Andy Murray branded the massacre of 19 children and two adults at a primary school in Texas last night as “f****** madness” as British sports stars and celebrities called for stricter gun control laws in the US.
Murray, who survived the Dunblane school shooting in 1996, tweeted shortly after Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old high school student, opened fire at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday.
It is the deadliest shooting at a US grade school since the Sandy Hook attack in Connecticut in 2012 when 26 people were killed.
“F****** madness,” Murray wrote in a since-deleted tweet.
Murray was nine years old at the time of the Dunblane school shooting. The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 was introduced the following year which, after a second amendment, banned all cartridge ammunition handguns in England, Scotland and Wales.
Gary Lineker wrote: “Seems America’s gun laws are more important to them than the lives of their schoolchildren. Utterly bizarre.”
Piers Morgan tweeted: “Absolutely horrendous. I don’t know what else to say about these endless US gun massacres - it’s for Americans to resolve but where is the will?
“Nothing was done after Sandy Hook to stop another school massacre like that happening again. It’s now happened again. Schoolchildren being slaughtered in their classrooms should not be a political issue. Please, America, stop the partisan b******* and do something to stop it.”
State governor Greg Abbott said Ramos entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun, an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and high-capacity magazines.
Investigators said Ramos “did act alone during this heinous crime”.
The gunman is believed to have been killed after an exchange with Border Patrol officials, two of whom were shot but are now in a stable condition in hospital.
