What could be done after Texas school shooting? SC’s Graham says ‘let’s debate and vote’
South Carolina’s senior U.S. senator said Tuesday night he welcomes a debate over what to do next that his “colleagues believe will have an effect” in response to the Texas mass shooting that left 19 elementary school students and two teachers dead.
A gunman, age 18, shot and killed at least 19 children and two adults Tuesday afternoon in what is being described as the deadliest school shooting since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, almost a decade ago.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday at a press conference that the shooter, shot and killed by law enforcement who responded to the scene, entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and used an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle. The shooter had no known mental health or criminal history, Abbott said.
The Texas mass shooting comes a little more than a week after a racist gunman entered a Buffalo, New York, supermarket and killed 10 people.
“Why someone would kill elementary age children in school and shoot their own grandmother, I don’t know. We are all heartbroken for the families and friends impacted by this senseless act of violence in #Uvalde,” U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., posted in a two-part tweet Tuesday night.
“Hopefully over time we will have a better understanding of what led to these senseless acts. As to what to do next, I welcome a debate in the U.S. Senate about any and all measures that my colleagues believe will have an effect. Let’s debate and vote.”
Whether Congress will take up any gun-related measures in the near future is unclear.
Efforts to curb gun violence in response to other mass shootings, including after Newtown and the Charleston church shooting in June 2015 — when nine Black parishioners, who included a state senator were murdered by a white supremacist — have not gotten much traction.
The U.S. House passed two measures last year that would expand background checks on gun purchases and extend the background check review period — a legislative response to the Charleston shooting. Both had sat in the Senate since the House took action, but after the Texas shooting Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, of New York, moved them forward to set both up for votes.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-Columbia, tweeted Wednesday that Schumer “just took the first procedural step needed to bring my bill, the Enhanced Background Checks Act, to the Senate floor. It extends the background check deadline so that the FBI has more time if needed to complete this critical step & keep guns out of the wrong hands.”
In South Carolina, lawmakers in recent years have moved to loosen gun restrictions, including most recently passing a law that allows a permitted gun owner to openly carry their weapon where allowed. That does not include school grounds or buildings where signage states firearms are not allowed.
That same law also requires court clerks to now send pertinent records of legal actions that would bar someone from owning a gun to the State Law Enforcement Division within five days of those actions being filed with the court.
There have been proposals that would allow South Carolinians to possess guns without any permit — known as “constitutional carry” — but those efforts have failed in the State House.
In light of the Texas school shooting, flags atop the State House in South Carolina will be lowered to half-staff until sunset May 28, and the governor’s office tweeted that Gov. Henry McMaster has requested that flags over state buildings and political subdivisions also be lowered until then.
“Tonight, please join Peggy and me in praying for the Uvalde community, the faculty and staff at Robb Elementary, and for the families of the victims of today’s tragedy,” McMaster tweeted.
South Carolina’s junior Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., also offered prayers for the victims’ families.
“Psalm 34 tells us that the Lord is near to the broken hearted. I was devastated to learn of the children and teacher senselessly murdered today in Texas. Please join me in lifting up their families in prayer,” he tweeted.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 25, 2022 at 9:31 AM with the headline "What could be done after Texas school shooting? SC’s Graham says ‘let’s debate and vote’."
