Jill Biden, Surgeon General Speak Out About The Uvalde Shooting
“If anyone ever doubted that gun violence is a public health crisis in America, yesterday was an unequivocal reminder that it most definitely is.”
Yesterday, First Lady Jill Biden and Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy welcomed the second shipment part of Operation Fly Formula at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. The shipment of 120,000 pounds of baby formula from Europe came a day after the mass school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left 21 people — 19 students and two teachers — dead.
Both the First Lady and Dr. Murthy expressed their sympathy to the victims’ families and echoed sentiments heard every time this happens: we need to put an end to gun violence.
The First Lady took to the podium to condemn “the sudden, senseless massacre in an elementary school—little children and their teachers, Eva and Irma.”
“Let us pray that God cradles these broken families in the palm of his hand. But let us also pray that we use the will and courage that God gives each of us so we can act—united with common sense—to protect our children,” FLOTUS said before reassuring worried parents about the infant formula shortage.
On the day of the shooting, Biden — a teacher herself — tweeted, “Lord, enough. Little children and their teacher. Stunned. Angry. Heartbroken.”
The Surgeon General called gun violence a “public health crisis in America,” and expressed sympathy to the victims and families of mass shootings.
“As a parent, and as an American, I cannot fathom the depth of the pain that Uvalde is feeling right now. But too many others can,” Dr. Murthy said.
“The Black Community in Buffalo, The Taiwanese community in Laguna Woods, communities in Oxford and El Paso, and Parkland and Charleston and Newton and Blacksburg. Too many people with a hole in their heart that can't be filled.”
“If anyone ever doubted that gun violence is a public health crisis in America, yesterday was an unequivocal reminder that it most definitely is,” Dr. Vivek continued.
In 2022 alone, there have been 27 school shootings in the United States, claiming the lives of 24 children and three adults.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been a total of 212 mass shootings in the U.S. this year.
“We owe it to them to the victims and the survivors, we owe it to each other and to our children to do more to address this crisis,” he continued.
“Our children should be able to go to school safely, their parents should not have to think twice about dropping them off to school the way so many parents did this morning, including me and my wife. We have to be better than this as a country.”
