- The Texas State Teachers Association called out Gov. Greg Abbott's response to the Uvalde shooting.
- Abbott called on the state legislature to form committees on "school safety and mass violence."
- TSTA said in a statement that the "Uvalde victims' families and all Texans need more gun reform."
A Texas teacher's organization is calling out Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's "weak" response to the school shooting in Uvalde that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
Following the May 24 mass shooting, Abbott blamed the rise in mass shootings on mental health challenges, despite previously saying that the 18-year-old gunman did not have a known history of mental illness.
The Republican governor also called on the Texas state legislature to form special committees to "reassess the twin issues of school safety and mass violence," The Houston Chronicle reported. Since two mass shootings in 2019, Abbott has weakened Texas' gun laws to make them among the least restrictive in the US.
"Nineteen children and two teachers were killed by an assailant with an assault rifle at an elementary school in Uvalde, and Gov. Abbott's response is to appoint more committees to study school safety. That's very weak. The victims' families and all Texans deserve better than that," Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina said in a statement on Wednesday.
Following the 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School, the Texas legislature approved new school safety measures, none of which included any form of gun control, The Chronicle reported.
While the TSTA said "schools obviously aren't safe from mass shooters," the teacher's organization blamed it on Abbott and other state legislators who "refuse to address the real issue and enact reasonable gun laws."
"The 18-year-old shooter in Uvalde legally purchased the assault rifle, and that should not have been allowed to happen," Molina said in the statement. "Guns kill people, including school children and educators, and there are too many guns out there in the possession of dangerous people. It doesn't take more committees to figure that out."