Displaying items by tag: school shooting

There is an awful silence hanging over the steep hill on which Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school sits. On 3 May, a 13-year-old entered the school, armed with two guns, and shot dead eight fellow students and a security guard. Six other children remain in hospital. The school is at the heart of this central Belgrade community, where streams of mourners are arriving, bearing flowers and soft toys. 24 hours after the worst school shooting in Serbian history, pupils from the next-door college stand along the street to stand in silence and remember those killed. ‘I am crushed’, says final-year school student Alex Oborina, 19, beside some of the handwritten notes left on the pavement. ‘We have failed as a society because this is something that should not happen to a 13-year-old. He should not be grabbing a gun and going into his school and shooting his friends.’ Alex seems to echo the sentiment everyone here feels. ‘This is probably the worst thing that has ever happened in my life. We need to use this as a stepping stone to rebuild.’

On 24 May, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos entered Robb Elementary School in Texas, armed with a handgun and a rifle. He killed nineteen pupils and two teachers before he himself was shot dead. This was the deadliest school attack for a decade. Amid the outpouring of shock and grief, Joe Biden asked, ‘Why do we keep letting this happen? Why are we willing to live with this carnage?’ This tragedy has reignited the debate about guns, particularly since there had already been 27 other school shootings this year. Since his election, the president has made a number of pledges to tighten legislation, but he faces an uphill battle to convert any of them into action, given the fierce opposition from the Republicans and the powerful gun lobby.