. As of May 2022, the Gun Violence Archive has counted at least 213 mass shootings this year, while gun policy advocacy group Everytown For Gun Safety notes that more than 40,000 Americans die each year from gun violence.

And for many people, there’s hardly any grieving time between these incidents — the Uvalde school shooting comes a week and a half after 10 people were killed during a May 14 mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, which authorities said appeared to be an anti-Black hate crime.

Now, people all over the internet are taking to social media platforms to express their anger and grief, and to demand national gun reform measures.

“We're devastated by this horrific act of gun violence that will forever traumatize the Uvalde community,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action said in a statement shared with Elite Daily. “School shootings are not acts of nature, they're man-made acts of inaction, of cowardice, of corruption by all lawmakers who refuse to pass laws proven by data to stop preventable, senseless shootings like in Uvalde,” she added. “We cannot and will not accept a reality in which our children aren’t safe in schools or their communities.”

At least six victims of the shooting have been publicly identified by their family members, including third grade student Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10; fourth graders Uziyah Garcia; Xavier Lopez, 10; and Amerie Jo Garza, 9. “We are heartbroken for everyone impacted by this senseless act of violence in a predominantly Latinx community,” Rena Estala, a volunteer with the Texas chapter of Students Demand Action, said in a statement shared with Elite Daily. “School is the last place where kids should have to worry about gun violence. We need leaders at every level to prioritize gun safety now.”