Rep. Mo Brooks said this weekend that he would not support any new gun control restrictions, arguing that people would need their guns if they ever had to take back power from a "dictatorial" government.
"The Second Amendment is designed to help ensure that we, the citizenry, always have the right to take back our government should it become dictatorial," he said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday.
Sandra Smith, the show's host, had asked Brooks if he was open to changes being made to existing gun laws in the wake of last Tuesday's mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
"As long as we enjoy un-infringed Second Amendment rights, then we don't really have to worry that much about the government ever becoming dictatorial," Brooks said.
The father of a child who was killed in the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last week said that "assault rifles shouldn't be sold," the Independent reported.
"We understand having an assault rifle for the military, not personal use," Jessie Rodriguez told the outlet. "Not to gun down our children … all the children gunned down like they were animals."
His daughter, 10-year-old Annabell, died in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary that left 19 children and two teachers dead. Annabell was described by family members as an honor roll student.
Robb Elementary School may be torn down and rebuilt after the mass shooting there last week, Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez told local TV station KSAT 12 on Sunday.
Gutierrez, a Democrat who represents Uvalde, told KSAT 12 that President Joe Biden promised him his support during a visit to a makeshift memorial site outside the school in Uvalde, Texas.
According to Gutierrez, Biden told him: "I'm going to bring you resources. We're going to look to raze that school down and build a new one."
The Texas school shooter's first victim, his own grandmother whom he shot in the face, may never be able to talk again, a relative told The New York Post.
The 18-year-old gunman lived with his grandmother in Uvalde, Texas. He shot her on May 24 shortly before he drove to Robb Elementary School, barricaded himself in a fourth-grade classroom, and opened fire. He killed 19 children and two adults before he was shot dead by US Border Patrol agents.
His grandmother, Celia "Sally" Martinez Gonzales, is lucky to be alive, her second cousin, Jason Ybarra, told the Post.
"The bullet went into Sally's jaw just next to her mouth and shattered all her teeth," Ybarra said. "If the bullet was an inch in another direction, it would have blown her head off."
The gunmaker that made the rifle used in the Texas elementary school shooting uses online direct-to-consumer advertising tactics to attract young buyers, according to the New York Times.
Daniel Defense also runs ads modeled after the popular video game "Call of Duty," likely also aimed to appeal to a younger audience, per the Times. The Uvalde shooter bought the rifles used in the attack days after his 18th birthday.
The Times reported how Daniel Defense also runs a buy-now, pay-later scheme, which is advertised on the home page of its website.
The financing program allows buyers to spread out the cost of an assault-style rifle, some models of which retail for more than $1,800, over multiple pay periods in "three easy steps."
Funeral homes in Uvalde, Texas, are so overwhelmed by the school mass shooting that it will take weeks to bury some of the people killed, CNN reported.
NBC News also reported that Uvalde's funeral homes are overwhelmed.
Jimmy Lucas, president of the Texas Funeral Directors Association, told NBC News that workers from further afield, like embalmers and morticians, were coming to volunteer their time.
A funeral home in Texas also donated caskets to Uvalde.
The parents of a 10-year-old girl killed in the Uvalde elementary school mass shooting said they declined an invitation to meet Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
The parents of Alexandra "Lexi" Aniyah Rubio said they rejected the offer because of his refusal to support new laws to restrict access to firearms.
In an interview with The New York Times, her parents Kimberly and Felix Rubio said Abbott's officer called offering them a meeting on the day after the shooting. They said they turned it down.
"My first thought was, 'My Lexi doesn't even like him," Kimberly Rubio told the Times. "She was really little, but we talked about this stuff at home."
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Friday that an anonymous donor will cover all funeral costs following the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Abbott said an anonymous individual donated $175,000 to ensure that families could pay funeral costs.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden on Sunday faced calls by protestors to take action against gun violence as the pair visited Robb Elementary School to pay respects to the 21 victims who died during a May 24 attack.
"Do something!" CNN reported demonstrators yelled at the president as he left mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
"We will," Biden replied.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blamed the Uvalde school shooting on mental health but cut close to $2o million from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees mental health services, CNN reported.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Abbott attributed the rise in mass shootings to mental-health challenges. However, it's not known if the 18-year-old gunman who killed 19 children and two adults had a history of mental illness.
CNN's Pamela Brown reported that despite Abbott's assertion that the issue is tied to mental health, he's cut more than $117 million from the state's Health and Human Services Commission in 2021 to a little more than $93 million in 2022.
Across the two years, more than $200 million was cut from the departments funds to go towards supporting the National Guard and efforts on the border, per the outlet.
Mental Health America, a non-profit tracking mental health resources across the country, however, ranked Texas 50 out of 51 territories for mental health access in 2021. It also ranked 15 for adults and 30 for youth — indicating that it had high prevalence of mental health illnesses but limited care.
The Justice Department announced on Sunday that it will investigate the Uvalde school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
It comes after several lawmakers and officials have issued calls for an official investigation after local law enforcement changed their timeline of the shooting multiple times.
In at least 12 instances, police have changed the narrative of how law enforcement reacted to the 18-year-old gunman's rampage in which he killed 19 children and two teachers last Tuesday. Local authorities claimed they responded "within minutes" to the shooting.
However, by Wednesday, officials said roughly 40 minutes to an hour passed between the time the shooter entered the premises and when he was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent.
The uncle of a Uvalde school shooting victim says he has forgiven the gunman who killed his niece.
"I forgive him. As powerful as that, I forgive him," Adrian Alonzo told CNN about the 18-year-old gunman who killed 19 school children and two teachers at Robb Elementary school last Tuesday.
"The Bible says in Ephesians 4 that we must forgive one another, just as God has forgiven. And I hold no hatred toward him... I am filled with anger, but I feel no hatred towards him," he added.
"I can't explain the joy I had when I saw my son walk out of those doors, and I finally had him," Alonzo told CNN. "But as a parent, I wanted to squeeze him right there, but I wanted to get him out because I didn't want him to see all that."
His relief was short-lived after he found out his niece, Ellie Garcia, was unaccounted for. He begged officials for information.
GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger said that raising the age requirement for gun purchases to 21 is a "no brainer" in an interview on ABC's "This Week" Sunday.
"If you look at the Parkland shooting, you look at Buffalo, you look at this shooting; these are people under the age of 21," Kinzinger said. "We know that the human brain develops and matures a lot between the age of 18 and 21."
Parents and relatives of the children who survived the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, are turning to crowdfunding websites to afford therapy.
The fundraisers came despite Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pledging state support for the victims on Friday, including a mental-health phone line.
(Abbott has a history of diverting money away from mental-health programs in Texas.)
Insider found three GoFundMe pages set up on behalf of kids who were in the classroom the gunman attacked on Tuesday. Traumatized survivors described playing dead as they watched their friends and teachers killed.