At a press briefing to discuss yesterday’s school massacre, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) was interrupted by challenger Beto O’Rourke (D), who condemned him for failing to enact gun control measures.

Said O’Rourke: “You are doing nothing. You’re offering us nothing. You said this is not predictable. This is totally predictable.”

He continued as he was taken away by security: “This is on you until you choose to do something different! This will continue to happen. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed just as they were in Uvalde yesterday.”

Tyler Weyant: “Mass shootings have become America’s copy and paste tragedy. We change the place, the town, the number of dead and injured. But the constant is lives lost, people who cannot be brought back, and the nation is left in a numb daze.”

Charlie Sykes: “We are all tired. But a nation that was not shocked into action by the massacre of innocents at Sandy Hook is unlikely to be moved by the latest horror.”

“Chuck Schumer is avoiding a quick Senate vote on gun legislation that would almost surely fail, choosing to hold out hope that the latest mass shooting will finally unstick a bipartisan deal,” Politico reports.

Said Schumer: “My Republican colleagues can work with us now. I think it’s a slim prospect. Very slim, all too slim. We’ve been burnt so many times before. But this is so important. We must pursue action and even ask Republicans to join us again.”

Playbook: “Don’t expect action soon. The Senate is set to go on a weeklong Memorial Day recess starting Thursday. And while Schumer is typically a huge fan of putting GOP lawmakers on record with tough votes he can use against them politically, the New York Democrat indicated he has no plan to rush a roll call on guns, and plans to give bipartisan conversations the time to develop.”

Jonathan Last gives three reasons why the gun problem in this country won’t be fixed:

1. The Second Amendment, like it or not, provides cover that makes reforming gun laws difficult to do and then more difficult to legally sustain.
2. Guns are more popular than you probably realize and our political system gives so much leverage to one particular political party that if this party holds a position with roughly 45 percent support in the populace, it’s basically impossible to pull back.
3. Even if we reformed gun laws, the sheer number of guns in circulation would continue to contribute to tragedies and shootings for years—probably decades—to come.

“Nothing will change until the system is re-balanced, either through the passing of laws or the shifting of demographics.”

“Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak at the National Rifle Association’s Annual Leadership Forum on Friday,” NPR reports.

“But audience members at the group’s annual meeting, being held this year in Houston, won’t be able to carry guns during his address.”

Related from The Hill: Beto O’Rourke called on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to cancel his NRA convention appearance.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) immediately opposed any efforts on passing new gun restrictions even after a gunman killed 21 in a Texas school, CNN reports.

Said Cruz: “Inevitably, when there’s a murderer of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it, you see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.”

He added: “That doesn’t work… It doesn’t prevent crime.”

A new Morning Consult poll finds 41% of voters believe it’s “very important” to pass new gun control measures, while 18% said it was “somewhat important.”

Just 13% said it was “not too important” and 19% said it was “not important at all,” while 9% had no opinion.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) suggested to Newsmax that we arm teachers after a gunman killed 21 in a school shooting in his state.

Insider: “Texas has made it easier to purchase guns in recent months — despite the state’s playing host to a series of mass shootings in recent memory, including the killing of a combined 30 people in El Paso and Odessa in 2019.”

“A new state law that came into force on September 1 allowed anyone aged over 21 to carry a handgun in most places without a permit or training. The bill was put forward by Texas Republicans.”

“Before the change, Texans had to pass a background check, take a safety course, and take a competency test to get a license.”

Bari Weiss: “There is a deep sickness in this country. It goes beyond our addiction to guns. It’s an anti-social, anti-human disease that has gripped our society and our politics.”

“A big part of that disease is how numb we have become to violence. The country has been experiencing the largest crime surge in decades. Armed robberies are up. Shoplifting is up. Road deaths are up. Car break-ins are so common in some cities that people leave notes on their windows to the thieves that nothing is inside.”

“But the most devastating rise has been in murders. Since the FBI started tracking the data, 2020 marked the highest single-year increase in homicides. In 2021, it went up again.”

“As of 2020, the leading cause of death among children in America is guns. Not cars. Not drugs. Guns. It was also the year that we had the highest rate of gun sales in American history.”

“As a nation we have to ask: When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? How many scores of little children, who witnessed what happened, see their friends die as if they’re in a battlefield, for God’s sake?”

— President Biden, quoted by the Washington Post.

A gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, killing 19 people, including 18 children, in what was the deadliest shooting at an American elementary school since the attack at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, the New York Times reports.

“A gunman walked into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday afternoon and killed 14 children and a teacher,” the New York Times reports.

“Police officers are believed to have killed the gunman.”

CNN quotes Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R): “Texans across the state are grieving for the victims of this senseless crime.”

Washington Post: “Since Sandy Hook, the nation has experienced more than 3,500 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that tracks gun violence and defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are killed or injured.”

“The shootings have touched nearly every imaginable slice of American life: A Black church in Charleston, S.C. (2015). A government-funded nonprofit center in San Bernardino, Calif. (2015). A gay nightclub in Orlando (2016). A country music festival in Las Vegas (2017). A high school in Parkland, Fla. (2018). A synagogue in Pittsburgh (2018). A Walmart in majority-Hispanic El Paso, followed just hours later by a shooting in a popular nightlife corridor in Dayton, Ohio (2019). Asian American massage businesses in Atlanta (2021).”

“And just a week ago, a racist attack at a supermarket in a Black neighborhood of Buffalo left 10 dead and thrust mass shootings back into the news.”