Massacre in Texas | The 4th grade

There were two days left before the school holidays.

In the photo, Xavier Lopez, 10, poses with an award. The cute smile, the rosy cheeks, the proud look.

His mother, Felicha Martinez, took the photo during the graduation ceremony at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

The mother said to her son: “I am proud of you, I love you. A few hours later, she learned the worst news a parent could learn: her child was among the innocent victims of the massacre that decimated her fourth-grade class. She will never be able to hug him again. This smile, immortalized in his photo, was the last he offered her.

“That smile, I will never forget it,” said the mother to the washington post, voice broken, heart even more. “It always lifted people’s spirits. »

In the aftermath of the Uvalde massacre that stole the lives and dreams of 19 children and 2 teachers, I struggle to find what else could lift the spirits of Americans.

I read the stories of each of the victims. I see their smiling faces pass by, which will no longer smile. I think of Eva Mireles, that dedicated teacher who gave parents the impression that she was only teaching their child and could move heaven and earth to ensure the well-being of an autistic student. She was shot while trying to protect her students.

I think of Irma Garcia, a well-regarded fourth-grade teacher with 23 years of experience. She was also murdered while trying to save her students.

I think of all those 10-year-olds who will never be 11. Several were born the year of the Sandy Hook massacre, which killed 27 people, including 20 children, in an elementary school in Connecticut. The year so many Americans, eyes wide with dread, said loud and clear, “Never again. “The year when we believed that there would be a “before” and an “after”.

The 19 children and their 2 teachers who died on Tuesday were victims of the killer who burst into their class and pointed his legally purchased weapon at them. But above all, they have been victims of another decade of broken promises and political inertia on gun control and gun violence prevention in the United States. They are victims of the powerful gun lobby of the National Rifle Association and its complicity with elected Republicans. They are victims of a class of political dunces (among whom there are also at least two Democratic senators) and their lax laws which allow a young Texan to afford two assault rifles for his 18th birthday.¹.

Seeing the photos and stories of the victims scroll by, I especially thought of the endless pain of this growing community of parents who lost a child in a shooting in the United States. To the sadness and anger they may have felt when they learned that despite the bursts of emotion and indignation the day after each killing, the same scenario of horror, however avoidable, is repeated again and again.

There was no “before” or “after” as we had hoped. Before, children were dying. Then they die again.

Firearms are the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the United States. Children aged 5 to 14 there are 21 times more likely to be killed by guns than those in other wealthy countries².

Without strong gun control laws, more American children will die.

“Governor Abbott, I have to say something. Now is the time to prevent the next shooting, and you don’t do anything,” Beto O’Rourke, Democratic candidate for Texas governor, said on Wednesday, interrupting his Republican opponent Greg Abbott’s press conference. reduced the killing to the mad gesture of a “demented person”. The stunt of the Democratic politician, escorted by police to the exit, earned him to be called a “disturbed son of a bitch” by the mayor of Uvalde.

Even if there are few reasons to be optimistic for the future, some refuse to give up. This is the case of David Hogg, survivor of the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting in 2018, and co-founder of the student movement for gun control #NeverAgain.

The day after the massacre at his school, which resulted in the death of 17 people, the then 17-year-old young man told CNN: “We are children. You are the adults. You have to take action and play your part. Work together. Put aside your politics and do something. »

He repeated the same message the day after the Uvalde massacre, hoping that this time would be the right one. “I want my future children to be born in a country where I drop them off at school without worrying that it will be the last time I see them. This is not a Democrat or Republican problem. We all agree that our children and Americans need to be safe in their schools and communities. Let’s act. »

I doubt that happens. But I sincerely hope I’m wrong.