“We are tired of always hearing: ‘Our thoughts are with you’”, complain teachers: Commemoration in Uvalde.
Image: AFP
After the shooting spree in Texas, teachers are badly affected: how should they protect their students? Many reject own weapons, as demanded by Republicans.
OVidia Molina’s voice keeps breaking when she talks about the killing spree in Uvalde. “Every time,” she says, “every time — and I hate to put it like that — it happens, it’s a reminder that schools aren’t safe.” throat shut. Two days before the summer holidays, a gunman shot dead 19 primary school children and two teachers in Uvalde. It happens all the time, says Molina, but you never get used to it. She herself worked as a teacher for eleven years. Her worst fears came true when she heard on Tuesday that an 18-year-old man had killed 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. “It’s a trauma that students and teachers have to carry with them throughout their lives,” she says. Every massacre reopens this wound.
It was only a few hours after the shooting—many families weren’t even certain of their children’s fate—before Texas Attorney General Republican Ken Paxton publicly called for teachers to be armed. “You have to do more in schools,” Paxton said, “we need more people who are trained to respond.”