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At Least 19 Children, 2 Adults Dead After Shooting At Texas Elementary School; After Texas Shooting, Connecticut Senator Begs for Gun Compromise. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired May 25, 2022 - 01:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[01:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm John Vause at the CNN Center in Atlanta with breaking news this hour on the deadliest grade school shooting in the U.S. in almost a decade.

In southwest Texas, a lone gunman has shot and killed at least 19 children and two adults. The gunman is also among the dead killed by law enforcement with investigation now underway to try and find a motive his killing spree. He's been identified by police as 18-year- old Salvador Ramos. Three sources telling CNN, his first victim was his grandmother. She was airlifted to hospital in critical condition.

The massacre happened at Robb Elementary in the small town of Uvalde. In Texas about 90 minutes west of San Antonio not far from the Mexico border. 90 percent of the 600 students at Robb are Latino, and they were just weeks away from summer break.

Ramos crashed his car near the school and was then seen running onto campus, wearing body armor carrying two firearms which a Texas lawmaker says were purchased by Ramos legally from a federally authorized dealer on his 18th birthday.

Just three days earlier, a photo of two AR style 15 rifles was posted on an Instagram account linked to the gunman. Many details this shooting mirrors the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in December of 2012, where a lone gunman killed 20 children in the first and second grades as well as six adults in Newtown, Connecticut. U.S. President Joe Biden says it's time to stand up to the gun lobby and pass common sense regulations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don't tell me we can't have an impact on this carnage. I spent my career as a senator and vice president working to pass common sense gun laws. We can will prevent every tragedy. But we know they were and have positive impact. When we pass the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. When the law expired, mass shootings tripled.

The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons, it's just wrong. What in God's name do you need to solve it for except to kill someone?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The President has just returned from a trip to Asia, which is now being bookended by two mass shootings in the US. Biden ordered flags at the White House and other government buildings lowered to half-staff.

CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez is life itself in Washington. So Evan, in almost every respect, this mass shooting is following a very similar pattern to so many others. Is there anything which investigators have found, which stands out as being significantly different?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, look, you know, we cover so many of these. And usually by this point, you know, talking to law enforcement, you're starting to use a get a picture of the shooter and perhaps some indications of the motivation. We're not getting that at this point. And that's a very notable thing.

We have, you know, this incident that happened at the grandmother's house, apparently he shots, he shoots the grandmother, and then at some point, ends up crashing his car outside of the school and then makes his way somehow, despite getting into a shootout with a number of officers ends up somehow inside these classrooms, where these 19 children are then massacred.

So, there's a lot of unanswered questions as to how we get here how this shooter goes from someone who is described by some of his friends as a loner, as a quiet person, someone who was perhaps bullied in school, but, you know, was not somebody who acted out to them showing up at this elementary school and carrying out this this horrific, horrific massacre, John.

VAUSE: We also the social media posting of the two AR style weapons on the Instagram account linked to Ramos.

PEREZ: Right.

VAUSE: Was there anything else on that posting, which would give a hint as to why he did what he did?

PEREZ: No, that's one of the things that we know that from talking to some of his friends, that recently he started showing pictures of firearms and guns that he wanted to buy, and then more recently, because he just turned 18 years old, and was eligible to buy these firearms. He apparently acquired them.

And so from those conversations, we're getting a picture of perhaps some change in the behavior of this of this young man.

Now, from talking to some co-worker for instance, at a fast food restaurant that he worked in, you also get the sense that things were not well.

[01:05:06] One of his friends describes that he didn't have a very good relationship with his family, low income family that they live there in that town. Again, these are all things that investigators will be looking at. We know that they've already reached out to some of these friends who apparently had conversations with him on Snapchat, and also through video game platforms.

So all of those things are being put together by these investigators to try to just explain the unexplainable.

VAUSE: Evan, thank you. Evan Perez there in Washington. We appreciate staying up late. Thank you.

Joining me out from Los Angeles is retired FBI Special Agent Steve Morre. Steve, OK. Yes, we know that the gunman (INAUDIBLE) depressingly familiar, right. I want you to listen to Sergeant Erick Estrada from the Texas Department of Public Safety. He described what happened after the shooter crashed his car outside the school.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SGT. ERICK ESTRADA, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: He was observed exiting the vehicle with a long rifle and a backpack. He also had a -- he also had body armor with him. That's whenever the, I believe the ISD police officers engage him. Then there was a second call where he entered through the south doors, the Robb Elementary School, he entered. And that's when he started with his gunfire.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

VAUSE: Just for the record was an AR style weapon. He's wearing body armor. Earlier he shot his grandmother. In almost every respect, this is a carbon copy of what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary almost a decade ago. And that begs the question, if it happened before, why did it have to happen again? To those kids that said he'll die in vain?

STEVE MOORE, RETIRED SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT, FBI: No, I don't think they did. And that's small comfort to their families. But every single shooting that we see, it informs law enforcement, and -- of how to stop these, how to predict these. And that's one of the things we have to do going forward. I think you're probably going to find that this guy searched out and researched shootings in the past school shootings.

And I would not be surprised at all, if he wasn't modeling this after Sandy Hook because it was the most lethal school shooting. In Sandy Hook the shooter killed his mother. In this one, he killed his grandmother. They happen -- they started within an hour or two of each other in the morning, time wise. And I think he was modeling this. I think he was possibly modeling this after another shooting.

VAUSE: Just to break, he shot and wounded the grandmother.

MOORE: I'm sorry, I apologize.

VAUSE: Just to get that on the record. I know you , you know, what's going on. But just misspoke. Just but just to get it right. By all accounts, please respond very quickly. And yet the government was still able to shoot and kill 21 people, does that speak at least in part to the type of weapon being used?

MOORE: I think maybe it does. But we're going to have to find out. My, you know, I've heard wild stories that they may not have gone in for 45 minutes. I hope that's not true. When you get there you go in. I mean the ISD police officers, they knew what was at stake. They engaged him immediately. They knew what a long rifle could do to them. And they engaged him immediately.

Active shooter protocol is to go to the sound of the gunshots, whether it's one, two, three, or four officers, you go to the sound of the gunshots, and you end the gunfire. And the problem is you're giving up all your safety as a law enforcement officer doing that. There's no such thing as shielding yourself, or making yourself safe here. Your job is to trade places with the innocent children in the presence of the shooter and trade that person for a law enforcement officer with a gun. You need to get there right away.

So, I applaud the Border Patrol and the police officers who went in there bravely and got him out. I -- Now I'm going to wonder if it was 45 minutes why it was. Again, I wasn't there and they may have had good reason. But it's not active shooter protocol.

VAUSE: And with regard how is it that an 18-year-old kid with almost no experience handling a rifle is able to shoot a Border Patrol agent who is engaged in a firefight but shooting him as well as with.

MOORE: I think if he got the weapons, he probably trained with the weapons. First thing people do when they get a weapon is they go to the gun range. He probably got some rudimentary training in this. And one of the things about long rifles is they're easier to, I mean they don't maneuver as well, but it's easier to put shot accurately than it is with a pistol.

[01:10:03]

VAUSE: Are you talking about like an AR assault weapon there's no recoil, right? You can just sit there shooting while the other after the other?

MOORE: There's negligible recoil. The reset, you know, it is going to move a little bit, but it's not going to move wildly.

VAUSE: When he addressed the nation, the U.S. President mentioned that since the Sandy Hook massacre, there's been 900 incidents of gunfire reported on school grounds. And also the FBI active shooter incident report was released Monday. Here's part of it, for the period 2017 to 2021 active shooter incident data reveals an upward trend. The number of active shooter incidents identified in 2021 represents a 52.5 percent increase from 2020, and get this, a 96.8 percent increase from 2017.

I guess if there is a plan to prevent shootings in this country, it's not really working. But is it even a national strategy?

MOORE: Well, the only national strategy on dealing with these things are active shooter protocols, rapid action tactics, I used to teach those. What we need is a holistic approach. You can't just say, well, let's just get the guns out. Because even if we could wave a magic wand, you'd still have homicidal people out there looking for a weapon.

But we do have to address the gun. So don't get me wrong. We have to address school safety for those people who slipped through the cracks and get a firearm or worse, get explosive, something like that. Schools have to be better protected. They have to be hardened. We have to have an overhaul of our mental health system. It's not just that we have thousands, tens of thousands of homeless on our streets quite a bit of them because of mental health issues.

We're having people like this, who -- we're letting them kill our children, because we're not forcing them or getting them mental health evaluation. We've got to do this and a whole lot, not one thing is going to solve this. It's going to be a cultural holistic change. It's going to be like 911. After before 91, you can get on planes pretty easy. Now you can't. It's just everything changes.

VAUSE: You got to want to make a change, Steve, in the first place. And that seems to be lucky, I guess. But they've been with us. We appreciate it.

MOORE: Thanks John.

VAUSE: Steve Moore in Los Angeles.

The wake of this shooting many lawmakers and others are offering their thoughts and prayers, but little else. There is bipartisan agreement something needs to be done just no agreement on what that something is. When we come back, what will it take for the U.S. Congress to pass meaningful gun reform?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:16:37]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAL HARRELL, SUPT., UVALDE CONSOLIDATED INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT: My heart was broken today. We're a small community. And we'll need your prayers to get us through this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Welcome back, the Uvalde district superintendent there asking for prayers for the 19 children and two adults who were killed at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday by an 18-year-old gunman. More than a dozen children, two adults were also injured and taken to hospital.

This case believed the shooter acted alone and was killed during a firefight with law enforcement. Witnesses saw the gunman wearing body armor, carrying a rifle and backpack. And once he entered the school, he barricaded himself inside the classroom.

Tuesday's rampage marks at least the 30th shooting at a K through 12 school in the U.S. this year.

On Tuesday, one of those passionate pleas for gun control came from the U.S. Senator from Connecticut, the state with the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre claimed the lives of 20 children nearly a decade ago. Senator Chris Murphy begged Republicans to work with him and fellow Democrats on gun reform.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): This isn't inevitable. These kids weren't unlucky. This only happens in this country. And nowhere else. Nowhere else to little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day. Nowhere else do parents have to talk to their kids, as I have had to do about why they got locked into a bathroom and told to be quiet for five minutes just in case a bad man entered that building. Nowhere else does that happen except here in the United States of America. And it is a choice. It is our choice to let it continue. What are we doing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: It's a choice. Mathew Littman is the Executive Director of 97percent of bipartisan group working to reduce gun violence. He joins us now live from Los Angeles.

Matt (ph), thanks for being with us. What really stood out from what Senator Murphy said was when he said it's a choice. This country chooses to allow these shootings to happen. But as a choice being made, it seems by a very small minority, totally opposed to any gun reform.

So who is it -- who is part of this minority? Why are they OK with children being shot dead at school? And why did they get to decide for the rest of the country?

MATHEW LITTMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 97PERCENT: Well, John, first of all, I have to say, well, you know, I'm happy to be on with you. I am sick of being on and talking about this situation, it is not getting better. And we're about to be in a situation where the Supreme Court is going to make it easier to walk around with a gun.

And so the situation may just in fact be getting worse in the short run. I mean, that is the truth. And I know people don't want to hear it. You're asking about the vast minority of people and why they have so much influence. And it's because of where people vote and the way that the Senate is, you know, in the House, something like universal background checks has passed in the House. Ethan's law, which is a gun storage law that came up for a vote that would pass in the Senate, we don't even get a vote on these things.

And so it's not the part of the problem, John, is that people don't understand that gun owners, who really need to step up in this situation. Gun owners, 84 percent of them favor background checks. Almost 80 percent of NRA members favor background checks, but you're right. It's that 3 percent or so that we hear about 15, 16 percent of gun owners that we hear about and they're the loudest voices in the room on social media, in legacy media. And it's not right we need to be listening to more people and gun owners have to be a part of this conversation. We need gun owners.

[01:20:06]

VAUSE: Which is what your group is all about. And that's important to know. But you mentioned this about, it's about to get worse. And it's been almost a year since Texas passed a whole host of measures to expand gun access into like guns to be carried, concealed without permits, as well as creating what's called Second Amendment sanctuaries, which prevents state officials from enforcing federal gun laws. similar measures have been taken across the US. Texas will join 19 other states with permitless or constitutional carry laws, five other states that have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries.

Why is there this momentum on the side of easing gun restrictions? Why is that happening? And the move to try to tighten them is going nowhere?

LITTMAN: Well, over the last couple of years, John, we've seen an incredible surge in the amount of gun sales. It's skyrocketed during COVID, for example. So what we're seeing now is we're seeing more of these mass shootings, as people have gotten out since people, you know, since the COVID situation changed a few months ago, and more and more of these mass shootings.

I was on CNN, you know, week and a half ago, with Buffalo. I think we've had 10 mass shootings since Buffalo until today. I mean, the numbers are outrageous. And it is true that some of these states are making it much easier to walk around with a gun. There's no question about it. And what we need to happen is we need first of all, John, of course, you know, most people are responsible with a gun, it should go without saying we're not getting rid of guns in this country. There are 400 million guns in this country, more guns than there are our people. So we need people to be responsible, which is not, you know, which is something that we're all working on. We work on it too.

But we also need people to understand that we need gun owners to come to the table because, John, we can't do the same thing over and over again. We can't just get up and say yes, we need universal background checks. You're right, we need universal background checks. And if we have a vote on it, it will fail until we do something differently, and what we need to do differently. And I don't want to be self-promoting at all, John, but we spent a long time a year talking to everybody about what's missing in the gun debate before we decided to do something.

And what was missing was gun owners. Right? And so gun owners, we know that gun owners favor red flag laws. Lindsey Graham favors red flag laws, Florida has red flag laws, but we don't spend enough money on red flag laws. So that may have helped prevent, for example, the Buffalo shooting. There are things that we can be doing that we're not doing right now.

VAUSE: When you say we, what are we talking about here? We're talking about bringing gun owners because that's what your group does. You bring those who want gun reform, together with the gun owners. And when they sit down, as you say, they have a lot in common when it comes to sensible gun reform in this country. So how do you take that from your group into Congress?

LITTMAN: Well, it's a great question, John. We have two former NRA lobbyists on our advisory board, for example, because they believe in gun reforms, right. And they don't want it the way that things have been stopped over the last few years. They're against it. And we have Republicans on our team. We have Democrats on our team.

And so we do, John, I will say that Congress has listened to us. We've met with dozens of members of Congress. We've met with Republican members of Congress, but the Senate is the Senate and we can't get a vote on background checks. And even if we did, we'd lose.

So what do we need? We need gun owners to come to the table. But we also need John, when the laws are written. Gun owners need to be at the table because, again, whatever we've been doing until now has not worked. I mean, you would have thought Newtown things would have worked when you -- I'm sure you've had Fred Guttenberg on the show, I'm sure right. You've had Fred Guttenberg on and his wife, Jennifer. They lost their daughter, Jamie. She was shot in the back at school in Florida. Their story is unbelievable. It's heartbreaking. And we keep doing it over and over and over again.

So what are we going to do that's different. And the thing that we need to do is because gun owners are such a powerful group, and there are hundreds of millions of guns in this country, 120 guns for every 100 people in this country as opposed to for example, Australia, where it's 15 per 100 people, we need to listen to them. They don't feel that they have a seat at the table in gun reform. We need to give them that seat at the table, John.

VAUSE: You mentioned Sandy Hook and you mentioned, you know, the days after that it was mass shooting, which President Obama would go on to describe as one of the darkest days of his presidency. Listen him speaking three years after the killing spree. Here we go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Our unalienable right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness those rights were stripped from college kids in Blacksburg, and Santa Barbara and from high schoolers at Columbine. And from first graders in Newtown. First graders. And from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Yes. The question I hear most often and you probably do too is, you know, if happened after Sandy Hook, and when, you know, as Biden said a few hours ago, when does this country say enough? LITTMAN: Right. And the key is, John, we have to get bring everybody to the table. And by the way, you know, John, we've become very OK with violence in this country. We've become very OK with death in this country. I mean, you've covered it over and over again and million people have died from COVID. It seems to be no big deal for a lot of people.

People die from gun violence. 42,000 a year, it seems to be no big deal. We need to bring people to the table. I've asked the president's office about having a summit of people, social media organizations, gun organizations, people who train people how to use a gun. We need to entertainment organizations because why are we so OK, with all of these people dying? Why is that OK in this country, and nowhere else? And we all need to come together, John.

I do say especially gun owners, but all of us, we need to come together and figure out what are we doing wrong? And what can we do differently? We're not going to get that 42,000 to zero, but we've got to get that down because it's not a number, John.

These are people as President Obama saying, these are kids. These are kids getting killed. You can't go to elementary school. You can't go to the supermarket. You can't go to the movie theater. We're supposed to be a free country. There's no freedom. There's no freedom if you can't go anywhere and think that you're going to be safe. I mean, what kind of country is this becoming? So we need to do something we need to do something differently.

VAUSE: Matt, thank you for that. Yes, why there are not mass marches on Washington right now over gun reform. I do not know. But it's good to have you with us. Thank you.

LITTMAN: Thanks John.

VAUSE: Like so many others they went to school Tuesday morning but the 19 youngest victims of this mass shooting will never be coming home. When we come back, what can be done to make schools safer? How can delicate precious lives be protected from a weapon used in war zones?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:31:15]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As a nation we have to ask when in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God's name we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: An emotional plea from the U.S. president as he called for courage to stand up to the industry and mourn the loss of so many young lives in Texas. These 19 children and two adults were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde just days before the summer break. Texas officials identified the gunman as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos. He was killed by law enforcement officers and police believe he acted alone. Still a motive remains unknown.

Sources say the gunman first shot his grandmother. She's now in a critical condition before he crashed his car near the school.

Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez told CNN the shooter legally purchased two assault rifles on his 18th birthday. The most heart- wrenching of all, he says, some parents were still waiting to hear about the fate of their children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROLAND GUTIERREZ, TEXAS STATE SENATOR: So they're taking DNA from parents and family members and trying to match them to those children that are deceased or the ones that are in the hospital.

Not all of the children have been reunited. It's been a very, very devastating sight right now when we have people that are finding out as we speak that their loved -- that their child is deceased.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Back in February of 2018 a high school in Florida was the scene of a deadly mass shooting. 15 students, a teacher and football coach all killed at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School at Parkland. Fred Guttenberg's daughter Jamie was among the dead and earlier he spoke to CNN about his first thoughts after this latest school shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRED GUTTENBERG, DAUGHTER JAMIE DIED IN PARKLAND SCHOOL SHOOTING: Shock, horror, anger at the fact that these shootings are preventable, but they're also predictable. Anger at the fact that as I speak to you tonight I know we're going to have this happen again because we haven't done anything.

You know, I've listened to all the talk tonight about why did this happen. And, listen, when my daughter was killed just over four years ago we had 300 million weapons in America. Now we're at 400 million plus and ghost guns.

This isn't rocket science. This isn't hard to figure out. We are making it easier for those who intend to kill to have the means to do so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Juliette Kayyem is a CNN national security analyst and former assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She is with us live from Providence, Rhode Island. Juliette -- thank you for being with us.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Hey John. VAUSE: What Fred Guttenberg was saying is just staggering, you know. A total of 400 million guns now and when you marry that with data coming from the FBI which shows a surge in the number of mass shootings in recent years, is this one of those instances when cause and effect is a legitimate argument to make? More guns means more shootings?

KAYYEM: Yes. Look, the basic fact is if guns made us safer we'd be the safest country on earth. And the data actually also shows that schools that have school shootings or active shooters with armed officials -- actually there's no evidence to suggest that those are better or worse. And we are still getting the details of what happened today.

[01:34:44]

KAYYEM: But let's just go back just one week when I think I was with you, to New York. There was an armed former police officer who engaged the killer before he started killing massively.

The killer had body armor; that we know that to be the case today as well. The assailant today also was engaged before he made it to the school. We don't know the nature of that engagement, but he was -- law enforcement did encounter him.

So I mean, we are stopping them before they get to these mass killings. They just have the power to kill lots of children very quickly and that's -- and until we do something about that capacity to kill where there's no response time you can do as many active shooter drills as you want. Nothing is going to save these children or anyone for that matter at a soft target like this.

VAUSE: I was thinking today about the parents of those children who have died in other shootings. How must they feel? They must feel their kids died for nothing.

KAYYEM: Yes. I mean you just -- you just can't quite fathom what's going on in Texas tonight. I mean as a parent I'm being much more explicit on air because I think it's very important that we not sanitize what's going on. We even -- I just did it. We even use the word shooter rather than gunman. I mean use the language. This is someone who used a gun to kill people.

What's happening in Texas tonight is there are 19 families who know that their child is dead but that child is likely not identified yet because the kind of weapon that was used is meant to essentially eviscerate an adult male.

So imagine what it's doing to a 4, 5 or 6-year-old child. That parent then needs to identify that child through DNA or some other feature that only a parent would know. And I mean I think about that about my kids. What's the birthmark that would let me identify them? No parent should have to go through that let alone so many on a single day.

VAUSE: Since you raised it, once again the weapon of choice here was a semiautomatic AR-15-style weapon. While all guns can kill, not all guns kill equally.

(INAUDIBLE) is a trauma surgeon. He did an interview with Wire a while back. He described the damage from an AR-15 compared to a handgun.

Here's what he said, "One looks like a grenade went off in there inside the body, the other looks like a bad knife cut." To get technical it's all about kinetic energy, right. A round from an AR travels a lot faster than a handgun. There's a ripple effect on human flesh. It doesn't even have to hit a bone to shatter it.

So when you're talking about a kid how much more damage is done to the body of a child here, who's 5 or 6 years old?

KAYYEM: Well, so much damage that the child is not recognizable. I mean that is the key here is that this is not all shootings are the same. And I know that if you don't know gun culture or guns that may sound weird. But it is true that these exist to implode the body. This is what surgeons will tell you.

And so imagine this kind of velocity going into a child. This is what's going on tonight. And we have to be graphic about it because if we sanitize it, it's just, oh, yes, another shooting or a shooting, like I mean -- these are different in nature. And that's why focusing on a particular type of weapon or the age that someone can access it or the number that someone can have, right? I mean if you have one why do you need two?

I mean these are the kinds of things that we do know that the vast majority of Americans believe in. We just can't get the political process to respond.

And so it just -- you know, out of frustration or whatever else I have tonight, part of it is just stop being -- I need to stop sanitizing this to be honest. I'm on air a lot with you on this and I'll say a shooting, right. I mean this is what -- this is what's happening tonight.

VAUSE: I mean just to take this one step further a wound from a gun can be healed or fixed or whatever you want with one surgery. With an AR-15 it's up to ten. That's how much damage it does.

Did you think the Texas Governor seemed reluctant today to identify what the actual weapon was here?

KAYYEM: John, I'm so glad you said that. You know, people who raise gun control who want our country to reflect the majority opinion are often accused of being too political.

I wanted to make it clear today, that first of all, having a governor come out first is unique in terms of a mass shooting. You generally have the police officer. You don't -- the police chief -- you do not want to make it political from the get go and also because local control is important. It's the locals who are going to know what's going on. They'll know if the families have been notified. It seemed premature to come out that quickly as Governor Abbott did.

And then the second thing he did is he -- the specific language I don't remember but he basically said we know there was a handgun, we don't know if there was anything else. Well, that is factually incorrect.

[01:39:51]

KAYYEM: If they had -- if he had been engaged and he was dead, they already knew what the weapons were. They knew. They knew at that stage. And I think it's important to call out the Texas governor because his critics are often called politicizing.

Before the families knew that their kids were dead, he was trying to claim that -- that he had no knowledge of which gun was used. Meanwhile he's leading the press conference.

VAUSE: Yes. It was unusual to say the least.

KAYYEM: Every way.

VAUSE: Julia, I hope we never have to have this conversation again but I'm terrified we will.

KAYYEM: Yes. Yes.

VAUSE: But thanks for being with us.

KAYYEM: Yes. Thank you for having me.

VAUSE: Take care.

Our breaking news coverage continues after the deadly shooting at a small Texas town at the elementary school. We'll be back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMERON KASKY, SURVIVOR, 2018 MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HS SCHOOTING: Especially when you're young and in school. This happens during the formative years of your life. So these students are going to be going back into school soon, and they are going to live lives and have childhoods and early adulthoods that are completely informed by this tragedy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: That was Cameron Kasky, a survivor of the Parkland High School shooting in Florida back in 2018 and his reaction to yet another mass shooting in the U.S.

Authorities say an 18-year-old gunman apparently shot 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in the town of Uvalde before he was killed by law enforcement.

Officials say he shot his grandmother before the rampage. She is now in hospital in critical condition.

Meantime a clearly anguished President Joe Biden renewing his calls for common sense gun legislation as well as expressing his clear outrage.

[01:44:46]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. Why?

They have mental health problems. They have domestic disputes in other countries. They have people who are lost. But these kind of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency they happen in America. Why?

Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God's name is our backbone?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: True (ph) question. The president is now imploring lawmakers to turn this pain into action on gun control legislation.

This school shooting in Texas is already among the deadliest in U.S. history. Here are some of the others.

In 2007 a student opened fire on a Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia killing 32 people before killing himself.

In 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut a 20- year-old shot and killed 20 children, six adults, his mother and then himself.

Parkland, Florida, February 2018, a 19-year-old killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

April 1999, Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher before committing suicide in the school library.

Earlier CNN spoke with Nicole Hockley. Her son Dylan was one of the children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She now teaches about the warnings signs of potential violence. She stressed that these kinds of tragedies are just not inevitable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICOLE HOCKLEY, SON WAS KILLED AT SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: This gun violence that we're experiencing on a daily basis in schools and communities and grocery stores and movie theaters across the country, this is not an inevitable part of our life. There are actions that we can take to prevent it if we have the courage and the perseverance to lean-in and take those actions and not just be apathetic and accept that this is the way it is.

People said that after Sandy Hook with 20 6-year-olds and 7-year-olds dying and six educators that that would be rock bottom. And yet here we are again, almost 10 years later with another elementary school and the thousands of mass shootings that have happened in between.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris addressed this tragedy while speaking at an awards gala on Tuesday night. She made a passionate plea. The vice president said quote, "Enough is enough. Call for action on gun control legislation."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would normally say in a moment like this we would all say naturally that our hearts break, but our hearts keep getting broken.

You know, I think so many -- there's so many elected leaders in this room. You know what I'm talking about. Every time a tragedy like this happens our hearts break. And our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of those families. And yet it keeps happening.

So I think we all know and have said many times with each other enough is enough. Enough is enough. As a nation we have to have the courage to take action and understand the nexus between what makes for reasonable and sensible public policy to ensure something like this never happens again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: We will take a short break. When we come back, a lot more on this tragedy in Texas.

You're watching CNN.

[01:48:36]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: President Joe Biden has ordered U.S. flags to be lowered to half staff now through Saturday as this country grapples with yet another horrific mass shooting. At least 19 children and two adults were killed when a gunman opened fire at an elementary school.

Tragedy unfolding in the community of Uvalde, Texas 85 miles west of San Antonio. The massacre at the Robb Elementary School marks the deadliest U.S. elementary school shooting since 2012 when a gunman killed 26 people including 20 children most in the first grade at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.

The shooter this time was reportedly killed by law enforcement. According to Texas governor Greg Abbott the 18-year-old suspect was a student at a local high school. Officials say he also shot his grandmother before going to the school on his shooting spree. She's now in critical condition in hospital.

According to a state senator, the gunman legally purchased the weapons he used, two assault rifles, AR-15 style, that he bought them for his 18th birthday. The NBA's Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors was

visibly angry and shaken by events in Uvalde. An outspoken advocate for gun reform, Kerr was in Texas Tuesday night for a playoff game against the Dallas Mavericks.

But instead of talking basketball, he used his pregame news conference to rail against the U.S. Senate's inaction on gun control.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE KERR, COACH, GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS: In the last ten days we've had elderly black people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo. We've had Asian churchgoers killed in southern California, and now we have children murdered at school. When are we going to do something?

Do you realize that 90 percent of Americans regardless of political party want background check, universal background checks. 90 percent of us. We are being held hostage by 50 senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote despite what we the American people want.

They won't vote on it because they want to hold onto their own power. It's pathetic. I've had enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[01:54:55]

VAUSE: The league held a moment of silence before the game.

This issue is very personal for Kerr. His father was killed by a gunman in 1984 while he was serving as president of the American University of Beirut.

Well, many are already coming together to support those affected by the school shooting. The South Texas Blood and Tissue Center has already announced an emergency blood drive for Wednesday. Appointments and walk in donations are all welcome. The group tweets, "Their hearts are with the Uvalde community.

Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause.

Our breaking news coverage of yet another school shooting, this one at an elementary school in Texas continues with Rosemary Church after a very short break.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:59:59]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church.

We are following breaking news this hour.