Texas shooting – latest: Biden says ‘no rational basis’ for AR-15s as new video emerges from Uvalde

There were at least 14 mass shootings in the US between the Uvalde massacre on 24 May and Memorial Day.

The three-day holiday weekend saw 11 of those shootings, underscoring the pervasive levels of gun violence across the US while all eyes are turned to the tragedy in Texas, where families are beginning to bury the 21 dead and pray in memorial services that are planned through mid-June.

Five mass shootings took place on Saturday alone.

At least seven people were killed in those holiday weekend shootings, according to the GVA.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said officials believed “there was no meaningful forwarning” of Salvador Ramos’s crimes, other than messages he sent immediately before the attack.

But eople who knew the 18-year-old gunman have painted a picture of a deeply disturbed individual who enjoyed hurting animals and boasted about guns on social media.

In 2020, firearm-related injuries surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death among US children and adolescents, according the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That year, the most recent year for which such data is available, there were 19,384 gun homicides in the US, the most since at least 1968, and another 24,000 people killed themselves with firearms, bringing the total number of gun-related deaths to more than 45,000.

That spike reflects 4,368 Americans under the age of 19 who died from gun violence in 2020.

An ad for the Daniel Defense rifle reportedly used by the Uvalde gunman – the DDM4 V7, which retails for approximately $2,00 – shows the rifle leaning against a refrigerator with the caption, “Let’s normalise kitchen Daniels. What Daniel do you use to protect your family and home?”

Jessie Rodriguez, whose 10-year-old daughter Annabell was killed in Robb Elementrry, told The Independent that “more likely many children probably still were there just bleeding out, but yet they didn’t try to rescue nobody.”

“It’s wrong to just think, ‘They’re all dead anyways.’ You don’t think negative like that; you enter and put down that man, find out if there’s still survivors – not just wait til they bleed out,” he said. “It took one hour before they could put a stop to this man … but it’s a little bit too late.”

His remarks follow conflicting statements from Texas authorities, including a false statement that a school-assigned officer fired at the gunman before he entered the school, and a failure to fully account for the hour that followed.

On Monday, mourners held a visitation for 10-year-old Amerie Jo Garza at Hillcrest Funeral Home in advance of a rosary later that evening and funeral Mass on Tuesday – exactly one week after she was gunned down in her fourth-grade classroom.

Throngs of people carrying stuffed animals, flowers and messages swarmed Geraldine Street, where a heavy police presence remained.

They had come from far and wide to pay their respects, many with their young children in tow.

The Independent’s Sheila Flynn reports from Uvalde:

Kimberly Rubio’s daughter, Lexi, was among the 19 children killed in the Robb Elementary School massacre.

Ms Rubio – a reporter at the community newspaper the Uvalde News-Leader, which has operated in some fashion since 1879 – asked her editor whether she could write her daughter’s obituary, according to The New Yorker, which chonricled the last week at the small-town newspaper.

Lexi, who was in fourth grade, planned to major in math at St Mary’s University, which Ms Rubio attends, and then attend law school, according to an obitutary.

“Like her father, she played softball and basketball, and they both relished the time they spent practicing, one-on-one,” the obituary reads “She was so committed to the sports, she would practice on her own while he was at work, in advance of their sessions. Their playful banter, on topics from practice and school to his no-boyfriends rule, made his heart swell with girl-dad pride. His little girl was opinionated and an impassioned debater, just like her mother.”

Lexi also “looked up to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, happy to share a name and birth month with the young Congresswoman,” the obituary reads.

Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut will participate in a virtual meeting on Tuesday in the hopes of reaching some common ground to move forward with a “basic framework” for potential bipartisan gun control legislation in Congress.

An aide for Mr Cornyn said the Zoom meeting will “see if we can agree on a basic framework” about a proposal, while an aide to Mr Murphy confirmed that the senator will be participating in the call, according to CBS News.

President Joe Biden, upon returning to the White House on Memorial Day following his visit to Uvalde, said that he believes “there’s a realization on the part of rational Republicans – and I think Senator [Mitch] McConnell is a rational Republican. I think Cornyn is as well,

”I think there’s a recognition in their part that … we can’t continue like this. We can’t do this,” he told reporters.

Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley announced on Sunday that the federa lagency will conduct a “critical incident review” of the police response to the mass shooting in Uvalde at the request of the city’s mayor Don McLaughlin.

The review will “provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events,” according to Coley.

The Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing will lead the review, and a report will be published at its conclusion.

The review follows conflicting statements from Texas authorities, including a false statement that a school-assigned officer fired at the gunman before he entered the school, and a failure to fully account for the hour that followed.

Officers with the Uvalde Police Department and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District arrived roughly four minutes after 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos entered the school, according to the timeline from law enforcement officials. But in the days that followed, officials have struggled to publicly explain what happened in the hour that followed before an officer fatally shot Ramos.

Joe Biden returned to Washington DC on Monday after visiting Uvalde, where he felt “palpable” pain within the community in the massacre’s wake.

He said he has been “pretty motivated” to advance new gun safety legislation, though he admitted that he cannot “dictate” policy through more executive actions.

The president did not offer any specifics as to what he would prefer Congress to do, but he implied the assault weapons ban he helped shepherd through Congress as part of the 1994 crime bill signed into law by then-president Bill Clinton made a difference while it was in effect.

“I know that it makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds,” he said. “It did significantly cut down mass murders.”