Following the Tuesday shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that killed at least 19 children and two teachers, Amanda Gorman, the first National Youth Poet Laureate, took to social media to demand an end to gun violence.
Amanda Gorman, a poet, used the power of words to portray the harsh reality of living in the United States amid the onslaught of recent mass shootings in the country.
Shortly after the shooting, the 24-year-old posted a poem she had written in response to the sad news, on Twitter.
Schools scared to death.
The truth is, one education under desks,
Stooped low from bullets;
That plunge when we ask
Where our children
Shall live
& how
& if
“What might we be if only we tried,” Gorman wrote in another tweet that has nearly 50,000 likes. “What might we become if only we’d listen.”
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The Texas shooting is part of a pattern of mass shootings that have occurred this month, including one in a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that killed 10 and left three injured, and another in a Korean-owned hair salon in Dallas that injured three.
The recent spate of shootings has also reignited calls for stricter federal gun regulations. While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, pledged Wednesday to work toward stricter laws, he acknowledged that it would be difficult due to Republicans potentially blocking new regulations. Following the Texas shooting, President Joe Biden stated in a speech Tuesday evening that he is “sick and tired” of mass shootings and urged Congress to pass stricter gun control legislation.
Amanda Gorman also shared on Twitter how Everytown for Gun Safety, one of the largest gun-control organizations in the United States, had raised more than $500,000 in online donations. Following the Texas shooting, the organization began encouraging people to sign up for and donate to gun violence prevention efforts.
Last year, Gorman read her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration. She spoke about the nation’s progress toward a better, less divisive future during the ceremony.
“So we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us,” she said at the ceremony in January 2021. “We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another, we seek harm to none and harmony for all.”