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Gun Violence 3: Thoughts and Prayers Continue to be Insufficient


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17 hours ago, AlmostSavedAtTacoBell said:

it has been confirmed that police stood outside the school for 40 minutes while parents begged them to go in or allow parents who were volunteering to go, all while the murderer was inside with those poor children.  The reason given was that the police were waiting for tactical backup...I cannot imagine the absolute agony and anger those parents endured knowing a killer was inside the school with their children while law enforcement stood outside and refused to go in until backup with bigger, badder weapons and more protective gear appeared.  I state with no hyperbole that the actions of the law enforcement yesterday clearly obliterates the whole "good guys with guns" rhetoric.  There were literally multiple law enforcement officers present at the scene with weapons who did not go inside to rescue the children. 

I was watching coverage of this last night and was gutted by footage of the parents screaming in agony, begging  for someone ANYONE to help their children and being handcuffed or thrown to the ground by LE.  There was enough time that parents had become aware there was a shooter at their children's school and were able to get to the school.  Then more time passes as they realize police are doing NOTHING. 

There is zero way to put lipstick on the pig of police cowardice and incompetence.  Zero.  They were NOT heroes putting their lives on the line to save children. 

Why where the police afraid to enter the school? Because there was a gunman with lethal automatic weapons.  

Another point: firemen are trained to break into barricaded buildings.  The fire station was close by. Did anyone think to call them? No, they did not. 

Joy Reid had someone on her show who had decades of experience in these types of situations.  He said current training is that if you are armed LE without immediate backup, YOU GO IN and try to take out the shooter; you don't wait for backup -- because lives are at stake. 

Gov. Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Sen. Cruz are working this hard, using the same tired useless rhetoric.  Abbott and (probably Patrick) are still attending the NRA convention in Houston, which starts today. 

Something brought up by media, but no one has followed up on this because no one wants to consider the implications.  Police communications were clear that the shooter was in custody.  If this is correct, police subsequently killed the shooter after he was subdued.  I do understand that there could be miscommunication in the chaos, but not about whether the shooter was in custody or still loose. 

 

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Heather Cox Richardson's column from yesterday (Thursday). Good read on the history of America's  gun FetLife: 

Spoiler

One of the key things that drove the rise of the current Republican Party was the celebration of a certain model of an ideal man, patterned on the image of the American cowboy. Republicans claimed to be defending individual men who could protect their families if only the federal government would stop interfering with them. Beginning in the 1950s, those opposed to government regulation and civil rights decisions pushed the imagery of the cowboy, who ran cattle on the Great Plains from 1866 to about 1886 and who, in legend, was a white man who worked hard, fought hard against Indigenous Americans, and wanted only for the government to leave him alone.

That image was not true to the real cowboys, at least a third of whom were Black or men of color, or to the reality of government intervention in the Great Plains, which was more extensive there than in any other region of the country. It was a reaction to federal laws after the Civil War defending Black rights in the post–Civil War South, laws white racists said were federal overreach that could only lead to what they insisted was “socialism.”

In the 1950s, the idea of an individual hardworking man taking care of his family and beholden to no one was an attractive image to those who disliked government protection of civil rights, and politicians who wanted to dissolve business regulation pulled them into the Republican Party by playing to the mythology of movie heroes like John Wayne. Part of that mythology, of course, was the idea that men with guns could defend their families, religion, and freedom against a government trying to crush them. By the 1980s, the National Rifle Association had abandoned its traditional stance promoting gun safety and was defending “gun rights” and the Republican Party; in the 1990s, talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh fed the militia movement with inflammatory warnings that the government was coming for a man’s guns, destroying his ability to protect his family.

That cowboy image has stoked an obsession with guns and with military hardware and war training in police departments. It feeds a conviction that true men dominate situations, both at home and abroad, with violence. That dominance, in turn, is supposed to protect society’s vulnerable women and children.

In 2008, in the District of Columbia v. Heller decision, the Supreme Court said that individuals have a right to own firearms outside of membership in a militia or for traditional purposes such as hunting or self-defense, and dramatically limited federal regulation of them. Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority decision, was a leading “originalist” on the court, eager to erase the decisions of the post-WWII courts that upheld business regulation and civil rights.

In 2004, a ten-year federal ban on assault weapons expired, and since then. mass shootings have tripled. Zusha Elinson, who is writing a history of the bestselling AR-15 military style weapon used in many mass shootings, notes that there were about 400,000 AR-15 style rifles in America before the assault weapons ban went into effect in 1994. Today, there are 20 million.

For years now, Republicans have stood firmly against measures to guard Americans against gun violence, even as a majority of Americans support commonsense measures like background checks. Notably, after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012, when a gunman murdered 20 six- and seven-year-old students and 6 staff members, Republicans in the Senate filibustered a bipartisan bill sponsored by Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) that would have expanded background checks, killing it despite the 55 votes in favor of it.

Since Sandy Hook, the nation has suffered more than 3500 mass shootings, and Republicans have excused them by claiming they didn’t actually happen, or by insisting we need more guns so there will be “a good guy with a gun” to take out a shooter, or that we need to “harden targets,” or that we need more police in the schools (which has simply led to more student arrests), or as Senator Ted Cruz said today, to limit the number of doors in schools, or, as a guest on Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity’s show said, to put “mantraps” and trip wires in the schools.

The initial story of what happened on Tuesday in Uvalde fit the Republican myth. Police spokespeople told reporters that a school district police officer confronted the shooter outside the building before he barricaded himself in a classroom, killing 19 and wounding 22 others in his rampage.

But as more details are emerging today, they are undermining the myth itself.

Robb Elementary School, where the murders took place, had already been “hardened” with the town investing more than $650,000 in security enhancements, but the shooter apparently entered through an unlocked door. The Uvalde police department consumes 40% of the town’s budget and has its own Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit. And yet, the stories that are emerging from Uvalde suggest that the shooter fired shots outside the school for 12 minutes before entering it and that he was not, in fact, confronted outside. Police officers arrived at the same time he entered the school, but they did not go in until after he had been in the building for four minutes. Seven officers then entered, but the lone gunman apparently drove them out with gunfire, and they stayed outside, holding back frantic parents, until Border Patrol tactical officers arrived a full hour later.

Parents tried to get the police to go in but instead found themselves under attack for interfering with an investigation. One man was thrown to the ground and pepper sprayed. U.S. Marshals arrested and handcuffed Angeli Rose Gomez, whose children were in the school and who had had time to drive 40 miles to get to them, for interfering as she demanded they do something. Gomez got local officers she knew to talk the Marshals into releasing her. Then she jumped the school fence, ran in, grabbed her two kids, and ran out.

A Texas Department of Safety official told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer tonight that the law enforcement officers at the school were reluctant to engage the gunman because “they could’ve been shot, they could’ve been killed.”

There are still many, many questions about what happened in Uvalde, but it seems clear that the heroes protecting the children were not the guys with guns, but the moms and the dads and the two female teachers who died trying to protect their students: Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia. News reports today say that Garcia’s husband, Joseph, died this morning of a heart attack, leaving four children.

Last week, in the aftermath of the deadly attack on a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, Democrats in the House of Representatives quickly passed a a domestic terrorism bill. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) tried to get the Senate to take it up today. It would have sparked a debate on gun safety. Republicans blocked it. In the aftermath of Tuesday’s massacre, only five Republicans have said they are willing to consider background checks for gun purchases. That is not enough to break a filibuster.

Last night, Texas candidate for governor Beto O’Rourke confronted Texas governor Greg Abbott at a press conference. Last year, Abbott signed at least seven new laws to make it easier to obtain guns, and after the Uvalde murders, he said tougher gun laws are not “a real solution.” O’Rourke offered a different vision for defending our children than stocking up on guns. "The time to stop the next shooting is right now, and you are doing nothing," O'Rourke said, standing in front of a dais at which Abbott sat. "You said this is not predictable…. This is totally predictable…. This is on you, until you choose to do something different…. This will continue to happen. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed, just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.”

Uvalde mayor Don McLaughlin shouted profanities at O'Rourke; Texas Republican lieutenant governorDan Patrick told the former congressman, "You're out of line and an embarrassment”; and Senator Ted Cruz told him, “Sit down.”

But this evening the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays announced they would use their social media channels not to cover tonight’s game but to share facts about gun violence. “The devastating events that have taken place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation are tragedies that are intolerable.”

 

Edited by Howl
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15 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

That's powerful, and striking.

Also a pain in the ass to print, technically speaking, so not a choice made lightly. 

I am still just boggled that an 18 year old can't legally buy a beer but he can acquire high capacity assault weapons. Insanity. The gun lobby's money is greener than the alcohol industry's money, I guess.

And these cops all need to be investigated. I'm sympathetic to them being afraid of being shot, but that's what they signed up for. The captain is meant to be the last off the ship. The strong are intended to protect the more vulnerable. Police are meant to protect the public, and especially children. 

And my brain can't help but compare it to all the unarmed people of color who have been killed by police. To the people who have been shot in their own homes because police stormed in looking for someone, guns a blazing, only to find out "oops, wrong address." That video of the black 12 or 13-year-old with a toy rifle in a park, dangling in his hand pointed at the ground, who was shot by police before their cruiser even came to a full stop.

But this guy wanders around shooting at people for 12 minutes, THEN goes into a school and begins murdering children, and the police are just what, wringing their hands? Arresting parents frantic for them to do their jobs? While a brave mother managed to run in and grab her children without any of them being injured? If she could get in and out safely, why couldn't the armed and kevlar vest wearing police? 

This country is insane. Texas is extra insane. 

They'll be digging trenches and putting up razor wire and gun batteries around schools before they'll pass common-sense gun regulations. Despite the text of the second amendment explicitly calling for regulations. "Well-regulated militia" does not mean "teenagers with assault weapons".

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5 hours ago, Howl said:

Damn: 

 

Wow, that’s an intense statement.

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Twitter thread from a Houston Chronicle reporter at the NRA protest in Houston:

Unrolled version is here.

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40 minutes ago, Bethella said:

Wow, that’s an intense statement.

Yes, and she's not hiding her identity.  

14 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

Twitter thread from a Houston Chronicle reporter at the NRA protest in Houston:

There is also fabulous footage of an alt-right provocateur from north Texas who waded into the protest with a bullhorn, and he gets seriously cancelled.  It's hysterical. 

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The man on the left is Allen West.

 

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5 hours ago, Alisamer said:

And these cops all need to be investigated. I'm sympathetic to them being afraid of being shot, but that's what they signed up for. The captain is meant to be the last off the ship. The strong are intended to protect the more vulnerable. Police are meant to protect the public, and especially children. 

And my brain can't help but compare it to all the unarmed people of color who have been killed by police. To the people who have been shot in their own homes because police stormed in looking for someone, guns a blazing, only to find out "oops, wrong address." That video of the black 12 or 13-year-old with a toy rifle in a park, dangling in his hand pointed at the ground, who was shot by police before their cruiser even came to a full stop.

But this guy wanders around shooting at people for 12 minutes, THEN goes into a school and begins murdering children, and the police are just what, wringing their hands? Arresting parents frantic for them to do their jobs? While a brave mother managed to run in and grab her children without any of them being injured? If she could get in and out safely, why couldn't the armed and kevlar vest wearing police?

It is unfathomable to me that police officers who are trained for these very situations (and in this specific situation, had just had an active shooter drill a few weeks ago at that very school) and who are armed and protected with gear acted with such cowardice. I loathe the memes I see on social media from cops and their spouses about how when they go on shift they don’t know if they will be coming home and they make every “I love you” and “Goodbye ” count because it might be the last one. Bullshit. The Uvalde chickenshits aren’t the only ones who talk a big game and like to play dress up- they just got caught and are being internationally shamed (as they should.) I cannot believe one of the PD spokesmen thought it was a good idea to say that if police had entered, a few cops may have been killed and then the killer could have a chance to kill more people. WTF? Best practice is to draw attention away from the kids to the police in order to let the kids (and faculty) escape. When you sign up for the job, you know you could be called to handle a dangerous situation and maybe even be killed in the line of duty. If you don’t want that risk, don’t become a cop. If your reaction to children being murdered in a school as unarmed, unprotected parents bravely try to get inside is to threaten, taser, physically restrain, and cuff the parents instead of taking your well-armed and bodily protected ass into that school to save lives, find a different job.  It’s clear these people wanted to dress up and play with big guns but never wanted to actually do their duty when called.  Shame on every one of them. 

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So if armed police officers (whose job it is to combat these situations) muffed it up and couldn’t do a thing to protect these poor babies, why are the policy makers still saying that the solution is to put more guns in school so that teachers and administrators can stop prospective shooters?

It makes zero sense to me.

Obviously, because living in a country where a mass shooting caused gun reform and it worked … all I can see is that these babies died for the right of the pro-gun idiots to bear arms. These wankers probably even call themselves pro life. Imbeciles.

I usually try to keep out of gun discussions because I’m so staunchly and passionately against it that I can’t speak without anger. It is so senseless, this continuous slaughter of children. And for what? So some redneck apes can have something hidden in their pants that is bigger than 2 inches long?

Sure. You have an amendment in your constitution that says you have the right to bear arms. So why not bear the arms that were available when it was written? Since that history is so important to you, have fun with your musket. If you don’t like that idea, it’s not about your rights. Stop hiding behind a document which was written in a much different time and own your stance … the stance which says the life of an innocent school child is less important than your selfish desire to feel like a macho Rambo with your gun in your holster.

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image.thumb.png.dd5f554a351cefc22d19919bf73f2032.png

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12 minutes ago, adidas said:

Sure. You have an amendment in your constitution that says you have the right to bear arms

As part of a well armed militia. 

So join the army or national guard. Otherwise accept that weapons designed for military use are not available to you.

Honestly you're not permitted to buy your own APC or tank and drive down the freeway crushing/obliterating people on your way. You're not permitted to buy rocket launchers, or a whole host of other things that make really loud bangs and cause quite a bit of destruction. So why are you able to buy firearms at that level? You want the fire-power, sign up.

1 hour ago, AlmostSavedAtTacoBell said:

It’s clear these people wanted to dress up and play with big guns but never wanted to actually do their duty when called.  

The attraction of power is huge in these type of jobs for some people, and recruiters should be being careful to not recruit people whose primary motivation is that, rather than serving.

10 hours ago, Howl said:

Something brought up by media, but no one has followed up on this because no one wants to consider the implications.  Police communications were clear that the shooter was in custody.  If this is correct, police subsequently killed the shooter after he was subdued.  I do understand that there could be miscommunication in the chaos, but not about whether the shooter was in custody or still loose. 

If this is correct the police should be charged with murder. Personally I hope there is a full investigation and everything comes out.

7 hours ago, Alisamer said:

I am still just boggled that an 18 year old can't legally buy a beer but he can acquire high capacity assault weapons

I know, right? As for the argument that restricting 18-21 yos from  buying guns would infringe their constitutional rights, you already prevent them from buying alcohol on maturity grounds... and what age were adults defined as in the Constitution again?

 

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It's coming out that the handling of this entire tragedy was an absolute fluster cluck of one bad decision and miscommunication after another and it appears there was certainly an attempt to cover this up by making everything appear in a favorable light by downplaying/lying about how badly everything was bungled. 

Apparently Greg Abbott is enraged because he was briefed the day of the shooting and gave a press conference based on the totally incorrect information he'd received only minutes before. 

You know, that big presser that Beto interrupted,  that was conducted solely in English, ignoring the 80% of parents of murdered children who were bilingual or certainly more comfortable with Spanish in an area that includes a majority of Spanish speakers. 

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The look on the guy's face when he realises they really aren't going to back down or let him speak is wonderful.

Edited by Ozlsn
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8 hours ago, AlmostSavedAtTacoBell said:

I loathe the memes I see on social media from cops and their spouses about how when they go on shift they don’t know if they will be coming home and they make every “I love you” and “Goodbye ” count because it might be the last one.

The same counts for parents sending their children to school.

How utterly fucked up is that?

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I think most of us echo Chris' thoughts here:

 

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The senior senator of Texas wants everybody to quit picking on law enforcement. 

 

 

 

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And the protocol is: attempt to take out the shooter immediately. 

Paraphrasing the amazing Art Acevedo (past Austin police chief) when commenting  about the Uvalde situation:  The point is to immediately engage, engage, engage! 

Also came across an extremely interesting comment on twitter re: school shooters.  They know what the scenario will be because they have been through active shooter drills many, many times. 

 

Edited by Howl
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@Ozlsn, there’s an update from the resident you posted the Twitter thread from upthread. 
 

Something has to change. Something needs to be done. Those fuckers in charge aren’t going to do a damned thing about it either. We cannot count on any of them. 
 

 

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1 hour ago, GiggleOfGirls said:

@Ozlsn, there’s an update from the resident you posted the Twitter thread from upthread. 
 

Something has to change. Something needs to be done. Those fuckers in charge aren’t going to do a damned thing about it either. We cannot count on any of them. 
 

 

I think what makes me saddest about that thread is the feeling of despair, that your vote is worthless, of powerlessness. If people do not feel represented then why would they engage? And if something that is so strongly supported by a majority of citizens is being held up by a small group of apparently bought "representatives"... well maybe it's time for a federal referendum on the issues. It would be very interesting to see the results.

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 I mentioned mental health earlier, thinking that if elected officials cannot or will not pass common sense restrictions on guns, perhaps they would consider expanding mental wellness outreach and care, and it would at least be something that could help. But in the past week I have seen multiple experts rejecting that theory. Ideally we would have both adequate mental health care available to all AND the banning of assault weapons in the hands of civilians, and we cannot accept anything less. The American people must demand our lawmakers take action against easy access to guns, and I hope with all my heart this is the turning point. I am sorry if my naive comment was hurtful to anyone. 

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5 hours ago, Becky said:

Ideally we would have both adequate mental health care available to all AND the banning of assault weapons in the hands of civilians, and we cannot accept anything less.

Yes, thank you for this comment.   I’m going to be pushing this with my legislators at every opportunity.  

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