Texas Lt Governor Dan Patrick brought up Will Smith’s Oscars slap as he lamented a lack of national unity in the wake of the state’s deadly school shooting.
A gunman massacred 19 elementary students and two adults after storming inside a school in Uvalde with an AR-15 assault rifle on Tuesday after first shooting his grandmother.
Mr Patrick, who has called for schools to be fortified to keep shooters out, bemoaned the state of America as he brought up the Oscars as evidence of its problems.
“You know we live in a time, I said this yesterday, when people are at each others throats everywhere we turn, whether it is on the Internet or an Oscars stage or two coaches arguing or in the political world or the media world. Who are we as an American people? Who are we?” he said.
“We all have to do our part, all do our part to make us a better people and a better nation. Evil will always walk among us and in times like this I’ve seen it, the governor has seen it, the speaker has seen it, the senators have seen it the attorney general has seen it.
“In all these other shootings it is God that brings a community together, it is God that heals a community, it’s God that heals a shattered and broken heart and if we don’t turn back as a nation to understanding what were founded upon and what we were taught by our partner and what we believe in then these situations will only get worse and happen more often.”
Police say that Ramos had bought two AR-15 style assault weapons for his 18th birthday from a local store. The ATF says Ramos legally bought two riles on 17 May and 20 May. One of the rifles was left in the suspect’s crashed truck, while the other, a Daniel Defense, was found with him in the school.
He bought 375 rounds of 5.56 ammunition on 18 May.
Ramos’ grandfather Rolando Reyes said the family did not know he had high-powered assault rifles at home.
“I didn’t know he had weapons,” Rolando Reyes told ABC News. “If I’d have known, I would have reported it.”
Authorities have identified two teachers: Eva Mireles, 44, and Irma Garcia, 46, among the dead.
Amerie Jo Garza, Makenna Lee Elrod, Xavier Javier Lopez, Jose Flores, Navaeh Brown, Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez and Ellie Lugo, all aged 10 are among the children who have also been identified.
