Uvalde, TX is still very much in mourning over the mass shooting at Robb Elementary school that killed 21 people, and Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke is among those seeing the tragic impact on families of some of the victims firs-hand.
“This has been a trauma first and foremost for the families who lost their children or their moms, but it also has been a trauma for the entire community,” O’Rourke, who traveled to the small Texas town to attend some of the victims’ funerals, tells Katie in a new interview.
Though it has been two weeks since the attack, O’Rourke says families “still do not have a clear timeline or clear answers, or even any accountability from the person who is in charge that day.”
This comes as Cody Briseno, a funeral attendant who works across the street from the school, said that he tried to stop the shooter but was held back by law enforcement on the scene. These officers are already facing some heat about the delayed confrontation: Authorities say the shooter trapped victims with him inside two classrooms for more than an hour as officers gathered outside, despite repeated 911 calls from students pleading for help. Some residents, including parents who tried to rush onto the scene, have also spoken out about the mishandling of the massacre.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is planning to conduct a review of the law enforcement response to the shooting at the request of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin. But O’Rourke says this tragedy points to a larger concern about the need for gun reform, something he says has become a priority for voters. According to a new ABC/Ipsos poll, seven out of ten Americans believe in prioritizing news laws to reduce gun-related violence over protecting rights to firearms. These findings come amid a particularly deadly string of mass shootings across the country. At least 15 people were killed and more than 60 others were injured in eight states, including Pennsylvania and South Carolina, over this weekend alone.
To catch the rest of O’Rourke’s interview, check out some excerpts, and watch a video of their full discussion below.
Katie Couric: What is the mood of the town? And what have your conversations been like with Uvalde residents?
Beto O’Rourke: This has been a trauma first and foremost for the families who lost their children or lost their moms, but it also has been a trauma for the entire community. We went to the visitation for one of the young victims last night, and I talked to the funeral home director and her team has conducted 16 of these funerals. There’s been the need for preparation of the bodies, the consolation for the families, preparing the chapel, having the deacon come in each time, talking to the deacon who’s been there for each one of these families and asking him how he’s holding up. But this is a remarkable community, and everyone is there for anyone who needs help right now. After the visitation, we went to the town square across from the courthouse, where the memorial crosses have been set up, to pay our respects to the victims. There’s a cross set up for Joe Garcia, the husband of one of the teachers, who died of a heart attack shortly after [the shooting]. The flowers are piled three or four feet high in some instances.
And there are not only people of this community helping out, but also people from all over the state of Texas: from Austin, from Dilly, from Persol. People who just want to be there and want to be helpful right now. I’m also really grateful for everyone who’s contributed to the community’s GoFundMe account, where you can give directly to the community and they can distribute as they see necessary. You can also contribute to a fund that is dispersed directly to the families. A lot of people have stepped up to cover the funeral expenses. And so in this darkest of days, this tragedy is bringing out some of the best in our fellow Texans and certainly in this community
Have you gotten any more information about this botched police response to the shooting?
I spoke to a mother who lost her daughter and also lost her niece in this shooting. And I said, “What can I do to be helpful? What can other people do to be helpful?” And she said, “I just want answers. I have no idea how this could be handled in such a terrible way. I have no idea how more than a week out, we still don’t know all the facts and the details.” She wants answers. She wants justice. She wants accountability and all of us want that for her. I wish I could shed some light on this, but I think it’s very telling that you have the governor, you have the department of public safety, you have the border patrol, and federal law enforcement, you have the independent school district police, and you have the local Uvalde police all engaged.
We still do not have a clear timeline or clear answers, or even any accountability from the person who is in charge that day. I’m hoping that is coming. We must insist that it does, if for no other reason than ensuring that those parents, like the mother I spoke with, have the answers. I don’t know if this is in any way going to meaningfully contribute to closure for her. But it’s the least that we can do.
But I also think we’ve got to ask ourselves a larger question. Not just why did it take law enforcement so long to enter and confront this shooter, but why was an 18-year-old able to buy a weapon originally designed for use on a battlefield? A weapon whose sole purpose is to tear through human flesh, destroy the soft tissue in our bodies, and completely obliterate our blood vessels, our arteries, our organs, so that the victims bleed out before they can be brought to help? That to me is the question. The shooter bought two of these and a number of rounds.
I know you’ve been traveling all over the state of Texas: Has this shooting changed attitudes in terms of outlawing semiautomatic weapons, or outlawing being able to buy these magazines? And why is there such a disconnect between the people of Texas and the people who are running the state?
Yes, the people of Texas are not just ready for change when it comes to our gun laws, but to do a far better job of protecting the lives of the people in our communities and our families. But the people in positions of public trust have focused on the doors at schools, on bulletproof shields for people first responding to these mass shootings, and they’ve talked about mental health. All those things are worth looking at, and certainly improving. Especially in the case of mental health, since Texas ranks 50th in the nation to access a mental healthcare provider. In fact, our largest provider of mental healthcare services in this state which has a $2 trillion GDP is the county jail system, the largest inpatient mental healthcare facility is the Harris County jail.
But what those people in leadership positions are not talking about are universal background checks, which most Texans, Republicans, Democrats, independents, gun owners, and non-gun owners alike can agree on. You may have to go through one if you’re purchasing from a federally licensed gun dealer, but you can go buy from a private seller in this state with no background check whatsoever.
How can we get sensible gun owners to be a part of this, instead of necessarily alienating everyone who believes in their right to bear arms?
We are part of this: Amy, my wife, and I have taught our kids how to shoot. But we’ve also taught them the responsibility and accountability that comes with gun ownership. And I think that’s very reflective of most of us here in the state of Texas. To your question earlier of whether we’re going to be able to find that common ground, the mayor here in Uvalde, who probably doesn’t agree with me on a whole bunch, has publicly said that he’s for closing all those loopholes and having universal background checks. He’s as Republican and as conservative as they come. But even on this issue, we can find common ground.
Last week I was in Hondo, which is the next town over from Uvalde, and this guy stopped me on my morning run. He said, “I just saw you on the news.” And I saw he had a hat on with the Confederate battle flag. I thought, he and I probably aren’t going to see eye to eye on a whole bunch. And he said, “I’ve got a kid who’s a junior in high school here in Hondo. I worry about him. I’m heartbroken about what happened in Uvalde, which is just the next town over.” He said, “I’ve got six or seven guns in my house right now. And I have some of those guns that you’ve been talking about — the AR-15, the AK-47.” He said, “I don’t know if I need those. I know that we can do something better than what we’re doing right now.”
There’s a real openness right now on the part of people who might not otherwise agree on most things to do something. And I sure wish that we had done something right after the Santa Fe high school shooting in 2018, after the El Paso shooting in 2019 after Midland-Odessa. Right now is the time to prevent the next shooting. Because another thing that I hear commonly from the families who’ve lost a child here in Uvalde is they don’t want any parent to ever feel the way that they feel right now. They want us to do everything that we can while we still have the opportunity. But it is the governor of the state of Texas who can call a special session.
Our state legislature only meets once every two years. Otherwise, it can transact no legislative business unless the governor calls them back through something called a special session. And thus far, Greg Abbott has refused to do that. He’s said he’ll only call a committee where people can talk about it and discuss it, but cannot act. And it’s worth noting that last year, he called special sessions to pursue transgender kids, and to talk about critical race theory. He called special sessions to make it harder to vote in our elections, but he will not call a special session right now to save the lives of our kids.
Let’s talk about when you interrupted and confronted Governor Greg Abbott at that press conference. What was the moment that made you decide to stand up?
I had waited patiently during his comments to hear him say anything about what he or we as a state could do to prevent these shootings. But instead, he said, “This is totally unpredictable.” And, it turns out, he gave us completely wrong information about the response to the shooting. It reminded me of what he said after the El Paso shooting, when 23 of my neighbors were shot and killed on a Saturday before school. Things about thoughts and prayers, and how he was going to convene a committee and talk about things. But he would not address the fact that somebody had an AR-15 at the age of 18 years old — a weapon that was designed to kill human beings.
It was used to shoot little kids in the face and kill their teachers and forever traumatize the other students and staff who were in that school, the rest of this community, and frankly, the rest of Texas. We’ve had four of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history, just in the last five years, in the state. Every single time, there’s a press conference. Every single time, nothing happens. And so someone has to stand up at some point — someone’s got to fight for our kids. Amy and I have three kids in the public schools in El Paso — one in high school, one in middle school, and one in elementary school.
I was thinking about them when I was listening to a guy yesterday in San Antonio, who said, “my daughter just walked across the stage for her high school graduation.” And this guy says to me, “Beto, I felt guilty because the only thing going through my head was, ‘Thank God I got her through.’” He said, “I don’t want to be thinking that I’m the lucky one whose daughter was not shot in her school.”
But that thought was not far from my mind when I was watching my daughter, Molly, in middle school, and my son, Henry in elementary school, walk across their stages as well. Why should we feel lucky? And why should our kids? And why should are we not in the least bit be surprised when something like this happens? Parents are heartbroken, but they kind of expect this. This [kind of event] is the rule, not the exception in our lives. So we’ve got to disrupt this. We’ve got to stand up and we’ve got to fight for them or this will be our future and their fate.
It must be a very difficult political balancing act to try to speak about sensible gun laws and ways to reduce gun violence. How are you navigating that?
On the 3rd of August, 2019, when all those people were killed at a Walmart in El Paso, I went to visit with some of the victims. I remember visiting a victim who had been shot in her chest and survived. And I got to spend time with her and tell her, “Hey, we are here for you and for anything that you need. And we love you so much.” And as I’m leaving the intensive care unit, a woman came up to me and she describes her husband, Luis, who was also shot at that Walmart. She says, “Beto, why does anybody need a gun like this?” The shooter had an AK-47, one of these military-style weapons that are used to kill people on a battlefield. And that question haunted me.
There are really well-intentioned people who said, “Beto, don’t touch this one with a 10-foot pole.” But I said, “Listen, if we all agree that we should stop selling AR-15s and AK-47s, then we’ve also got to acknowledge that there are hundreds of thousands of these weapons out there in our communities.” They keep showing up in our churches, in our schools, in our supermarkets, and taking the lives of people. We have to have the courage of our convictions. There are a lot of people with whom I agree on this, but even if we cannot get that done, there’s a world of common ground out there. With universal background checks, more than 80 percent of the people of Texas can get behind them. Red flag laws, where we intervene before someone uses that firearm to kill themselves or harm somebody in their life, we can agree on them.
A safe-storage law, so that firearm is locked up and cannot be stolen, or taken by your child who then accidentally shoots her little brother, or taken by a teenager,who’s really angry and impulsive and takes that gun into his school.
But what about banning AR-15s, Beto? Is that something that you still support?
Yes, absolutely. I mean, do you or does anyone watching this need any more proof that we shouldn’t have AR-15s out here in our communities? Especially after 19 kids are shot and killed, and two teachers who were trying to save their lives are killed?
What about a buyback program? How do we get these guns off the streets and out of the hands of people?
There’s no practical use for these weapons when it comes to hunting or self-defense. I met a guy in Wichita Falls right after the Parkland shooting in Florida, and he had served in Vietnam. And he came up to me and said, “Those kids were hunted in that school with a weapon that was more powerful than the one that I had in the jungles of Vietnam.” He said, “Nobody needs that.”
In Texas, the governor signed a bill that allows anyone to carry a gun in public without a background check, without any training or vetting whatsoever. Even though over the last five years, law enforcement denied licenses to carry a firearm in public 38,000 times, deeming those people too dangerous to be on our streets with a loaded gun. They pleaded with the governor. Please do not sign this into law. It’s going to endanger our officers’ lives and make it harder for us to protect and serve those in our communities. He turned his back on them, and did it nonetheless. Now all 38,000 of those people are probably armed, loaded on our streets as are the tens of thousands who never would’ve applied for a license to carry a firearm in the first place. Cause they wouldn’t have passed the background check.
I just think we can get to some common sense and some common ground on these issues. The genius of this country and our democracy is that we have to work with one another, and find some consensus. As governor, there’s a good chance I’ll be working with the Republican majority legislature. Where I see the common ground is on background checks, red flag laws, and safe storage laws. We may be able to get to a consensus on limiting the sale of AR-15s and AK-47s.
Should these high-capacity magazines be outlawed too?
Absolutely. And again, I think you’re going to find a lot of agreement and consensus from gun owners, non-gun owners, Republicans, and Democrats on this. The Republican mayor of Fort Worth, TX, in what used to be very ruby red Tarrant County, just proposed raising the age for the purchase of an AR-15 and AK-47 to 21 years old. Now I wanna ban their sale completely, but there is some common ground. If we’re willing to make progress wherever we can find it, then we’re going to be able to save lives. Will we save every single life? Will we stop every incidence of gun violence? Of course not. But too often that is used as an excuse to do nothing at all. So we’ve got to do something, and that’s what the people of Texas want. That’s what the people of Uvalde want.
The mayor of Uvalde and I don’t see eye to eye on probably much at all, but we do understand that we’ve got to do a better job of protecting the lives of our kids and the people of this state while still protecting the Second Amendment. And that, I think, is the long, proud tradition of responsible gun ownership in Texas. This stuff that you have going on now under Greg Abbott, including permitless carry, and welcoming the NRA to have their convention four days after the Uvalde massacre in Houston, TX, where the governor delivered a video message to the attendees. He took action to loosen gun laws in the state of Texas.
We’ve got to get this state back to the tradition that I grew up with. I’m a fourth-generation Texan. We can find common ground on common-sense things, like limiting magazine capacity, universal background checks, red flag laws, and safe storage laws. Most of us can get behind that here in Texas.
Let’s just posit that mental health is the contributing factor. Why wouldn’t you have gun purchasers undergo a psychiatric evaluation?
We’re 50th in the country in mental healthcare access. Raising our federal income taxes every year to hire more mental healthcare providers, more primary physicians, and more psychiatric nurses, would go a long way toward helping a lot of people who really need it. I really hesitate to link mental illness to gun violence in this state because as we both know, we are talking about Uvalde right now, as we should. Every single day in this state, people are killed with guns and it is so numbingly common, their names will never make the headlines. You and I will never discuss them on an Instagram Live.
That’s not a function of mental illness. Some people need help and we should certainly spare no expense to get that to them. But there are those solutions you and I just talked about, including a universal background check and a red flag law — where if your wife, mom, or dad says, “My son or my daughter is just not acting right right now, and they have a gun,” we could intervene. The number of gun suicides that we have in this state and this country, and the trauma that they leave behind with survivors, is just extraordinary. Imagine the lives you could save.
Do you have any internal polling that shows what your chances are in your race against Governor Greg Abbott?
I invite you come down here and ask the people here what they think. People want leadership. They want someone who’s going to stand up and fight for our kids and our communities. And the fact that Governor Abbot actually continues to decline in the polls, the fact that we were in San Antonio yesterday and 800 people came out in the middle of 101-degree heat to talk about the solutions to gun violence, the fact that more than 75,000 people have gone to Betofortexas.com to sign up, volunteer, and knock on doors… I feel really good about our chances. And not because of me and not because of my political party, but because of the people of Texas who are taking action at this defining moment of truth. I feel good.
Watch Katie’s full interview with Beto O’Rourke right here:
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
