Addressing a press briefing on the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Wednesday, 25 May, said that the attack weapon used by the assailant was an AR-15 assault rifle.
He added that the gunman had shared that he was "going to shoot an elementary school" around 15 minutes before the massacre started, through private messages on Facebook, AFP reported.
Abbott said,
"The first post was to the point of, he said 'I'm going to shoot my grandmother'...The second post was 'I shot my grandmother.' The third post, maybe less than 15 minutes before arriving at the school, was 'I'm going to shoot an elementary school.'"
Following the announcements, social media giant Facebook rushed to indicate that the 'posts' were one-to-one text messages, which were tracked after the tragedy.
"We are closely cooperating with law enforcement in their ongoing investigation," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone stated, AFP quoted.
'You Are Doing Nothing': Democrat Beto O'Rourke Interrupts Conference
Amid the briefing, Abbott's Democratic opponent for Governor, Beto O'Rourke, publicly confronted him, slamming him for the inaction on gun control.
"You are doing nothing," O’Rourke stated as he stood in front of the stage, facing state officials.
He continued, "You said this is not predictable. This is totally predictable...This is on you until you choose to do something different! This will continue to happen."
Shouting back, the mayor of Uvalde Don McLaughlin said, "Sir, you are out of line," and called the democrat a "sick son of a b****."
In one of the deadliest grade school shootings in a decade, an 18-year-old gunman killed at least 19 students and two adults in an elementary school in Texas on Tuesday, 24 May.
'Where's the Backbone To Stand Up to the Gun Lobby?': Joe Biden
Taking to Twitter, US President Joe Biden said that mass shootings rarely happen anywhere in the world.
"These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Where in God's name is our backbone to have the courage to stand up to the gun lobby? It is time to turn this pain into action," he wrote.
(With inputs from AFP.)
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