A clear pattern of deadly school shootings carried out mostly by young men and teens is prodding more states, including Texas, to consider raising the age of legal gun ownership from 18 to 21.
The five most deadly school shootings in the United States—including the massacre in Uvalde were carried out by a shooter under 21 years old. On May 24, Salvador Ramos murdered 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School using an AR-style assault rifle he could legally purchase in Texas because he’d just turned 18.
The 2018 shooting at the high school in Santa Fe, between Houston and Galveston, claimed ten lives; the shooter was 17. “For four years, we have held the title of the deadliest school shooting in Texas,” JoElla Lace Kilgore, a Santa Fe shooting survivor, wrote on her Instagram page after she learned of the Uvalde murders. “Today, we no longer hold that title. And what an awful thing that is to lose.”
