Texas school shooting: Beto O’Rourke to protest outside of Houston NRA convention

Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke announced Thursday that he will attend a rally “against gun violence” outside the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) convention in Houston on Friday.

“This massacre and the too many others before it are totally predictable, direct consequences of the choices made by Greg Abbott and the majority of those in the Texas legislature,” a page for the event said. “There will be more Uvaldes, El Pasos, Sutherland Springs, and Santa Fes until we decide to put the lives of our kids ahead of the political careers of gun lobby politicians like Greg Abbott.” 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, against whom O’Rourke is running, canceled his in-person attendance at the convention and will instead be in Uvalde on Friday. He made pre-taped remarks to be shown at the convention.

“Action is the antidote to despair,” O’Rourke tweeted while inviting people to the demonstration that says it seeks to hold the “NRA and the politicians they purchase accountable.”

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O’Rourke disrupted an Abbott press conference on Wednesday in which the governor was giving updates on the shooting.

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He told the governor shootings in the state are “on you until you choose to do something different.” He was escorted from the event. Republican officials heavily criticized him.

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Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, a Republican who was sitting by Abbott at the time, called O’Rourke a “sick son of a b—-” as the Democrat walked out.

Black Lives Matter Houston and March for Our Lives, an organization started by the Parkland shooting survivors, are among the groups joining O’Rourke at the rally.