A 17-year-old gunman targeted the Santa Fe High School in Texas and shot and left behind ten dead bodies – 9 of them were students and the 10th person was a teacher. Another ten suffered injuries. He has been taken into custody by the police. The incident of gun violence happened in the morning, and according to officials close to the investigation, he had planted explosives around the school.
The Daily Mail UK reports that police responded promptly after getting reports of shots being fired. The gunman is believed to be a male student, and the shooting started at around 7.45 AM.
A girl student who had blood on her leg was evacuated. The school is located some 30 miles from Houston and has upward of 1,400 students in grades 9-12.
Gun violence continues
After the Florida High school shooting in which 17 people were killed, the students had raised their voices against gun violence and the protests spread to the streets. They demanded the introduction of suitable remedial measures to prevent such deaths. This latest shooting in a Texas school once again highlights the issue that is apparently not getting the necessary priority from the administration.
CNN adds the shooting incident in the high school in Santa Fe is the 22nd US school shooting since the beginning of the year, and the third one in eight days where a gunman was on a school campus.
The suspect is in police custody. Gov. Greg Abbott has said that the weapons used by the suspect were a shotgun and a .38 revolver that were legally owned by his father.
The administration must take action
Those who run the country must realize that when a gunman goes on the rampage, the victims could be someone who is near dear to those in high places.
This is especially true when the gunman targets schools and the innocent children. Guns are easily available in the United States, but they must be sold after suitable checks of the buyer to ensure that the weapons do not fall into the wrong hands. Hence it is necessary to introduce strict background checks.
Many innocent lives have been lost right from the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012 to the Parkland school shooting in 2018, and the latest one in Texas, Those who have survived and witnessed the blood and mutilated bodies have been traumatized, but the administration remains unmoved.
When the children go to school, they should not keep looking over their shoulder for probable gunmen lurking in the shadows. It is high time the authorities took strong measures to check gun violence.
