'Like we're normalizing it': Triangle activists, law enforcement react to deadly Texas shooting

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Greear Webb might have gotten older. But his anger remains the same.

"It's terrible," he said. "I felt the same type of righteous anger I felt after the Parkland (school) shooting."

Webb was a junior at Sanderson High School during that shooting. He tried to do something then by organizing a gun violence town hall.

The rising senior at UNC-Chapel Hill was enraged by the latest mass shooting that took place in Uvalde, Texas.

"I feel like we are normalizing it as a country," Webb said. "America has normalized an incident, a mass shooting, the killing and death of young people who are going to school."

RELATED: What we know about victims

He said he believes every measure should be looked into to eradicate some of the issues including universal background checks for unlicensed gun sellers. He also suggested doubling down on red flag laws so people who are mentally unstable can have their guns temporarily taken away.

"We hear the term school shootings and that's a little clean, these are school massacres," said Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood.

RELATED: A look at some of the deadliest US school shootings

He said there are officers in every school in the county and he encourages others on patrol and his command staff to stop in at schools from time to time.

"It sends a signal to the would-be assailant that there is somebody there, which in some cases doesn't seem to bother or deter them," said Blackwood.

He said he believes the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has only made this worse.

"The absence of personal contact with others," he said. "It's the absence of being in a classroom with your friends, it's the absence of human contact that has created this atmosphere in our society that we're having to suffer through right now."

ABC11 reached out to the Wake County Public Schools and Durham Public Schools to see whether they are doing anything to step up enforcement in light of the shooting but neither responded to emails Tuesday night.