Beto O’Rourke plans forum in Dallas to talk about protecting kids after Uvalde shooting

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke is ready to mount a contemporary assault on Gov. Greg Abbott by accusing the Republican incumbent of failing to guard the state’s youngsters throughout a city corridor in Dallas on Wednesday.

O’Rourke’s marketing campaign mentioned he’ll reveal a plan for safeguarding youngsters in the course of the occasion, which is scheduled for five:30 p.m. at a location to be introduced on Tuesday. Attendees can RSVP and get up-to-date data right here.

The city corridor comes within the aftermath of the varsity bloodbath within the South Texas metropolis of Uvalde, the place 19 youngsters and two lecturers had been killed on Tuesday. The 18-year-old gunman, armed with an AR-15-style rifle, barricaded himself in a fourth grade classroom at Robb Elementary College for greater than an hour whereas regulation enforcement waited to breach the room.

It’s the state’s deadliest college taking pictures and the nation’s deadliest since 20 youngsters and 6 adults had been gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012.

O’Rourke seems ready to lob a spread of criticisms at Abbott when he speaks Wednesday.

“On Abbott’s watch, Texas has skilled six mass shootings, tons of of children in Texas’ worsening foster care system have died or been trafficked in state care, and the state’s lethal energy grid failure left youngsters to freeze to dying,” his marketing campaign announcement says. “Moreover, Texas leads the nation within the variety of youngsters residing in poverty, in addition to the variety of uninsured youngsters who’re unable to see a health care provider or obtain psychological well being care of any variety.”

O’Rourke, who his crew mentioned visited victims’ households, confronted Abbott final Wednesday throughout a information convention at Uvalde Excessive College. O’Rourke approached the stage because the governor handed a microphone to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

“The time to cease the subsequent taking pictures is correct now, and you might be doing nothing,” O’Rourke mentioned.

O’Rourke famously mentioned in 2019 that he would assist a compulsory assault weapon buyback program.

“Hell sure, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” O’Rourke mentioned throughout a debate in Houston shortly after a mass taking pictures at a Walmart in his hometown of El Paso claimed 23 lives. On the time, he was working in a crowded Democratic main for the presidential nomination.

In response to O’Rourke’s interruption final week, Abbott, hailed as a staunch supporter of gun rights, touted achievements within the 2019 legislative session to harden college campuses, make psychological well being coaching part of persevering with training for lecturers and take away the cap on the allotted variety of college workers who might arm themselves as a part of the “college marshals” program. That legislative session was the primary following the 2017 taking pictures at a Sutherland Springs church that left 26 lifeless and the 2018 taking pictures at Santa Fe Excessive College that killed 10 folks.

However Abbott additionally tossed a number of of his personal proposals together with a regulation that will require gun house owners to report misplaced or stolen weapons and a “crimson flag” regulation that will enable for taking weapons from folks deemed a risk.