Days after turning 18, Salvador Ramos celebrated by posting a photo with two rifles he would have bought last Sunday (22). The acquisition came after an escalation of aggression that marked his adolescence and ended tragically. Ramos used the weapons to kill 21 people — 19 children and two adults — at a Texas school on Tuesday. Afterwards, he was killed by the police.
More details about the attack that took place in the city of Uvalde are being revealed. On Wednesday morning (25), the police said that all the victims belonged to the same fourth-grade classroom. The names of some of the dead were released. Xavier Lopez, 10, liked to dance and tell jokes, according to his family. And Jose Flores, also 10, loved playing baseball. Teacher Eva Mireles, 44, was killed while trying to defend her students.
People close to the gunman told US media that Ramos had a adolescence marked by bullying and family problems. At school, he was teased for being a stutterer, which made him angry and unwilling to study. He missed a lot of classes and wouldn’t be able to graduate this year.
On many occasions when he went to school, he got into fights. There are records of at least five occasions when he exchanged punches with colleagues. During high school, Ramos started dressing all in black, wearing military boots, and growing out his hair. At night, he used to go out in a car with a friend and throw eggs at other vehicles. On other occasions, he used an air gun to randomly shoot people in the streets.
He made no secret of a desire to gain access to heavier weaponry. A year ago, he posted pictures of automatic rifles, capable of firing bursts of shots, and said they were on his wish list.
On social media, he also posted about problems he had at home. In one of the posts, he appeared in an argument with his mother, who was trying to kick him out of the house. “He was yelling and talking to his mother in a really aggressive way,” a colleague of Ramos’s told the Washington Post.
Neighbors and family members said the gunman’s mother had problems with drug use. A few months ago, he moved and moved in with his grandmother, who had plans to evict Ramos’ mother. According to police, before attacking the school, he also shot his grandmother. Hit in the forehead, she is due to undergo surgery this Wednesday. The gunman’s grandfather, Rolando Reyes, 72, told ABC News that he was unaware that his grandson had purchased guns, and that he acted normally in the days leading up to the attack.
The case sparked outrage in the US and more calls for increased gun control. On Tuesday night, President Joe Biden used the event to once again criticize the pro-gun lobby in the country and defend the control of access to weapons. “I’m tired of this,” he said, in a seven-minute speech. “Why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”
“The idea that an 18-year-old can buy two rifles is wrong. Manufacturers have for decades been aggressively offering weapons that generate huge profits. When in God’s name are we going to stand up and face the gun lobby?” president.
The attack on Uvalde comes ten days after another similar action. On May 14, an 18-year-old man killed ten black people in the city of Buffalo, New York. The gunman, Payton Gendron, opened fire on supermarket customers, in an action broadcast live on the internet – an environment in which he also published a manifesto to justify the attack, based on racist theories, such as that blacks were taking the place of whites in society.
Tuesday’s case was the biggest attack on an elementary school since Sandy Hook, Connecticut. At that time, a 20-year-old man killed 26 people, 12 of whom were children aged between six and seven.
Possession of weapons is guaranteed by the Constitution, but many experts, activists and politicians advocate greater access control, such as measures to prevent people with psychological problems or a history of violence from having access to high-caliber weapons. However, politicians linked to the Republican Party tend to bar measures in this regard, as they see the right to arm themselves as a symbol of freedom to be preserved.
