After the Uvalde shooting, a fourth-grade student who escaped by covering herself in a classmate’s blood said she doesn’t feel safe at school.
Miah Cerrillo, 11, stated in a pre-recorded statement to US politicians that she fears a similar shooting would occur again.
The Texas shooting has reignited a national discussion about gun laws in the United States.
Efforts to enact national gun-control measures, on the other hand, have frequently faltered.
Twenty-one individuals were killed in the school shooting, including 19 children.
The young Ms Cerrillo gave tearful evidence before a congressional panel investigating US gun violence, recalling the horrifying shooting that began when a teacher urged kids to cover after seeing the gunman, an 18-year-old local.
As pupils took safety behind her desk and their book bags, the gunman shot the teacher.
“He kissed her on the cheek and shot her in the head,” she explained. “Then he shot some of my classmates,” says the narrator.
Ms Cerrillo was hit in the shoulders and head by pieces. She claimed to be dead during the assault before calling 911 and requesting police assistance using her teacher’s phone.
“I assumed he’d return to the room, so I grabbed [her classmate’s] blood and smeared it all over me,” she explained. “I just kept my mouth shut.”
Miguel Cerrillo, Miah’s father, stated his daughter is still traumatized as a result of the incident.
He cried as he stated, “She’s not the same little kid I used to play with.” “Schools are no longer secure. Something needs to be changed.”
The entire US House of Representatives is slated to discuss a plan that would raise the minimum age to buy select guns from 18 to 21 years old later on Wednesday. In the Senate, the bill is unlikely to pass.
Only a few of the 50 Republican senators appear to be sympathetic to new gun legislation, with Democrats preferring smaller gun restrictions in order to reach an agreement with their Republican counterparts.
A “red flag” rule prohibiting those with mental illness or a criminal past from obtaining firearms, as well as extended background checks on gun purchasers that would encompass private gun sales, have received the most support.
Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun control advocacy group, told the BBC during a rally in Washington DC that the testimony of survivors and overwhelming public cries for change can be a “strong” push to action.
She stated, “There is a focus on the subject.” “We finally see more people in America opt to get off the sidelines when there is a national shooting catastrophe.”
Mckourage