Uvalde, Texas - A teenage gunman killed at least 19 children and two adults after storming into Robb Elementary School on Tuesday, as he went from classroom to classroom in the latest gruesome moment for a country scarred by a string of massacres. The attacker was killed by law enforcement.

The death toll also included two adults, authorities said. Gov. Greg Abbott said one of the two was a teacher.

University Hospital in San Antonio said on Twitter that it had received two patients from the shooting in Uvalde, a 66-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl, both listed in critical condition.

A priest comforts people as they react outside the Ssgt Willie de Leon Civic Center, where students had been transported from Robb Elementary School after a shooting, in Uvalde, Texas, U.S. May 24, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello

The latest gun violence epidemic in the US, is the nation's worst school shooting in nearly a decade. A gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.

A deadly, racist rampage at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket took 10 lives, adding to a yearslong series of mass killings at churches, schools and stores.

The gunman, who was wearing body armor, crashed his get-away car outside the school before going inside, Sgt. Erick Estrada of the Texas Department of Public Safety told CNN. The motive behind the assault is not yet known.

He killed his grandmother before heading to the school with two military-style rifles he had purchased on his birthday, according to state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who said he had been briefed by state police.

Biden asks to standup against gun-violence

A visibly shaken U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking from the White House just hours later, urged Americans to stand up to the gun lobby and pressured members of Congress to pass sensible gun laws.

"As a nation, we have to ask when in God's name we're going to stand up to the gun lobby, when in God's name we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done," Biden said in a televised speech.

U.S. first lady Jill Biden looks on as U.S. President Joe Biden makes a statement about the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, at the White House in Washington, U.S. May 24, 2022/ Reuters

"I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don't tell me we can't have an impact on this carnage."

Biden demanded action on Tuesday night without laying out actions he intended to take, nor call for a specific vote in Congress or policy.

"I hoped when I became president I would not have to do this, again," a visibly shaken Biden said, decrying the death of "beautiful, innocent" second, third and fourth graders in "another massacre."

"When we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. When the law expired, mass shootings tripled. The idea that an 18-year-old kid could walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons, is just wrong," Biden said.

The United States, the most heavily armed society in the world, according to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, experienced 61 "active shooter" incidents last year, up sharply from the prior year and the highest tally in over 20 years, the FBI reported this week.

Biden who was briefed about the shooting aboard Air Force One as he returned from a trip to Asia, ordered the flags at the White House and at U.S. federal and public buildings to be flown at half-staff until sunset on May 28.
-AP/Reuters