0 for more stuff. this phone? fewer groceries. this phone? more groceries! this phone? fewer concert tickets. this phone? more concert tickets. and not just for my shows. get $400 off an eligible samsung device with xfinity mobile. take the savings challenge at xfinitymobile.com/mysavings or visit your xfinity store and talk to our switch squad today. some questions about why the suspect involved was arrested multiple times and not held. there has been another mass yes on h. recall chesa boudin now. murder as you know at a school in texas where the uniquely american phenomenon of a mass murder at schools complete with television coverage like the television coverage you're seeing. began. all of that began in texas. in 1966. when charles whitman, a name that became one of the most famous names of the 1960s, went to the top of a texas tower, the university of texas in austin tower. and with his rifle, he aimed down at people walking across the campus and he shot and killed 16 of them before he was shot and killed by police. that's before going to the tower. like many of the mass murderers who followed his footsteps, charles whitman shot and killed his wife, shot and killed his mother. the mass murderer in sandy hook, in connecticut, shot and killed his mother before going to the elementary school they are to murder 20 kindergarten and first grade students. and six adults working at the school. the latest reports indicate that as many as 18 children and three adults were shot and killed today at robb elementary school in uvalde, texas, the town of 15,000 people about 60 miles from the mexican border. some reports are indicating that the children murdered were mostly in grades three and four. the mass murder of children in sandy hook changed connecticut senator chris murphy's focus in the senate, where he has become the leading expert on this uniquely american way of death, being shot to death at school. senator murphy rose on the senate floor today, without a prepared speech, and said this. >> there's the 14 kids dead in elementary school in texas right now -- what are we doing? what are we doing? just days after a shooter walked into a grocery store, to gun down african american patrons, we have another sandy hook on our hands. what are we doing? there have been more mass shootings than days in the year. our kids are living in fear. every single time they set foot in a classroom, they think they are going to be next. what are we doing? why do you spend all of this time running for the united states senate? why do you go through all the hassle? the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in a position of authority, if you are answer is that, as the slaughter increases, and as kids run for their lives, we do nothing? what are we doing? why are you here? if not to solve a problem as existential as this? this is not inevitable. these kids were not unlucky! this only happens in this country. and nowhere else. nowhere else to little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day. nowhere else to parents have to talk to their kids, as i have had to do, about why they got locked into a bathroom and told to be quiet just in case a bad man answered entered the building. nowhere else does that happen except here in the united states of america. and it is a choice. it is our choice to let it continue. >> the former governor of texas, george w. bush, while serving, refused to support the assault weapons ban of the 1990s that helped reduced mass murders. since then, republicans in the house and senate have refused to consider any legislation involving guns and ammunition. both republican senators from texas today issued thoughts and prayers statements which cannot easily be translated into promises to make sure that american mass murder remain the best equipped mass murderers in the world. senator cornyn and senator cruz are effectively promising people who elected them, in texas tonight, that the next time a mass murderer actors a texas school, that mass murderer will be as well equipped as every other mass murderer who has entered texas public schools since 1966. senator cruz told reporters today that his solution is, quote, going after felons and fugitives and those with serious mental illness, and arresting them, and prosecuting them, when i try to legally buy firearms. virtually none of the mass murderers in american schools were felons. none of them were fugitives. and those who have had mental illness cannot be arrested for mental illness, as senator cruz was suggesting. and almost all of them obtained their firearms legally -- many of them were gifts from their parents. or they used their parents guns. 54 years ago, on the day after martin luther king junior was assassinated, senator robert kennedy, whose brother, president jon kennedy, had been assassinated five years earlier, said -- no one, no matter where he lives, or what he does, can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. and yet it goes on and on. why? why is the question that president biden asked tonight after he returned to the white house from asia and addressed the nation from the roosevelt room. >> i had hoped that, when i became president, i would not have to do this again. it's another massacre in uvalde, texas. it's an elementary school. beautiful, innocent second, third and the graders victimized. and how many scores of little children witnessed what happened? and saw their friends die as if they were in a battlefield, for god sake? they will live with it the rest of their lives. there is a lot we don't know yet. there is a lot we do know. the parents who will never see their child again. and never have them jump in bed and caught a little with them. it's parents who will never be the same. as a nation, we have to ask, when in god's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? when in god's name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done? i am sick and tired. we have to act. and don't tell me that we cannot have an impact on this carnage. i spent my career as a senator and as vice president working to pass common sense gun laws. we cannot prevent every tragedy. but we know that they work and have positive impact. when we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. when the law expired, mass shootings tripled. the idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy to assault weapons, it is just wrong. what in god's name do you need an assault weapon for except to kill someone? dear aren't running through the forest with kevlar vests on, for god sake. it is just sick. i just got off a trip from asia, meeting with asian leaders. and i learned this while i was on the aircraft. what struck me on that 17 hour flight -- what struck me was that these kinds of shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. why? they have mental health problems. they have domestic disputes in other countries. they have people who are lost. but these kinds of mass shootings never happen with a kind of frequency that they happen in america. why? why are we willing to live with this carnage? why do we keep letting this happen? it's time to turn this pain into action. for every parent, every citizen of this country, we have to make it clear to every elected official in this country, that it is time to act. it is time for those who have obstructed or delay the common sense gun laws -- we need to let you know that we will not forget. we can do so much more. we have to do more. >> leading off our coverage this hour is nbc news correspondent morgan chesky in uvalde, texas. and morgan, i know this is the part of texas where you grew up. you were on the football team in your high school playing against that town. what are you learning there tonight? >> lawrence, i think what we are learning is that this is a community, like so many others across america, that thought that they were safe until they were not. right now we were at robb elementary school, a massive crime scene. there is a mobile command unit put up so that investigators can continue to gather evidence as they learn more about this horrific tragedy. but people from this community of only about 15, 000, some of them want to return to the area where they can see the scene. and you can see the tears. unfortunately, they now realize that their community has joined others. as it stands right now, it's still a very active investigation and there are things happening in multiple parts of this community. and as i say this to you, lawrence, the investigation is happening here. a quarter mile away, there is a reunification site in a civic center, where some people are still waiting to hear word, potentially, on whether or not their trial is okay. or in a hospital. the uvalde memorial hospital still has people who were wounded inside when the shooting took place. every update that has come in from authorities has only brought more heartbreak. things are fluid. this all began at about 11:30 this morning. that's when the police in uvalde first got the call of an active shooter here at robb elementary school the. we are told the 18 year old, who grew up in this community, walked inside carrying a handgun, and potentially a rifle. he started opening fire. we are also hearing that he may have shot his own grandmother prying to doing this. we do not know the details of what took place inside the school, regarding the gunman. but we do know that when the shots rang out, students were huddled by teachers in safer areas and told me incredibly quiet. gunshots came from the gunman until, authorities say, he was shot. he was shot and killed by two officers who came near almost instantaneously response wise. we know that both wounded officers are expected to be okay. he is believed to be the only suspect, and the only person rather, who took it upon himself to do this crime. there are still a lot of unanswered questions. we anticipate another update from texas dps. we will be asking about a motive. we will be asking about the acquisition of weapons. we have to know he was wearing body armor when he walked inside, lawrence. as it stands right now, the heartbreak and pain is in every direction where you look in this small texas town on the edge of the hill country. as you mentioned, yes, it's not too far away from where i grew up. i have to tell you, driving into this community today, you could feel a sadness that i do not think you experience unless you cover a story like this. it is one i hope i never have to cover again. >> i think you knew you would be covering stories like this, morgan, but not necessarily -- you could not have known where you would be covering a story like this. and that you would be covering it so close to home for you. >> absolutely. absolutely. and just to paint you a picture of how tight this town is, i parked on the block here. as i was walking to the scene, there was a gentleman out front who i wanted to make sure that it was okay for me to park in front of his house -- and he said absolutely, he knew why i was here. and he said, by the way, one of the teachers killed in the school today was my niece. we since learned that she's a fourth grade teacher here. and one of three teachers killed. 18 students killed. 15 elementary students killed in uvalde, texas today. lawrence? >> morgan chesky, thank you very much for your reporting through the day and tonight. we know you are going to stay with it. thank you very much for starting us off this hour. thank you very much, morgan. >> thank you. >> joining us now is congressman joaquin castro, who represents the 20th congressional district of texas, a neighboring community to uvalde, texas. representative castro, we have heard once again from the two republican senators, those representing your state of texas, that they are in favor of absolutely nothing by way of regulation of any kind of controls of guns and ammunition, anything that could involve restricting the access to assault weapons by the kind of person who walked into that school today that killed those purple. yeah, that's right, lawrence. it shocks the conscience that lawmakers who have a chance to do something, could change the situation, to improve things, was a binder nothing. and, you know, the american people have made up their mind about what they want. yet 89% of americans, so a large slot of democrats and republicans lose support something like universal background checks. we support closing the loopholes. the gun reform measures, overwhelming support for these things. it is the members of the united states senate, the republicans, and of course, republicans in the house of representatives who are not listening to the american people. and aren't even listening to a big chunk of their own voters. and, you, know that's heartbreaking. a six-year-old an eight or old, my wife and i had a baby three weeks ago. something take my kids to school, and dropping off in the morning, and picking up in the afternoon. and i thought about how those same parents who also drop their kids off this morning and uvalde didn't get a chance to pick them up. and that's the last time we're gonna see them. unlike other parents, i'm sure, when i have gone by my kids school. i've stayed at the front entrance, and look at that building, and wondered what would happen if a shooter showed up and my kids school, and wondered whether most kids would even have a chance for surviving a getaway. and that's where we are in the 21st century america, because politicians, these hard-core conservative politicians -- they won't do a single thing about it. >> representative castro, you have a governor who tweeted that he was embarrassed that texas gun purchases where number two to california, and by the way, california's lead a state in the nation by tens of millions of people. no other state should be close to california in any number that exists. and so, you want to texas and the people of texas to buy more guns than people in california are purchased. so it has been a cheerleader for the acquisition of exactly to do this. >> there's no doubt, that guy got, but they are not, texas has made texas a more dangerous place for everyone. he's made it easier for people to get all kinds of guns, understand, guns a semiautomatic guns a can kill 15, 20 people and a matter of under a minute. where you lavishness to respond. and, you, know you're a lot about texas being a pro gun state, there's a lot of gun owners in texas, and a, street there's a lot of gun owners. but then the average texan, when they think about guns, they think about having a gun in their home and gay somebody breaks into their house at two in the morning. and they need to protect themselves, or their family members. or they're thinking about using their guns during birth season. i don't want people who are full of hate and dangerous to have a weapon of war in their hands where they can motivate people and a lot of seconds. and, yet greg abbott has helped make that possible. even more possible in texas. >> going forward, they also presented out some done everything possible under democratic control. with speaker pelosi. united states senate house 50 democratic senators, two of whom seem to hold the 60 vote rule, which is a relatively young rule and service senators, as so sacrosanct but they wouldn't do anything to change it, for any reason, including the possibility of passing any form of any of the legislation passed by the house. >> yeah, you know, this is another example of where you have huge bipartisan support for a piece of policy, like they'll just take one piece, universal background checks, so it's almost 90%. we should not put an arcane rule like the filibuster rule, this time in the law, it's a custom. we shouldn't put that ahead of the health and safety and welfare of the american people. we literally have, as you can see from today, again, people dying because the congress on state legislatures, by the, way has not taken action to help with our people. >> representative joaquin castro, thank you very much for joining us on those difficult night. really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> and coming up, this, week the nra he actually plans to be in texas. they plan to be in houston, texas, gathering there is donald trump is one of the schedules, because as of the texas senator cruz, governor abbott, where they will all be meeting was the group that is make sure that american last murderers are guaranteed to be the best equipped mass murders in the world. some matters that even the police cannot stop. one there and pursuit of them. as they were with this murder today. we'll be right back.