Fenced crowd cheers and thumbs up at Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott as he arrives as President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden pay their respects at a makeshift memorial outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. (Photo: CHANDA KHANNA via Getty Images)
President Joe Biden was greeted warmly when he visited Uvalde on Sunday, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott was booed loudly as he approached the makeshift elementary school monument where 19 children and two teachers were killed in a mass shooting last week.
“Shame on you, Abbott!” a voice could be heard amid the booing and screaming of the crowd shielded from officials visiting the site.
“Please, Governor, help Uvalde County! We need change! Our children don’t deserve this,” one man shouted. “Our children are under constant attack in this community. We need help.”
The community has become increasingly critical of the Republican governor’s stubborn defense of easy access to weapons, including particularly devastating assault rifles like the kind used in the elementary school shooting after they were legally purchased by the 18-year-old gunman.
Abbott joined those who gathered on the spot seconds after Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, who arrived to applause and cheers. The Bidens, both in tears, could be seen talking to and hugging school officials.
After a mass later, a crowd outside chanted, “Do something.” Biden replied as he left the church, “We will.”
The Bidens spent several hours visiting families and survivors of victims, and also met with first responders. Uvalde was Biden’s third presidential trip to a mass shooting, including one earlier this month to Buffalo, New York, where a white supremacist suspect killed 10 black people in a grocery store.
The horrific attack on the schoolchildren has sparked heated new protests against politicians reluctant to amend lax gun laws and a powerful arms industry financing their campaigns.
Beyond Uvalde, a huge crowd of protesters clamored for gun control outside the National Rifle Association’s weekend convention in Houston.
After his controversial speech at the NRA convention, Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz was confronted on Saturday at a nearby restaurant by a voter who angrily told him, “Nineteen children died! That’s on your hands! Ted Cruz, that’s on your hands !’
Texas has been the site of eight mass shootings in the past 13 years as lawmakers eased gun restrictions.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
