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Uvalde Shooting: What’s Happening a Year Later
As the survivors mourn and pray for those who lost their lives, has anyone learned anything from the Uvalde Shooting?
When Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School lost 19 students and 2 teachers to a lone gunman, parents demanded a re-examination of gun laws. Because America’s been notorious for the gray areas in their gun laws, netizens have been creating memes about it to raise awareness. But there lies the important question: it’s been over a year since the Uvalde Shooting, so what’s happening now?
Who is accountable?
The name “Salvador Ramos” will forever remain in the bereaved parents’ minds as their child’s killer. And, it’s easy to say that he is the only one accountable for he held the smoking gun. But during the year the shooting occurred, his family became the ones to answer for his crimes in their community. His mother had been accosted by the mother of one of the victims, Amerie Gorza, caught screaming on video by the journalist Edgar Munoz.
“You have no right to judge my son. No, you don’t! No, you don’t. May God forgive y’all!”
How the grieving parents became advocates
There’s a saying by Georgian poet and columnist Aberjhani that goes, “It can be difficult to speak truth to power. Circumstances, however, have made doing so increasingly necessary.”
The Uvalde Shooting inspired American families to demand better “common gun laws,” as circumstances had pushed them. Especially as parents of the victims, they’ve devoted themselves to the advocacy of gun control to move one step forward toward ending school shootings.
One was Kim Rubio, mother to the late 10-year-old Lexi Rubio. Today, she recalls the shooting with a heavy heart as she stands at her daughter’s grave.
#lexirubio 💛🌻 pic.twitter.com/2ChG7eb9jR
— Kimberly Mata-Rubio (@kimrubio21) May 25, 2023
During the year she grieved her loss, the mom of six pushed to become a journalist and obtained her degree in St. Mary’s University while becoming an outspoken advocate for gun reform.
But what does one do when struck with PTSD and Survivor’s Guilt? The now 11-year-old Caitlyne Gonzales uses her guilt and trauma to empower her to advocate for gun reform. “My voice is important,” she declares in an interview while recalling some horrifying details of the shooting. “The change I want to see in gun laws is, like, ban assault weapons. Or not even that, just like, to raise the age to buy one.”
Accountability from the government
Ultimately, it falls into the government’s hands on how the gun laws would be reformed. Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell assured the public that the Texas Rangers were also running an investigation within the police force. Because there is a circulating story that during the shooting, around 376 armed officers “waited more than an hour before confronting the armed shooter.”
While the accounting is still ongoing, the battle for gun law reforms still continues. President Biden had signed a bill that would make the background checks more stringent but Texas governor Greg Abott was said to “wave off” the bill in spite of the multiple shootings that occurred.
Uvalde’s families push forward in grief for a better tomorrow
Although a year has passed, the thundering sounds of the gunshots of the Uvalde Shooting are still vivid and clear in the survivors’ ears. Calls for gun reform should not be falling on deaf ears. These are parents who entrusted the schools to make sure their kids grow safely. While they can’t protect them from everything, the last place that should have a shooting is a school.
Follow the story of the Uvalde Shooting:
Matthew McConaughey Calls for Action Following Uvalde Shooting
Why the New Gun Safety Law in the US Matters for the Biden Administration
Texas School Shooting 2022: “Enough Is Enough!”
