Celebrities are using their respective platforms to speak out in the wake of the horrific shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which has caused the deaths of 21 people.

On Tuesday, an 18-year-old man opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where children between the ages of seven and 10 were learning.

Some of Hollywood's biggest stars have shared their thoughts on the rampage and what this means for their country.

Matthew McConaughey, who is originally from Uvalde, wrote a lengthy message on Instagram discussing the massacre.

"Once again, we have tragically proven that we are failing to be responsible for the rights our freedoms grant us," he wrote in one part of the post. "The true call to action now is for every American to take a longer and deeper look in the mirror and ask ourselves, 'What is it that we truly value? How do we repair the problem?' We cannot exhale once again, make excuses, and accept these tragic realities as the status quo."

He went on to ask his fellow citizens to find "common ground" so that mass shootings will be a thing of the a past.

Taylor Swift took to Twitter to share the "rage" and "grief" she felt after learning what had happened in Uvalde.

She wrote: "Filled with rage and grief, and so broken by the murders in Uvalde. By Buffalo, Laguna Woods and so many others. By the ways in which we, as a nation, have become conditioned to unfathomable and unbearable heartbreak."

Kourtney Kardashian took to her Instagram story to urge for a change in laws where firearms are concerned and said school should be a safe place for children.

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She wrote: "Schools should be a place where our kids go to learn, to make friends, to laugh, to grow, to discover themselves. A safe place where they can envision their futures. Not a place where their futures are taken away from them.

"How have we gotten to a point where it is acceptable for our children to be murdered in their schools? They deserve a safe place. They deserve protection. They deserve a FUTURE!"

Mandy Moore shared that there were "no words" but added that, "Uvalde, your entire community is in our hearts."

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Amy Schumer shared an alarming stat along with a poignant message.

"Firearms are the #1 leading cause of death for American children and teens," she wrote, adding: "We are grieving with the Uvalde community, a predominantly Latinx community, and everyone else impacted by yet another senseless act of violence in our schools. This is yet another tragic example of how pervasive this public health crisis is in our country. @everytown."

Selena Gomez, who is originally from Texas, shared a heartfelt post of her own, writing: "Today in my home state of Texas 18 innocent students were killed while simply trying to get an education. A teacher killed doing her job; an invaluable yet sadly under appreciated job. If children aren't safe at school where are they safe?"

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A tearful Jimmy Kimmel kicked off his Wednesday night episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week by passionately addressing the school shooting in Texas.

On Tuesday (May 24), an 18-year-old gunman opened fire on a class of kids at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The devastating attack left 19 children and 2 teachers dead.

In an emotional opening monologue, late-night talk show host Kimmel begged politicians to introduce gun laws that could prevent future shootings and told citizens that they were responsible for not demanding more action from their elected representatives.

He began by calling out Republican and pro-gun advocates for trying to depoliticize the horrendous attack. "They don’t want to speak about it, because they know what they’ve done. And they know what they haven’t done and they know that it’s indefensible. So they’d rather sweep this under the rug," Kimmel said to viewers.

The host went on to say that most Americans supported "common-sense gun laws" - but that the Senate has continuously blocked gun control legislation.

"Our cowardly leaders just aren’t listening to us, they’re listening to the NRA, they’re listening to those people who write them checks, who keep them in power, because that’s the way politics work," he said.

Kimmel then spoke directly to pro-gun lawmakers including Senator Ted Cruz, Governor Gregg Abbot, and Senator Jon Cornyn. He appealed to them to take note of successful gun control laws in countries like the UK and Australia, saying: "This is the only country where this keeps happening."

"I would like to say to Ted Cruz, the human being, and Governor Abbott, and everyone, it’s OK to admit you made a mistake. In fact, it’s not just OK, it’s necessary to admit you made a mistake when your mistake is killing the children in your state," Kimmel said.

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The host concluded his monologue by addressing the American people, who he reminded had now witnessed 27 school shootings in 2022 alone.

"How does this make sense to anyone? These are our children!" Kimmel said, his voice cracking as his went on to say that people could no longer blame politicians for their inaction.

"This is now our fault. Because we get angry, we demand action, we don’t get it, they wait it out we go back to our lives," he told audiences, before concluding: "If you care about this … we need to make sure that we do everything we can, that unless they do something drastic let’s make sure that not [one of these] politicians ever holds office again.”

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It appears that Donald Trump has royally messed up once more. This week, during his return from his long trip in Asia, Trump tweeted an emotional and encouraging messages to the victims of...that major mass shooting that was a few weeks ago. The now-deleted tweet reads: "May God be with the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas. The FBI and Law Enforcement has arrived." The Sutherland Springs shooting was on November 5th, and the most recent major shooting was just yesterday, in Northern California. However, to Trump's credit, this is an absolutely insane number of mass shootings and nobody can keep them straight. I mean seriously, who can keep up? It's painful to admit, but before we've even figured out what's going on with one shooting, another occurs. At this point Americans are best off assuming that there was a new shooting at least twice a month, and that's terrible. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/930802666963439617]] Pollster Matt McDermott tweeted: "The President of the United States is tweeting at midnight about the wrong mass shooting and it's like the 500th most insane Trump story of the week." Remember last month, when a nut in Mandalay Bay shot down over 600 people and we still have no motive as to why he did it? Yeah, that was reportedly one of the biggest mass shootings ever, and we literally still know nothing about why it happened. Since then, two more shootings have occurred, just this month, as well as the recent Manhattan terror attack. It's difficult to imagine how the victims of these tragedies must feel, seeing them constantly repeat every few weeks. These news cycles are beyond mortal brains, and I'm not saying that as a silly little exaggeration. Literally, our meat brains can't keep up with this swirl of news. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that conscious apes can manage the cities they've created - we've just been lucky until now. Trump has been visiting countries like China, where science fiction author Cixin Liu has become the nation's guiding light, and eager young readers ask him questions about science, politics and the future. China indeed seems more poised to capture this future than the US, which has been slipping into wage stagnation and cultural decline for decades. Who is our major science fiction writer right now? No one, it's all in the past. Our glories, too, it seems, are locked away in the past. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/930490487903084544]] One theory is that Trump simply copy-pasted the wrong message and tweeted it out, confusing two mass shootings. It's very dumb, but hey, these are dumb times, and there are more shootings than ever. It's not that outrageous to imagine. Of course, Trump has recently been on an international trip all round Asia, including a visit with the President of the Philippines, the fascist Rodrigo Duterte, who has expressed his wishes to kill all drug users and once threw a man out of a helicopter, to his death. What a pair of guys, right? [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/krassenstein/status/930809835142119424]] What will become of this techno-abomination madcap President untethered tweeting digital heap of a society? I don't know. Does anybody? Of course not. Let's be mad at Trump while we can, because if he dies or leaves office and leaves us with no face to attach to this whole mess, we'll be even more lost than we are now. A man is a feeble foe. An entire system is less feasible to resist.

The state of Texas braved its deadliest mass shooting in modern history yesterday. At least 26 people were killed, and 20 others injured when a gunman opened fire during Sunday service at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, a remote town in Wilson County, South Texas. The victims' ages ranged from five to 72, and as of yet, Sheriff Joe Tackitt has stated that authorities have not been able to confirm the names of any of the victims. It has been reported that 23 churchgoers died inside the church, two outside and one after being transported to hospital. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday evening, Texas governor, Greg Abbott, said: "There are so many families who have lost family members, and it occurred in a church, in a place of worship [...] That’s where these people were mown down. We mourn their loss.” The suspect was later found dead in his vehicle, a few miles away from the crime scene. While local police initially identified him as a "young, white male", the US media quickly determined that he was 26-year-old, Devin Patrick Kelley. Appropriate authorities discovered that Kelley was purportedly discharged from the US air force in 2014 after serving for four years, following a court martial for assaulting his wife and child. Kelley resided in the town of New Braunfels, around 35 miles from Sutherland Springs. The motive for the attack has not yet been established. Freeman Martin, the regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, confirmed that the attacker, who was dressed in black and wearing a bulletproof vest, opened fire at around 11:30 local time, with a Ruger assault rifle. As the gunman proceeded to leave the church, a citizen grabbed his own firearm, and began shooting at the suspect who dropped his rifle and attempted to flee in his vehicle. The courageous churchgoer pursued the suspect, who eventually drove of the road, and crashed his vehicle at the Guadalupe County line. It is not known whether the gunman, who was found dead in his car, committed suicide, or died as a result of injuries sustained. The suspect's vehicle reportedly contained several other firearms. In the wake of the tragedy, renewed focus has been placed on President Donald Trump, who has historically refused to discuss gun control policy. When asked at a press conference in Tokyo about what policies he would put in place to tackle such mass shootings, the 45th President of the United States choose to focus on the mental health issues of the gunman, failing to consider that gun ownership may be at the root of the issue. "We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries, but this isn’t a guns situation," Trump asserted. "Fortunately somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction, otherwise it wouldn’t have been as bad as it was, it would have been much worse." He added: "This is a mental health problem at the highest level. It’s a very sad event … these are great people at a very, very sad event, but that’s the way I view it." Our thoughts lie with all those affected by the tragedy at Sutherland Springs.

The heartbreaking texts a Texas high school student sent his mom during a shooting have been released.

On Wednesday, the US was rocked by yet another school shooting, when 18-year-old suspect Timothy George Simpkins pulled out a gun on his fellow students on the second floor of Timberview High School in Arlington Texas.

As reported by CBS News, officials believe that the weapon was pulled after two students started fighting in class. The outlet reports that two victims were shot and another two were injured. This led to three of the four victims being hospitalized, with one needing to undergo surgery.

Now, a screenshot of a series of text messages sent by one of the students at the school to his mother has been shared online.

Posting the distressing messages to Twitter, CBS Dallas-Fort Worth reporter Jason Allen wrote alongside them: "Texts a mother shared with me from her son, during the shooting at a high school today in Mansfield. Captures the moment well".

CBS states that the texts were sent at 9:15 on Wednesday - roughly the same time that law enforcement was responding to a call regarding the shooting.

Allen states that the messages were sent between mom Stella Oigo and her son Tervil.

In the messages, Tervil writes: "mom there's a shooting [...] mom [...] help".

Stella then asks where the shooting is taking place and if her son is safe, to which, he tells his mom that he is "scared" and adds: "Idk [I don't know] mom".

Allen adds in a Twitter thread that Stella and Tervil had lost a family member to gun violence some years ago.

NBC 5 has since reported that Simpkins was released on a $75,000 bond from the Tarrant County Jail on Thursday afternoon.

The teenager has been placed on house arrest with a GPS monitor, is banned from possessing a firearm, and must not have any contact with the victims.

Simpkins' family claim that the teenager has been bullied by multiple people over the fact that he has nice things and has more than others, NBC reports. The family adds that repeated reports to the school about the alleged bullying have been overlooked.

Attorney Kim Cole told reporters: "There are numerous shootings that have happened across this country, and they’re all tragic. However, in this situation, this was not someone who was just out to go and shoot up the school and had made up their mind: hey, I’m upset and I’m just going to shoot up anyone I see."

Several parents spoke to CBS Dallas-Fort Worth about the incident, including one mom who said: "When you wake up in the morning, you think it's going to be one way and it ends up being a completely different way."

"You never know when it's going to be your last day. So I am very thankful to have my daughter with me," she added.

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