Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren weighed in on the shooting in El Paso, Texas on Saturday a few hours after it occurred. The 2020 candidate sent her condolences to the victims and families of those involved in the tragedy before turning her attention on the “epidemic” of gun violence in the U.S., and what measures could be taken to stop it.
Sen. Warren was among many public figures to speak out on Saturday afternoon after The shooting in El Paso. One gunman, a while male in his 20s, is in custody, according to a report by CBS News, but at least 19 people are dead and 21 more were hospitalized. The shooting was another senseless crime resembling many others in recent memory, and for Senator Warren, it is high time it ends.
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“The news out of El Paso is devastating. I’m heartbroken for the victims and their families,” she wrote. “Far too many communities have suffered through tragedies like this already. We must act now to end our country’s gun violence epidemic.”
Warren has spoken many times about her commitment to “common sense gun reform.” As a matter of fact, this is one issue on which she is considered more middle-of-the-road than some of her opponents, but she does have a clear plan for how she would combat gun violence as president.
“Gun violence is a national health emergency in this country. We need to treat it like that. We can do the things that are sensible,” Warren said in the first democratic debate back in June. “We can do universal background checks, we can ban weapons of war, but we can also double down on the research and find out what really works.”
Warren would not commit to some of the measures her opponents support, such as Senator Cory Booker’s national licensing program or Sen. Kamala Harris’ executive order, yet she is clearly committed to the issue. She supports the work of Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America, an activist company dedicated to ending mass shootings through stricter gun laws.
The shooting in El Paso was the 249th mass shooting in the U.S. this year, according to CBS News. This is an average of more than one mass shooting per day, and in fact there were at least two others reported this week, depending on the parameters used in defining these tragedies. As such, the response online and in the media has become predictable, as was the answer to Warren’s tweet.
Many of her followers asked for specifics and promises on how the senator would work to end gun violence as president. Those who did not support her, in turn, accused her of misrepresenting facts or peddling an agenda. Warren did not respond to these allegations on Saturday.
