Robb Elementary

[Bangle1]

I'm normally quite hardened and can disassociate myself from horrible daily events in the world, but I actually shed a tear while reading about these children and teachers, this morning.

In the past week, there has been a mass shooting in the States, every day. It's not something I avidly follow, so it might just be that's the norm and the papers are just making a bigger deal about it, but I find that so disheartening.

Do we just accept that these things will happen and people have the right to own whatever guns they want? Cos you know, the constitution. Or will anything ever change? Can it even change, it feels a bit like getting toothpaste back in the tube.

While Dunblane was devastating and shocking, at least real changes to UK gun laws were made. Given the knife crime rates here, it would be so much worse if we had lax gun regulations too.

PS I hope it's okay to post this, given it pertains to under 18's.

[Heinrich]

At 144 days into this year, we've had over 200 mass shootings. This one is the deadliest since Sandy Hook.

I'd love to be hopeful but I was exactly in high school when Columbine happened and it has only gotten worse since then. No president or Congress from either party has done anything and reading Twitter I am truly mortified at what people can think and say about these atrocities.

The Republican line is of course we need more guns but I cannot possibly believe any of them truly believe it, nor can the general public. 90% of the country wants better laws and gun control. What does it say about our government when an overwhelming majority of the populace wants laws and the lawmakers won't do it?

[Bangle1]

At 144 days into this year, we've had over 200 mass shootings. This one is the deadliest since Sandy Hook.

I'd love to be hopeful but I was exactly in high school when Columbine happened and it has only gotten worse since then. No president or Congress from either party has done anything and reading Twitter I am truly mortified at what people can think and say about these atrocities.

The Republican line is of course we need more guns but I cannot possibly believe any of them truly believe it, nor can the general public. 90% of the country wants better laws and gun control. What does it say about our government when an overwhelming majority of the populace wants laws and the lawmakers won't do it?

I also made the mistake of looking at twitter. So many saying that it wouldn't have happened if the teacher was armed, or more police were present at the school. They probably be happy if we armed all kids from the age of five, then they'd be safe.

It's an elementary school FFS. It shouldn't be normal for young children to see people with AR's & AW's, as they are learning and developing.

[Parsifal]

Nothing will change, just more thoughts and prayers.

The tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, is the 27th shooting that's taken place at a K-12 school or college or university in 2022, according to research.

The United States is a violent country and its violence gets cover from big money (gun lobby) and its millions of supporters.  The U.S. has more guns than people.  Texas (where the shooting occurred) has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the nation where anyone over 21 can carry a handgun without a license.

There is even a federal law that states that the government may not record gun purchases in electronic format, only in paper format.  (What is the force behind that?)

The Second Amendment has been hijacked.  It doesn't mean anything like what people say it does.  The late Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens (nominated by Republican president Gerald Ford) wrote an interesting article when he was alive.  He pointed out that what the Second Amendment says is that the states have the right to form militias.  It's just that in the late 18th Century if you were called up then you had to bring your own gun.  Those militias of 1791 are now today's state national guard.  In other words, the Second Amendment says that the states can have their own national guard.  That's it.  One has to read the Second Amendment in the language of the 18th Century (where the first phrase, the preamble, carries the most weight).

Second Amendment:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Differences exist with regard to commas and capitalization which give rise to debate about the original meaning.

It was around the 1980s during the Reagan administration that the gun lobby saw an opening and hijacked the debate and the narrative about the Second Amendment.

After the shooting at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida some years ago one of the surviving students became an anti-gun activist (I forget his name).  At a campaign event he confronted Florida senator Marco Rubio and asked him to commit to not accepting campaign donations from the gun lobby.  Rubio refused.  The gun lobby doesn't actually donate a lot to political campaigns.  They get their electoral influence from their millions of supporters (as has been noted above in Twitter posts).

America loves its guns.  It's still the Wild West here.  Gun supporters will blame the gun violence here on mental health issues.  Gun sales have been booming in this country the last few years.

[Luckydog2020]

Some wonderful, sad at times thoughtful heartfelt words posted here in the above comments.

[Parsifal]

I also made the mistake of looking at twitter. So many saying that it wouldn't have happened if the teacher was armed, or more police were present at the school.

What if the teacher is the one to get the first bullet?

The Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida had an armed guard at the time of the shooting a few years ago.  Closed video showed that when he heard the first gunshots he ran away.

Regarding the Robb Elementary School shooting, early reports are showing glaring differences between the heroism described by governor Greg Abbot and the police and descriptions by parents and other witnesses waiting outside the school while the gunman was holed up in the school building for 40 minutes to an hour.  No surprise.

[Heinrich]

The cops arrested parents trying to get in to save their kids. The cops themselves went in, saved only their own kids, and got back out to prevent other parents from doing the same. This is unfathomable.

[Parsifal]

I read that the cops wouldn't let the parents into the building because they were unarmed (this is Texas, remember?). I also read that the cops were bringing other kids out through windows (presumably from other classrooms).
Is your information from a reliable source Heinrich?

Meanwhile right-wing rumors are circulating on social media:

"The shooting was a staged 'false flag' operation".
No, it wasn't.

"The gunman was transgender."
No, he's not.

"The gunman was an undocumented immigrant."
No, he's not.

This is America, remember? 

[ladsnet]

 The cops themselves went in, saved only their own kids, and got back out to prevent other parents from doing the same. This is unfathomable.

Really?

Source?

Not seen that reported over here.

[Bangle1]

The cops arrested parents trying to get in to save their kids. The cops themselves went in, saved only their own kids, and got back out to prevent other parents from doing the same. This is unfathomable.

If this is true, I can understand that their first instinct was as a parent and a cop second. If it was my kid, I'd be straight in there to ensure their safety. BUT, to prevent other parents do the same is abhorrent.

I just read that one of the teachers who was killed, Irma Garcia, had four children. Her husband had a heart attack this morning and also died, leaving the children as orphans  So many lives destroyed pointlessly.

[Heinrich]

https://twitter.com/qasimrashid/status/1...9TeSRFZ5XA

https://twitter.com/qasimrashid/status/1...ZuHex_wovw

Wall Street Journal is the source.

[Parsifal]

Wall Street Journal is the source.

Where did you see that?  I didn't see any reference to the WSJ.

[Heinrich]

Eugh, forgive me. I have a horrific sinus infection right now and am praying for death. Here's the WSJ thing.

https://twitter.com/qasimrashid/status/1...VBq-WPXX0g

[jdcyl]

The fact that some policemen were more scared than brave when confronted by a gunman shouldn’t surprise anyone. After all, the reason why it’s so frequent that US law enforcement ends up shooting, maiming and killing unarmed civilians is that policemen are scared shitless, KNOWING that the country is awash with millions and millions of high powered firearms. (The racism is an additional layer: conscious or unconscious bias in the individual cop who believes a dark-skinned male is bound to be dangerous.)

In the 1980s, law enforcement groups (like the associations of the country’s sheriffs, police chiefs, etc) supported gun control, because, of course, restricting the numbers and firepower of firearms kept policing safer. The gun lobby corrupted such organizations, too, so now it is the rare law enforcement figure who will speak out in favour of gun control - no matter that they themselves become more negatively impacted psychologically, and end up primed to do a bad job of policing.

[Parsifal]

I guess we'll have to believe Qasim Rashid, Esq.'s quote from the WSJ.
I've seen nothing about the cops going in to save their own kids in The New York Times.  I did a fast scan of the WSJ and didn't see anything, but didn't dig deeper.

[Heinrich]

There might be some creative language employed. I don't have the energy. The cops failed big time regardless.

*Ah, it's in the video of one of the tweets I posted, carried by local news. Cops did indeed try to get their own kids out. It's not really clarified if they were successful.

[Parsifal]

In the 1980s, law enforcement groups (like the associations of the country’s sheriffs, police chiefs, etc) supported gun control, because, of course, restricting the numbers and firepower of firearms kept policing safer.  The gun lobby corrupted such organizations, too, so now it is the rare law enforcement figure who will speak out in favour of gun control - no matter that they themselves become more negatively impacted psychologically, and end up primed to do a bad job of policing.

Extending that argument to members of Congress, most Republicans are representing not the gun-rights group, but the views of constituents who will not tolerate any action that could be seen as clamping down on gun rights.

Most Republicans in the Senate represent deeply conservative states where gun ownership is treated as a sacred privilege enshrined in the Constitution [which it's not], a privilege not to be infringed upon no matter how much blood is spilled in classrooms and school hallways around the country.  They fear that any significant support of gun control would probably throw them out of office in the next election.

---

There might be some creative language employed.

I was wondering.

The cops failed big time regardless.

That much has been established.

---

Is Twitter your primary source of news Heinrich?
I understand that we're of different generations, but have things gone downhill that far?

[Parsifal]

I found this in The New York Times.  It might be what Qasim Rashid, Esq. got "creative" about.

Jacob Albarado had just sat down for a haircut when he got a text message from his wife Trisha, a fourth-grade teacher at Robb Elementary.

“There’s an active shooter,” she said in the message. “Help,” and then: “I love you.”

Mr. Albarado, an off-duty Border Patrol officer, ran out of the barbershop and sped to the school.

His wife and the children she taught were hiding under desks and behind curtains. Their daughter, a second grader at Robb, was locked in a bathroom, she said.

Once he got to the school, he learned that a tactical team was already forming to enter the wing where the shooter was holed up. So Mr. Albarado quickly made a plan with other officers at the scene: evacuate as many children as possible.

Armed with a shotgun that his barber had lent him, Mr. Albarado said he led his colleagues toward the wing of the school that housed his daughter’s classroom.

“I’m looking for my daughter, but I also know what wing she’s in,” he said, “so I start clearing all the classes in her wing.”

Two officers provided cover, guns drawn, he said, and two others guided the children out on the sidewalk. They brought out dozens of kids and their teachers, he said, many of whom emerged screaming.

“They were just all hysterical, of course,” he said.

When he finally saw his 8-year-old daughter Jayda, he said he hugged her, but then kept moving the other children along.

“I did what I was trained to do,” Mr. Albarado said.

Descriptions of the timeline and what happened during those 40 minutes are still evolving (and changing).  Be careful whom you quote.

The Times also has photos of children being evacuated through a window.

[Heinrich]

All the "legitimate" news is paywalled. Now it's looking like the shooter was not wearing body armor after all. And a lot of papers of record quote the cops and leave it at that. There's an excellent bot that keeps track of how the NYT updates headlines. It can be very eye-opening.

The police in this specific instance are being incredibly murky, even for police. We still have no coherent narrative of events, but every update makes it worse for them.

[jumbler]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61604652

The gunman roamed outside the Uvalde school for 12 minutes before entering unchallenged, police said on Thursday.

That contradicted earlier statements which said the attacker had been confronted and shot at by an officer. He killed 19 children and two teachers before he was shot dead 90 minutes after he arrived, police said.

The apparent delay in entering the building deviates from guidance that became standard police practice after the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, which states that the first officers on the scene should do whatever they can to stop an attack without waiting for backup.

Investigators have found no indication the gunman had a history of mental illness or a criminal record. He legally purchased two AR-style rifles in the week before the attack, shortly after his 18th birthday.