'Why are we willing to live with this carnage?'

UVALDE • A teenage gunman killed at least 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas, prompting a furious President Joe Biden to denounce the US gun lobby and vow to end the nation's cycle of mass shootings.

The attack on Tuesday in Uvalde - a small community about an hour from the Mexican border - was the deadliest school shooting in the United States in years, and the latest in a spree of bloody gun violence across America.

"It's time to turn this pain into action for every parent, for every citizen of this country," Mr Biden said, his voice heavy with emotion. "It's time for those who obstruct or delay or block common sense gun laws - we need to let you know that we will not forget.

"I am sick and tired of it... Why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?"

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, addressing an earlier news conference, named the suspect as Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old local resident and a US citizen.

Texas Department of Public Safety officials told CNN the gunman is believed to have shot his grandmother before heading to Robb Elementary School around noon where he abandoned his vehicle and entered with a handgun and a rifle, wearing body armour.

The gunman was killed by responding officers, the officials said, adding later that two teachers also died in the attack.

"Right now, there's 19 children that were killed by this evil gunman, as well as two teachers from this school," said Lieutenant Chris Olivarez, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety for South Texas Region.

Fourth-grade teacher Eva Mireles was shot and killed while trying to protect her pupils, her aunt Lydia Martinez Delgado told the New York Times.

More than a dozen children were also wounded in the attack at the school, which teaches more than 500, mostly Hispanic and economically disadvantaged pupils.

Uvalde Memorial Hospital said on Facebook it had received 13 children, while University Health hospital in San Antonio said on Twitter it had received a 66-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl, both in critical condition, and two other girls aged nine and 10.

At least one Border Patrol agent responding to the incident was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with the shooter, tweeted Department of Homeland Security spokesman Marsha Espinosa.

Footage showed small groups of children weaving through parked cars and yellow buses, some holding hands as they fled under police escort from the school, which teaches students aged around seven to 10 years old.

It was the deadliest such incident since the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut, in which 20 children and six staff were killed.

The White House ordered flags to be flown at half-mast in mourning for the victims, whose deaths sent a wave of shock through a country still scarred by the horror of Sandy Hook. Mr Ted Cruz, a pro-gun rights Republican senator from Texas, tweeted that he and his wife were "lifting up in prayer the children and families in the horrific shooting in Uvalde".

But Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, where the Sandy Hook shooting took place, made an impassioned appeal for concrete action to prevent further violence.

"This isn't inevitable, these kids weren't unlucky. This only happens in this country and nowhere else. Nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day," said Mr Murphy on the Senate floor in Washington.

The deadly assault in Texas follows a series of mass shootings in the US this month. On May 14, an 18-year-old self-declared white supremacist shot 10 people dead at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. The following day, a man blocked the door of a church in Laguna Woods, California, and opened fire on its Taiwanese-American congregation, killing one person and wounding five.

The National Rifle Association has been instrumental in fighting against stricter gun laws. Mr Abbott and Mr Cruz are listed as speakers at a forum that is being held by the powerful lobby in Houston, Texas, later this week.

The US saw 19,350 firearm homicides in 2020, up nearly 35 per cent from 2019, said the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in its latest data.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE