Good morning. Gun violence has killed more children and destroyed another community. |
 | | Mourners in Uvalde, Texas.Marco Bello/Reuters |
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Nineteen children were murdered in Uvalde, Texas, yesterday. They were elementary school students, attending their last week of classes before summer vacation, when an 18-year-old gunman came through the door and began shooting. |
He also killed two adults, including a teacher, and appears to have shot his grandmother in her home before going to the school. At least three kids are in critical condition. |
By now, the story of American gun violence is unsurprising. Mass shootings happen frequently. The list from just the past decade includes supermarkets in Buffalo and in Boulder, Colo.; a rail yard in San Jose, Calif.; a birthday party in Colorado Springs; a convenience store in Springfield, Mo.; a synagogue in Pittsburgh; churches in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and in Charleston, S.C.; a Walmart in El Paso; a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis; a music festival in Las Vegas; massage parlors in the Atlanta area; a Waffle House in Nashville; a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.; and a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. |
Even school shootings happen often enough that we know some of the names: Sandy Hook Elementary School, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Oxford High School, Santa Fe High School, Columbine High School. Robb Elementary School in Uvalde has joined this horrific list. |
If American gun violence is no longer surprising, it still is shocking. On an average day in the U.S., more than 35 people are murdered with a gun. No other affluent country in the world has a gun homicide rate nearly as high. Consider this chart, by my colleague Ashley Wu: |
 | | Chart shows select countries with a G.D.P. per capita of at least $30,000. | Sources: Our World in Data; World Bank |
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As bad as it is, the chart underplays the toll, for two reasons. It covers 2019, and gun violence has surged since the pandemic, for a complex mix of reasons that German Lopez has explained. The chart also does not include suicides and accidental shootings. Altogether, guns killed about 45,000 Americans last year. |
"Nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day," Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said in a speech last night. |
Why is the U.S. such an outlier? The main reasons, studies suggest, are the sheer number of guns in this country and the loose laws about obtaining and using them. |
No doubt, this latest tragedy will lead to more debate about whether those laws should meaningfully change. After other recent shootings, the country's answer was no. |
- "I am sick and tired of it," President Biden said. "We have to act. And don't tell me we can't have an impact on this carnage."
- Senate Democrats pushed for a vote on legislation that would strengthen background checks, which the House first passed in 2019.
- The Uvalde massacre is the second-deadliest school shooting on record, behind Sandy Hook a decade ago.
- Eva Mireles, a fourth-grade teacher, was killed while trying to protect her students, according to a relative.
- Anguished families waited late into the night to find out whether their children were among those killed.
- The authorities identified the gunman as Salvador Ramos, who had attended a nearby high school. He died at the scene.
- "I guess it's something in society we know will happen again, over and over." Parents of the Sandy Hook victims grappled with another shooting.
- Texas has some of the country's least-restrictive gun laws: Nearly anyone over 21 can carry a handgun without a license.
- "I'm tired of the moments of silence. Enough." Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors, made an emotional plea for gun control measures.
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 | | A polling site in Lost Mountain, Ga.Nicole Craine for The New York Times |
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- Brian Kemp defeated David Perdue, a Donald Trump-backed challenger, in the Republican primary for Georgia governor. Kemp will face Stacey Abrams, a rematch from 2018.
- Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's Republican secretary of state, won his primary for re-election. He and Kemp rebuffed Trump's efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election results.
- Up and down the ballot, Trump-endorsed candidates in Georgia lost.
- In Georgia's Senate race, the Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock will face Herschel Walker, a former football star and a friend of Trump's.
- Ken Paxton, the incumbent and a Trump ally, easily defeated George P. Bush in the runoff for Texas Attorney General.
- In South Texas, a Democratic house race between Henry Cuellar, the incumbent, and Jessica Cisneros, a progressive candidate, is too close to call.
- Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama will face Katie Britt, a former lobbyist, in a Republican primary runoff for the Senate next month.
- Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump's former press secretary, won the Republican nomination for Arkansas governor.
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 | | Military vehicles during a parade in Taiwan last year.Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times |
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How can conservatives both idolize Lincoln and want to overturn an election for Trump? Ross Douthat has a theory. |
 | | The 1970s rock group Fanny.Linda Wolf |
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A wedding convo: Inside the branded marriage of Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker. |
A Times classic: Breaking gender norms — with toys. |
Lives Lived: Colin Cantwell produced the original designs for the X-wing starfighter and the Death Star from "Star Wars" and worked on other science-fiction classics. He died at 90. |
 | | The dating app Ilios.Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times |
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Right now, mercury is in retrograde. If that sentence means something to you, you may be suited to the constellation of popular apps that use astrology to map meaning onto relationships. Among them: Ilios, a new dating app that matches users based on their supposed astrological compatibility. |
At a recent launch event with college students, interest in the app generally fell along gender lines, Madeleine Aggeler reports. Most of the men knew their zodiac signs but felt indifferent. "I think for a week in seventh grade I was like, 'Whoa, that's so me.' And then I was like, 'Oh wait, no, I don't care,'" said Luke Anderson, 21, a Pisces. |
Women tended to appreciate the concept more. "It's basically like a weird statistic," Lexi Brooks, a 23-year-old Aries, said. |
 | | Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Frances Boswell. |
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Why is the animated comedy "Bob's Burgers" so freakishly lovable? This guy. |
The pangram from yesterday's Spelling Bee was changed. Here is today's puzzle — or you can play online. |
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David |
"The Daily" is about the school shooting in Uvalde. On "The Argument," a debate about the right way to protest. |
Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. |
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