May 25 Texas shooting news

Irma Garcia, a fourth-grade teacher at Robb Elementary School, has been identified as a victim in Tuesday's school shooting, CNN has confirmed through a GoFundMe site set up to raise funds for funeral expenses and family needs.

Garcia was a wife and mother to four children, the GoFundMe campaign says. "Sweet, kind, loving. Fun with the greatest personality. A wonderful 4th grade teacher at Robb Elementary that was a victim in a Texas school shooting in Uvalde, Texas," it added.

Garcia's nephew John Martinez told the Washington Post that officials informed the family that she helped shield students from the gunfire.

According to Garcia's profile on the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District website, she had been an educator for 23 years. It was her fifth year co-teaching with Eva Mireles, who was also tragically gunned down at the elementary school.

The bodies of nine victims of the Uvalde Elementary School shooting will be released to funeral homes this evening, Judge Lalo Diaz tells CNN.

Diaz is the justice of the peace for precinct 4 in Uvalde County.

The remaining 12 bodies of victims will be released either later tonight or tomorrow, Diaz said.

The body of the shooter is in another county’s morgue, Diaz noted, telling CNN that the priority is to handle the victims and then they will worry about his remains.

After Eva Mireles, a 4th grade teacher at Robb Elementary School, was killed in Tuesday's mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, her daughter posted a tribute on Twitter.

Amber Ybarra, a family member of Eva Mireles, confirmed to CNN that the tribute was from Mireles’ daughter, Adalynn.

Mireles had been an educator for 17 years, according to her profile on the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District website.

See the tweet:

The gunman who shot and killed 19 children and two teachers inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, dropped a black bag full of ammunition outside of the school when he was “engaged” by the school resource officer (SRO), Sgt. Erick Estrada of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) said.

When the shooter arrived at the school, he was encountered by the SRO who saw him carrying the large black bag, he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room.

The shooter dropped the bag during that interaction and ran inside the school, Estrada said. 

DPS is still investigating what happened during that interaction, but during an earlier conference, DPS Director Steven McCraw said that no shots were fired in that interaction.

Estrada spoke of the heartbreak in the community following the mass shooting.

“I’m a father of two children,” Estrada said. “It took me a while to even step out my vehicle and know what I was about to see inside that school.”

President Biden announced he will visit Texas "in the coming days" to meet the grieving families after a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at the Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde on Tuesday.

More information has come to light about how Tuesday's events unfolded and the lives claimed by the gunman:

The victims:

Here's a look at the order of events on Tuesday:

The suspect:

The city and the school:

Remember: Tuesday's massacre is the deadliest school shooting since 2012, when 26 children and adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. This is at least the 30th shooting at a K-12 school in 2022, according to a CNN tally.

While the Supreme Court has been working behind closed doors on its first major Second Amendment opinion in more than a decade, three mass shootings have broken the country, including Tuesday's massacre of 19 schoolchildren in Texas.

Closed off from public view, the justices are penning opinions and dissents in a dispute that targets one concealed carry law in New York that is more than a century old. A narrow ruling could impact only a handful of states with similar laws, but a more expansive ruling could open a new chapter in constitutional challenges to gun safety laws across the country.

"As a formal matter, the Supreme Court's ruling on New York's gun law doesn't call into question gun laws restricting types of weapons or sensitive places where individuals can carry guns," said Jacob Charles, executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law.

"But a broader ruling that changes the way courts evaluate gun laws could call into question a wider array of gun regulations like assault weapons bans and other restrictions like high-capacity magazine bans," Charles added.

The deliberations come as the country mourns another tragedy, victims of gun violence plea for more action, and the political branches seem forever divided on a path forward.

In 2008, the Supreme Court held for the first time, that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms at home for self-defense.

After the ruling, however, to the frustration of gun rights advocates, lower courts relied upon language in the opinion to uphold many gun regulations.

"Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings," then-Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority in the Heller case.

Except for a follow-up decision two years later, the justices largely stayed away from the issue, infuriating gun rights advocates and even some of the justices themselves.

Justice Clarence Thomas declared at one point that the "Second Amendment is a disfavored right in this court."

After Amy Coney Barrett took her seat, the court agreed to take up a new case, highlighting the impact of former President Donald Trump's three nominees on the court.

Keep reading here.

Ubiquitous gun violence in the United States has left few places unscathed over the decades. Still, many Americans hold their right to bear arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, as sacrosanct. But critics of the Second Amendment say that right threatens another: The right to life.

America's relationship to gun ownership is unique, and its gun culture is a global outlier.

As the tally of gun-related deaths continue to grow daily, here's a look at how gun culture in the US compares to the rest of the world.

Read the full story and see how CNN reported it here.

As a parent, it can be gut-wrenching to discuss violence happening across the country with your kids, and even harder when the violence is happening in our schools. In the wake of the Texas school shooting, what questions are your school-aged children asking and how are they feeling?

Please call in with your child and leave us a voicemail at (404) 618-1992 to let us know your thoughts and what you are discussing with your children.

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Please include your name, contact information and where you're calling from. By calling in with your child, you are representing that you have authority to consent for your child's voice and statements to be used by CNN on television and/or digital and are agreeing to such use.

Thank you for weighing in with your important perspective.

President Biden announced Wednesday that he will be traveling to Texas "in the coming days" to meet with the families mourning the loss of their loved ones after a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on Tuesday.

“As a nation, I think we all must be there for them. Everyone,” Biden said. “And we must ask when in God’s name will we do what needs to be done to — if not completely stop — fundamentally change the amount of the carnage that goes on in this country.”

Echoing remarks he made shortly after returning from Asia on Tuesday, Biden said he was “sick and tired of what’s going on.”

He said “common sense” gun reform wouldn’t “prevent every tragedy,” but would still “have significant impact, and have no negative impact on the second amendment.”

“The second amendment is not absolute,” Biden said. “When it was passed you couldn’t own a cannon. You couldn’t own certain kinds of weapons. There’s just always been limitations.” 

“Where’s the backbone?,” he asked. “Where’s the courage to stand up to a very powerful lobby?”

The President said “one modest step” Congress could take immediately would be to confirm his nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Steve Dettelbach, who vowed earlier Wednesday he would not be influenced by political considerations if he secures the job at a Senate confirmation hearing.

“The Senate should confirm him without delay, without excuse,” Biden said. “Send the nomination to my desk. It's time for action.”

Vice President Kamala Harris also addressed the shooting as she began her remarks.

“I know that today, following yesterday, that all of our hearts, of course, are with the people of Uvalde, Texas, with the parents, with the children, with all the folks that said goodbye yesterday morning to someone they loved not knowing that that goodbye would be their last,” she said.

“Enough is enough,” Harris continued. “As the President said last night, we must have the courage to stand up to the gun lobby and pass reasonable gun safety laws.”

CNN's Nikki Carvajal and Maegan Vazquez contributed reporting to this post.