Kim Kardashian Urged Lawmakers To Ban Semi-Automatic Weapons After An 18-Year-Old Gunman Shot And Killed 19 Children In Uvalde

Kim Kardashian penned an impassioned statement calling for lawmakers to take immediate action on gun control after 21 people were shot dead at a school in southwest Texas.

On Tuesday, an 18-year-old man entered Robb Elementary School in the small city of Uvalde, and shot and killed at least 19 children and two adults. The children who died were aged between 7 and 10 years old.

The mass-attack has been declared the deadliest shooting at a grade school since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, and has once again sparked calls for lawmakers to enact stricter gun laws.

Among those utilizing their platforms was Kim Kardashian, who has a long history of speaking out about gun control legislation.

Two years later, she was one of many to assemble in Washington DC for the March For Our Lives demonstration following the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

On Wednesday evening, Kardashian shared a lengthy statement to her hundreds of millions of social media followers urging government officials to enforce a ban on semi-automatic weapons.

It has emerged that the Uvalde gunman legally purchased his firearms in celebration of his 18th birthday just weeks prior to the shooting.

The shooter obtained two semi-automatic AR-15 style rifles at a local federally registered gun dealership on May 17 and 20, and on May 18, purchased 375 rounds of ammunition.

State Senator Ronald Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, told CNN that purchasing the weapons was “the first thing” the gunman did when he turned 18, adding that he “had no problem accessing” them.

In her statement, Kardashian highlighted that similar AR-15 semi-automatic rifles were used at a number of other mass-shootings, including the Buffalo grocery store massacre where ten people were killed less than two weeks prior to the Uvalde attack.

“We have to stop allowing people to use a sentence written centuries ago when technology, times, humanity were completely different, to dictate how we regulate gun ownership, & how we protect our kids today,” she added.

Kardashian also compared the ages of the Uvalde gunman and the suspected shooters in the Parkland and Buffalo attacks, who were both also 18, noting that they reportedly were all able to purchase their weapons legally.

And though some have called for more mental health resources to be put in place within communities to better support teens and prevent devastating attacks, Kardashian stated that access to weapons is the first thing lawmakers should be addressing.

Like many, Kardashian emphasized that people must not become desensitized to such brutal attacks, writing: “We can’t accept it. We can’t have another five years go by without effective, impactful laws put in place to protect our kids.”

“We are parents, we are mothers, we are begging and pleading for action,” she said. “I’m urging our leaders to come together and put politics aside and put children first.”

She finished the statement by referring to a similar post she published back in 2017 in honor of National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

Demonstrating how little has changed to protect lives and enact stricter gun control, Kardashian shared some excerpts from the five-year-old statement, which tragically echoed many of the issues she raised in response to the Uvalde shooting.