The father of a Parkland school shooting victim blasted Republican officials and lawmakers who have blocked action on gun violence after Tuesday’s deadly Texas elementary school shooting.
“I’m done. They f—ing failed our kids again. I’ve had it. How many more times are we gonna sit back?” Fred Guttenberg said on MSNBC after 14 children were killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
“I’m gonna listen to that governor of Texas talk about why he pushed the fight for laws in Texas that made it easier for the guns to be had by those that want to kill? How many more times?” he said, adding that he was “speechless.”
Guttenberg’s comments came after 14 children and one teacher were killed in Tuesday’s shooting. Authorities have also said that suspected shooter 18-year-old Salvador Ramos was also dead.
Guttenberg’s 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in the 2018 Parkland, Fla., school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Also during his MSNBC appearance, Guttenberg said the next mass shooting was “predictable” if the country keeps “doing nothing,” noting that “the way they politicize guns and violence led us to this day.”
Guttenberg specifically called out Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) during the interview.
“I am begging. Sen. Cruz, I sat with you in your office two years or so ago. I listened to your nonsense. I listened to your BS. I listened to you explain to me why you thought we didn’t need the bare minimum of effective background checks,” he said.
“Be the Republican who says, ‘I’ve had enough,'” he demanded of Cruz.
In a tweet about the Uvalde shooting on Tuesday, Cruz said he and his wife, Heidi, “are fervently lifting up in prayer the children and families in the horrific shooting in Uvalde.”
“Thank you to heroic law enforcement & first responders for acting so swiftly,” he added.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said on Tuesday the shooter “shot and killed — horrifically, incomprehensibly — 14 students, and killed a teacher.” adding that responding officers killed the teenager.
The Texas elementary school has students in the second, third and fourth grades, but names and ages of the victims in the shooting have not yet been released.
Tuesday’s mass shooting is the largest to take place at an elementary school since 20 children and 6 adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
A 19-year-old shooter killed 17 students and teachers in the Parkland school shooting on Feb. 14, 2018.