As more details emerge surrounding the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers, the horror and anger of those around the U.S. at yet another massacre due to gun violence is palpable.
For those whose job it is to report on or comment on tragedies such as the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Tuesday, the worst school shooting in U.S history since the Sandy Hook massacre of 2012, the job has become increasingly difficult.
On CNN, anchor Kate Bolduan wiped tears away as she interviewed Mark Barden, whose son Daniel Barden was just 7 years old when he was killed while at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut on Dec. 14, 2012. He spoke about the days and weeks after losing Daniel and what the parents of those who lost children in Texas this week were going through.
“I’m embarrassed, I can’t hold it together,” Bolduan said. “Please don’t take a second for granted; hug your family,” she said. “Tell them you love them.”
But those watching appeared to understand what she was experiencing.
“I want you to know that what Americans need right now is the raw and true feelings that you conveyed,” one person who tweeted at her wrote. “We don’t need unfeeling reporting. We need you to be authentic. Thank you for showing us that!”
“Don’t be embarrassed about crying on your broadcast. You are a flesh and blood human, and the pain is real,” another person wrote.
A third replied: “In Minnesota, I was crying with you. It’s okay. We need to do it…all of us along with the victims. It’s okay to be human while telling us. It’s okay.”
Kelly Ripa used her platform on “Live! With Kelly & Ryan” to speak out against gun violence, angrily drawing on the fear she has, as a parent whose own children have gone through active shooter drills in their classrooms, to call for change.
“These families are forever, the mark has been left forever,” she said of the Uvalde community. “This is unrecoverable [for] the families in this community.
“My rage, I’ve been encouraged not to express it today because, I understand that people have been overwhelmed by the news this morning,” she continued. “But I have not slept yet because I am enraged, again, and again and again, and in case you’re keeping score, there have been 30 school shootings this year… And so, what are we doing? And who are we, as a society?
“And, before you tell me to stay in my lane, this is my lane,” she said to applause.”
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr broke down with emotion as he demanded action to stop gun violence. He referenced the shootings that occurred at Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and at Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in California, noting they occurred only days before Tuesday’s shooting in Texas.
“When are we going to do something?” he said as he slammed on the table he sat at. “I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there. I’m tired of moments of silence. Enough.”
He said that 50 senators who want to “hold onto powers” currently refuse to vote on U.S. H.R.8, a bill known as the Bipartisan Background Checks Act that would expand federal background checks required for gun purchases. The House passed the bill, but it has sat stagnant for two years.
“I ask you Mitch McConnell, I ask all of you senators who refuse to do anything about the violence in shooting shootings, and supermarket shootings, I ask you, are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children and our elderly and our church goers?” said Kerr, who has long advocated for gun safety and whose own father was assassinated in a shooting outside his office in Beirut in 1984. “Because that’s what it looks like. It’s what we do every week.”