Within minutes of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announcing 14 students and a teacher had been killed earlier Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, an old Abbott tweet calling for Texans to buy more guns resurfaced on Twitter.
“I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let’s pick up the pace Texans,” Abbott tweeted on October 28, 2015, during his first year in the governor’s mansion, while also plugging the NRA and linking to an article about the state’s gun sales.
This isn’t the first time the tweet has recirculated after a mass shooting in the Long Star State. The same thing happened after several other mass shootings during Abbott’s terms, including the Sutherland Springs church shooting in November 2017 (26 dead, 22 injured), the May 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School (10 dead, 13 wounded), the August 2019 shooting at an El Paso Walmart (23 dead, 23 injured) and the Midland-Odessa shooting spree — also August 2019 — that left seven dead and 25 wounded.
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