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UWALDE, Texas – Democratic Gov. Texas nominee Beto O’Rourke cut Governor Greg Abbott during a news conference Wednesday at Uwalde High School as the Republican governor briefed reporters on Tuesday’s shooting at a school.
O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman, approached the stage as Abbott introduced Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (right), telling the assembled staff that it was long overdue to take action to prevent mass shootings like this one. in elementary school Rob. where 19 children and two teachers were killed on Tuesday.
Speaking about Patrick’s objections, O’Rourke said Abbott should have taken action after other mass shootings in Texas, such as high school in Santa Fe in 2018 and El Paso Walmart in 2019.
“It’s time to stop the next shooting right now, and you’re not doing anything,” O’Rourke said. “You’re not offering us anything.”
Patrick shouted back at O’Rourke, saying he was “out of line” and “uncomfortable.” Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Who stood behind Abbott, told O’Rourke to “sit down.” Another official on stage, Uwalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, got up from a folding chair on the side of the stage and shouted that O’Rourke was a “sick son of a bitch —-” because he came to the press conference “to raise a political issue.”
The abbot usually avoided eye contact with O’Rourke while he spoke and did not answer. As security began escorting O’Rourke out of the room, he turned and pointed to Abbott.
“It depends on you. “Until you decide to do something, it will continue to happen,” O’Rourke said. “Someone has to stand up for the children of this country, or they will continue to be killed.
Elsewhere in the audience, some people shouted, “Let him speak! Let him speak!” Let him speak! ” and “What happened to the First Amendment to the Constitution? Freedom of speech?”
Outside of high school, O’Rourke told reporters he came to the press conference because “we owe something to our children.”
“We owe the children to the next school, where an armed man will enter with AR-15, unless we intervene and stop this – we owe them something,” he said. “That’s why I’m here.”
O’Rourke was outspoken about tougher gun control measures after a gunman opened fire on Walmart and killed 23 people in his hometown of El Paso in 2019.
At the time, O’Rourke was one of nearly two dozen Democratic candidates running for president. He immediately left the trail of the campaign to return to El Paso and unleashed his disappointment on President Donald Trump as well as the media.
O’Rourke linked Trump and his inciting, anti-immigrant rhetoric to racism, which motivated the accused shooter, who said he was targeting “Mexicans”, according to police.
“What do you think?” O’Rourke said when a reporter asked what more Trump could do. “You know what … what he’s saying. He calls Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I do not know, for example, members of the press: What the hell?
O’Rourke raised his hands. “These are the questions you know the answers to. I mean, connect the dots for what he did in this country. He does not tolerate racism. It promotes racism. “
In a presidential primary debate a month after the shooting, O’Rourke said he would commit to the mandatory purchase of weapons such as AK-47 and AR-15 rifles if elected president.
“If it’s a weapon designed to kill people on the battlefield, if the percussion and high-speed cartridge, when it hits your body, shatters everything in your body because it’s designed to do so that you can’t bleed death on the battlefield to get up and kill one of our soldiers, “O’Rourke said on the stage of the debate. “When we see it being used against children, damn it, yes, we’ll take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
Conservative politicians and right-wing activists would use this phrase – “hell, yes, we will take your AR-15, your AK-47” – to portray O’Rourke as the ultimate in gun control.
Earlier this year, when asked about his comments in 2019 at the height of his campaign for governor, O’Rourke said he was “not interested in taking anything from anyone.”
“What I want to make sure we do is defend the Second Amendment,” he said in February.
O’Rourke later told the New York Times that he was not giving up on assault weapons, but was trying to focus on what he could actually do as governor. He said he still supported universal past checks and safe storage requirements.
“I don’t think we should have AR-15s and AK-47s on the streets of this state – I saw what they were doing to my fellow Texas in El Paso in 2019,” O’Rourke told the Times. “I have not changed anything. I’m just telling you that I’m going to focus on what I can actually do as governor and what they have in common. “
Wang and Iati reported from Washington.
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