Kim Kardashian has spoken out against gun violence just one day after at least 19 children and two teachers were murdered in a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
On 24 May, a teenage gunman identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos opened fire in a fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, roughly 80 miles west of San Antonio.
Two of the victims Eva Mireles, 44, and Irma Garcia, were teachers at the school. The identities of 14 of the 19 child victims have been confirmed so far, all aged 10.
In an essay shared with The Independent, billionaire business mogul and prison reform activist Kim Kardashian has issued a statement in support of gun control.
Kardashian began her article by highlighting a blog post she wrote five years ago, in which she asked, “Is it more important to protect the second amendment than to protect our own children?”
“[On Tuesday] 19 children were murdered by an 18 year old, and I find myself heartbroken, disgusted and furious about how little has been done by law makers to enact gun laws that protect our children,” she continued. “There is no excuse and no justification for what happened yesterday. The current laws in our country around gun control are not protecting our children. We have to push law makers to enact laws that are fitting in today’s world. Semi automatic weapons, assault weapons, weapons of war, should not be legally sold or owned by American civilians. They should be banned. Period.”
The 41-year-old reality star noted in her statement that AR-15 style semi-automatic rifles have been used in a number of mass shootings, including Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut; at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; and most recently in the Buffalo supermarket shooting that killed 10 Black people and injured three other victims.
“Assault weapons are not a self defense tool. They are sophisticated weapons, designed to kill,” Kardashian said.
According to the the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), one out of every five firearms purchased in the US today is an AR-style rifle. The weapon’s popularity has been growing since 2004, when a ban on federal assault weapons in the US expired.
Kardashian went on to suggest that the Second Amendment, which granted Americans the right to possess a firearm, is irrelevant to today’s advancements in technology in the wake of hundreds of mass shootings.
“We have to stop allowing people to use a sentence written centuries ago when technology, times, humanity were completely different, to dictate how we regulate gun ownership, & how we protect our kids today,” she said.
Both Ramos and the teenager who allegedly opened fire at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo were aged 18, and both had reportedly bought the weapons legally. Ramos, who turned 18 this month, legally purchased two military-style “AR platform rifles”, as well as hundreds of rounds of ammunition, according to Texas State Senator John Whitemire of Houston.
In Kardashian’s statement, she called to raise the age limit to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21 years old.
“Someone who is not old enough to buy alcohol should not be allowed to purchase a firearm. There is no world in which an 18 year old needs a semi automatic weapon, or any weapon, and no world in which the outcome can be anything other than tragic,” she said. “As I even type these words I am seriously dumbfounded that this is something considered normal, acceptable and legal.”
Kardashian also acknowledged how systemic issues of racism and mental health play a major role in “motivation for mass shootings,” but there is more that can be done to help teens and young adults.
“The one thing that law makers can and should control now is access to weapons,” she wrote.
“There are of course people over 21 who buy guns to cause harm, and other mass shootings in recent years have been carried out by people over 21, but if we increase legal age to purchase, coupled with a ban on assault weapons, we can without a doubt reduce the number of senseless tragedies and save children’s lives.”
Kardashian concluded her essay by pleading for action to protect children in schools from gun violence. “We can’t accept this as normal anymore. It’s not normal for a teenager to kill children. It’s not normal for our kids to be practicing active shooter drills in schools. It’s not normal to be shot while shopping for groceries. I’m not numbed by it. I will never be numbed by it.”
“Imagine the entire classroom of children who witnessed their friends die in front of them,” she added. “The trauma will last a lifetime for everyone involved. Words can’t express my heartbreak for the parents whose babies didn’t come home from school yesterday. I’m urging our leaders to come together and put politics aside and put children first.”
Kardashian is not the only member of the famous family to share “heartbreaking” messages about the fatal shooting.
In a social media post, Kourtney Kardashian wrote: “Schools should be a place where our kids go to learn, to make friends, to laugh, to grow, to discover themselves. A safe place where they can envision their futures. Not a place where their futures are taken away from them. How have we gotten to a point where it is acceptable for our children to be murdered in their schools?
“It breaks my heart. I plead to lawmakers to take accountability. We need a plan to protect our babies.”
Khloe Kardashian added: “My heart is breaking. I pray, I hope, I beg, I plead… please, law makers, government officials, leaders of our country, do something to protect our children.”
Kylie and Kris Jenner also shared their grief on their respective social media profiles.
High-profile figures such as Chris Evans, late night host Andy Cohen, and Taylor Swift have also spoken out against gun violence in the wake of the Texas school shooting. Many celebrities even condemned the government for not imposing proper gun control laws
In a lengthy Instagram post, Matthew McConaughey, who spent the first 12 years of his life in Uvalde, wrote: “We have to rearrange our values and find common ground above this devastating American reality that has tragically become our children’s issue.
The country’s latest mass shooting comes just over a week after 10 people, all of whom were Black, were shot and killed in Buffalo in what officials have called a racist attack.
Follow for updates on the Texas school shooting here.
