'Do something now:' mourners demand action after US school shooting

Mendoza (right), the grandmother of Amerie Jo Garza, who died in the mass shooting, mourns at a makeshift memorial outside Uvalde County Courthouse in Uvalde, Texas. Photos: AFP

A distraught Texas grandmother of a girl killed in the massacre in Uvalde pleaded for urgent action by US authorities to prevent future school shootings, as the country plunges again into the roiling debate over guns.

Ten-year-old Amerie Garza - a fourth-grader who loved her classes, drawing, and playing with clay - was one of 19 children murdered by a teen gunman at Robb Elementary School in an act of evil that has forever changed this small Texas town.