Responding to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas

It is our responsibility to provide insightful and reflective comment on tragedies like Uvalde, writes Harriet Williamson

This horrific event was the second worst school shooting in US history (AFP via Getty Images)

On Tuesday 24 May, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and killed 19 children and two adults. It was the second-worst school shooting in US history. Here’s how the Voices desk responded to the horrific event.

When the news broke at around 10pm UK time, our Voices editor, Victoria Richards, immediately addressed how obscenely common these mass shootings have become. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to write about the death of innocent children at the hands of guns in the supposed land of the free, and it won’t be the last,” she wrote.

At 7am on Wednesday morning, I also responded to the tragedy, focusing on the laxity of Texas’s gun laws compared to the harsh and regressive legislation applied to the people who are pregnant in the same US state. Texas is “pro-life” when it comes to a foetus, but not for the child in a classroom or the person who needs an abortion.