Another deadly school shooting. More false promises.

In a horrific whiplash, almost too grotesque to process, another mass shooting has left more victims — this time little children — dead at the hands of another 18-year-old alleged gunman. Like the 18-year-old accused of targeting Black people during a shooting that left 10 people dead less than two weeks earlier at an East Buffalo New York grocery store. He used an AR-15 to murder them, and police say Salvador Ramos also carried the same kind of powerful semi-automatic weapon, his tactical gear stuffed with ammunition. This time the victims were 4th graders at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Reports from the scene reveal that he barricaded himself in the 4th grade classroom.

But the “why” remains unclear and frankly, I’m not sure I care anymore. I keep thinking about the 19 children who will never grow up. And the two dedicated fourth grade teachers, Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia who are gone. Garcia’s nephew, John Martinez, posted that “She passed away with children in her arms trying to protect them.” The small town of Uvalde will never be the same. And the parents and other loved ones now face a lifetime of grappling with the gut-wrenching loss of a child.

It’s hard to think that in the 10 years since the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, neither gun laws or attitudes about gun violence have changed much. Appearing on MSNBC hours after the Texas children were killed, filmmaker and social activist Michael Moore was brutally harsh as he observed, “We need to admit that we love our guns more than we love our children.” I hope he’s wrong, but there have already been 27 school shootings in the country this year. And last week, the FBI reported data that confirmed active shooter incidents are rising sharply. How much more carnage has to happen before there is a massive outcry?

Certainly, mass shootings can and do happen across in the country. But Texas is a state where gun rights are embedded in the culture. How else to reconcile Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s red-faced yelling about how “intolerable” it is that little children can’t go to school and feel safe — with his plans to speak days later at the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association in Houston, Texas? The NRA has been one of the main drivers in hyping up the false narrative that gun control measures would undermine gun owners’ constitutional rights, while at the same time successfully blocking bipartisan efforts to address gun violence. And Texas lawmakers have consistently made legal access to guns easier so that the accused Uvalde gunman could purchase a gun the day after he turned 18. How much do guns rule in Texas? As I often point out, the state does not accept a student ID as legal identification to vote, but will accept a gun license.

After the recent violence, we’ve been swept up in a tsunami of mourning, which now comes in a series of fast-moving waves. Dragged out to sea by powerful undercurrents of racial hate, projected anger and emotional pain. And we’re drowning in false promises, moral cowardness, and perfunctory expressions of thoughts and prayers. Shakespeare said, “Give sorrow words.” I say give sorrow action. Enough is enough.