Another school shooting has taken place in the US, killing 19 innocent children and two adults in a country where children have to be trained to expect an attack.
In Uvalde, Texas, a gunman walked into a school on May 24 and murdered children in what should be the safest space they have.
The brutal attack has prompted more concerns about the US' lack of gun control which allows people, including deranged killers, to access guns.
Senator Chris Murphy addressed the senate and pleaded with his fellow legislators to enact, asking tearfully: "What are we doing here?"
President Joe Biden emotionally asked: "When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name are we going to do what has to be done? Why are we willing to live with this carnage?"
Killer Salvador Ramos, meanwhile, was shot dead at the scene in the 27th school shooting so far this year.
Many are drawing on comparisons to the Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut in 2012, the state Murphy represents.
What was the Sandy Hook massacre?
The Sandy Hook massacre was a devastating mass shooting at an elementary school in 2012 that left 28 people dead and two injured.
Killer Adam Lanza bought a stash of weapons including an assault rifle and shotgun for his murderous spree, in which children as young as six were butchered by bullets on December 2014.
He fired over 154 rounds in less than five minutes before killing himself with a shotgun.
As news of the attack broke the sheer scale of the horror was revealed as police mapped out a timeline of events.
Lanza entered the school at around 9:30am and killed principal Dawn Hochsprung as well as Mary Sherlach, the school psychologist. This event was played out on the school speakers, alerting teachers who went into lockdown mode.
The 20-year-old mass murderer had already slaughtered his mother Nancy at home before driving her car to the school. She was shot four times.
Teacher Lauren Rousseau was murdered along with 14 children in one classroom, before first-grade teacher Victoria Soto attempted to head him off to the other side of the school. She was shot alongside six of her students.
In 2014, the school was demolished and replaced with a new building on the same site.
Brave Sandy Hook survivor Maggie LaBlanca said to Upworthy: "The trauma never went away, and I still feel sad all the time that I'm here and they're not."
She lost her best friend Daniel in the shooting and was just seven at the time.
Maggie added: "I look for Daniel everywhere because it's hard to accept that I lost him."
The awful tragedy caused shock around the world and disgust at the events, but the reality for American children is that mass shootings are common.
The 'Sandy Hook promise' is a campaign that exists today, proposing new legislation for background checks on guns.
Why doesn't the US have gun control?
The US does have some gun control measures, but rules vary by state and guns are easily accessed.
The second amendment contained within the US constitution grants people to right to "bear arms", or own guns, and was written in 1791.
Other parts of the constitution have been amended or introduced since the founding fathers drew up the document, but critics of the legislation argue it has not adapted to modern life.
Some believe the text allows them to purchase whatever guns they deem necessary and means plenty of people in the US have access to weapons like assault rifles.
The arguments for gun control vary from a total ban on assault weapons, to merely the introduction or tightening of background checks. The argument against it is that if more people had guns, people would be able to defend themselves.
After the Dunblane massacre in the UK in 1996, the government banned private ownership of most handguns, banned semi-automatic weapons and introduced registrations for shotgun owners. There have been no mass school shootings in the UK ever since.
The situation in the US is different due to the sheer scale of guns owned by Americans - around 393 million out of a total population of over 329 million.
As a result of this, regulating gun ownership could prove to be very difficult, particularly with the passion felt on both sides of the debate.
Of 393 million firearms in the US, an estimated 6.06 million of them are registered.
Some in the US have called for minor legislative changes such as background checks on mental health, or the banning of certain types of weapons.
