Biden urges 'rational' action on guns as Texas town mourns

WASHINGTON/UVALDE • A day after promising residents of Uvalde, Texas, action to address gun violence, United States President Joe Biden sought to appeal to "rational" Republicans to curb high-calibre weapons and take other steps to prevent more mass shootings.

"Things have gotten so bad that everybody is getting more rational about it," Mr Biden, a Democrat, told reporters on Monday as he returned from his weekend trip to memorialise the 19 children and two teachers killed last week in the nation's worst mass school shooting in a decade.

"The idea of these high-calibre weapons - there is simply no rational basis for it in terms of self-protection, hunting," Mr Biden said.

The US has seen hundreds of lives claimed by dozens of mass shootings in recent years and similar rounds of talks in Washington about how to reduce them have not resulted in action by Congress.

The two parties remain deeply divided, with Mr Biden's Democrats open to new restrictions on gun purchases while Republicans zealously guard an expansive vision of gun rights.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, has said repeatedly he does not view gun restrictions as the solution and has focused on the role of mental health.

Questions remain nearly a week after an 18-year-old shot his grandmother before heading to Robb Elementary School in southern Texas armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, killing 21 people and injuring at least 17 others.

Local police waited nearly an hour even as children continued calling 911 pleading for help before a US Border Patrol tactical team stormed in and killed the shooter.

The Department of Justice on Sunday said it would review the law enforcement response at the behest of Uvalde's mayor. Some Texas Democrats also want a separate Federal Bureau of Investigation probe.

"Somebody in the police department needs to go down for this," said Ms Jessica Morales, 30, who was born and raised in Uvalde but now lives in Houston. "We deserve better policing and those kids and teachers who waited for an hour in the classroom for help deserved so much more."

Scores of American flags fluttered around the Uvalde county courthouse building and main town square, which has been turned into a makeshift memorial for the shooting victims and location for communal grieving.

Residents of the shattered town urged Mr Biden to "do something" as he visited on Sunday and attended a memorial at the school before meeting families and first responders.

"We will," Mr Biden said. But little has changed since 1999 when two student gunmen killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado. The Uvalde killings came less than two weeks after another mass shooting, in Buffalo, New York, where 10 people died in an attack targeting African Americans, allegedly by a self-described white supremacist.

In Uvalde, mourners held their first wakes on Monday for some of the victims. The first funerals were set for yesterday, with others scheduled up to the middle of this month.

The huge number of victims, many with horrific wounds, has left the town's two funeral homes turning to embalmers and morticians from across Texas for help.

One anonymous donor has pledged US$175,000 (S$240,000) to help cover funeral costs, Mr Abbott said.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE