Well, it didn't take long for the Repuke hokum of "letting teachers carry guns" to evaporate in the wake of the Uvalde school massacre. We now know - after several revised timelines and accounts - the maniac shooter (Salvadore Ramos) was outside the school taking shots for 12 minutes while the assembled Uvalde security force stood around - and apart from firing a few warning shots - did nothing to stop him. Uploaded social media videos by a number of family members showed up to 19 cops at one point- some in tactical gear - just hanging around doing jack shit instead of confronting the malignant maggot, bringing him down. The subsequent excuse was they were awaiting the arrival of the local SWAT team . By which time 19 kids and two teachers were killed from the time of the first 911 call. In Lawrence. O'Donnell's words ('Last Word' Thursday night):
"They could have arrived within three minutes but they didn't. "
So a team of trained tactical officers, with tactical equipment, dilly -dallied for 14 minutes - wasting time while the gunman could gain easy entrance- and we are expected to believe from the Repuke clowns that an armed teacher or teachers could have done better than the trained cops, complete with tactical gear? What are these fools drinking, or smoking?
The Uvalde Police Dept.. meanwhile, as Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out on 'Last Word' Thursday night, is located 1.2 miles from the school yet it took them 14 minutes to arrive.
Now riddle me this: if 10 armed cops - originally- before Border Patrol security arrived, were unable to bring down the shooter, how in the hell would a single (untrained) armed teacher do so? This is as batshit nutso as it gets but totally expected from a cult party of Reepo slimeballs who "care more about getting checks from the gun makers than saving kids' lives" - in the words of Sen. Tammy Duckworth last Thursday night.
As reported by The Financial Times Friday, "Chaotic smartphone footage taken outside the school while the attack was taking place shows desperate parents pleading with police to enter the school to confront the gunman - or be allowed to enter themselves." Instead, one officer pinned a parent to the ground and cuffed him- but at almost the same time a bold mother was able to spirit her two children out through a window. Why wasn't more done to save those kids? As opposed to cuffing the parents in total shock at the inaction?
While Cornpone Texas Governor Greg Abbott's initial yarn was that the gunman was "confronted" by an officer who "engaged him", that subsequently fell apart - as had three later versions - as smartphone videos surfaced. So went the Abbott trope of a "good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun". Since as Lawrence O'Donnell noted:
"This was badly needed because this was the Republican policy. First make sure America's mass murderers are the best-equipped mass murderers in the world. And second, when the bad guy with a gun shows up the good guy with a gun - who pulls out only a handgun - will immediately shoot and kill the mass murderer. Who, incidentally, is going to arrive with body armor on now."
Adding:
"The Republicans have extended their plan to include the idea that the two teachers who were shot and killed in their classrooms at that school both should have had guns. Instead of using their bodies to try to protect the children they should have been up and on their feet. Firing their handguns at the mass murderer with the AR-15. In other words doing what the police that showed up at the school could not do or were afraid to do."
But, of course, this isn't even the half of this sorry saga as we then learned yesterday ('Deadline White House') 19 officers were actually present on the scene outside and doing nothing for 47 minutes while those kids and teachers were trapped inside being shot to death. So the Reep cartoon plan actually insisted those two untrained Robb Elementary teachers do what 19 trained, tactically clad officers could not or would not do. Can we finally say balderdash? Or how about bollocks for a gullible, 2nd amendment- idolizing guntard audience?
The air was finally cleared of Abbott's malarkey when Victor Escalon, from the Texas Dept. of Public Safety admitted: "He was not confronted by anybody." Only finally conceding this after minutes and minutes of distracting blarney at his press conference. Leaving one resident - quoted in the FT piece - to say about the gathered but passive law enforcement: "I think they were embarrassed or scared." As if either of the teachers wouldn't also be scared, although again, they were the ones who displayed true courage even if for naught.
Concerning the inaction of the assembled cops, Lawrence had this to say: "Their training fell apart in the face of the reality. This is a problem for all human beings in that the first time they try to so something difficult, especially under pressure, they don't do it very well. None of those officers who arrived at the school knew what to do because they had never had to this before in their lives."
So remember that when a GOP imp like Ted Cruz insists teachers need to bring guns to their classrooms. Would Cruz stand and fire armed with only a handgun in the face of a murderous assault by a maniac with an AR? Hell no, this lily-livered asswipe would turn tail and run - like he did to Cancun last year when the Texas power grid crashed. Only returning when the optics grew too intolerable. As Lawrence put it:
"Teachers who've never fired a handgun in their lives, and have no training. Those are the people Cruz wants to send into battle against mass murderers - who Ted Cruz will make sure are always armed with assault weapons. And according to Cruz, the Founders wrote into the Constitution that potential mass murderers should always be able to buy these weapons."
But we know now, as O'Donnell put it, this insane, retarded GOP plan of armed school security or armed public school teachers can never, ever work. Never. As he expatiated:
"Dozens of officers - federal, state and local - were at the school in bullet-proof vests, with years of training and experience and there was nothing they could do or would do for one full hour. This is not because they are bad people but because they are human."
As for Victor Escalon, O'Donnell had this to say, on why he should be fired (but never will because Abbott needs a convenient puppet):
"He had the audacity to hold a press conference today to describe what happened at the school when he clearly did not know what happened. He told that story without reading a carefully composed written sequence of events as he should have. Instead he stood there and he improvised, going back and forth in time from faulty memory. And when he couldn't deliver an answer, said repeatedly 'we will circle back with you'. But he was finally forced to correct the lie his boss, Steven C. McCraw, said the day before".
That was when Escalon at last admitted that no one actually confronted the gunman in any capacity - until the very end when it was too late and the SWAT team arrived and entered. All this was amplified to good measure last night by Chris Hayes on All In, Janice and I noting we'd never seen Chris so angry before in a specific segment.
As Hayes spelled it out: "I'm just gonna read again what Abbott said: 'The law enforcement officials showed amazing courage by running toward the gunfire with a singular purpose of trying to save lives'. But here's the thing: That is just not true but the opposite of truth. The story that heroic law enforcement officers - the proverbial good guys with guns - showed up and prevented a massacre from being worse. That is not at all how it looks after three days of altering facts, misdirection, false starts and shifting stories. After all that we have arrived at the horrible, almost unspeakable truth of what actually happened in that classroom in Uvalde Texas. ...
That the police, the good guys with the guns, utterly failed to protect those kids. That they set up a cordon outside the school and yelled at and threatened parents from rushing in to protect kids. It is an outstanding demonstration of the bankruptcy of the arms race theory of prevention, something that Wayne LaPierre just pulled out of the ether to have something to say."
Confirmed when one listened to Col. Steve C. McCraw - the Texas Director of Public Safety- finally coming clean and admitting yesterday to the total failure of the police to stop the massacre. Incredible, given the officers' decision to hold back defied what they were trained to do, as well as what standard protocol has demanded since Columbine in 1999. As a law enforcement specialist (Scott Reitz) noted on NBC News last night, "This was totally contrary to accepted procedure, which is not to wait but to confront the shooter."
Might the cops have been scared? Uh yeah. But, in Reitz' own words:
"You have to go in. Are you scared? Yes, but you do what you were trained to do. And if you take your oath seriously then you hazard yourself. ."
But they did not 'hazard' themselves, they chose to hazard the kids' lives instead, even when they were begging for help in their 911 calls from the classrooms. They chose not to take the risk because they didn't want to be in the withering crossfire of an AR-15. Yet they are content to let the ass-backward Baboons of the GOP pass laws enabling and allowing assault rifles like the AR-15, good for only one thing: mass killing.
Former FBI agent Frank Figliuzzi - on being shown the actual timeline and series of events by Nicole Wallace yesterday ('Deadline White House') - was asked if he could "make sense" of any of it, and said he could not. Well, I can! First, the Border Patrol agents were told by the local cops not to enter, they had to await the arrival of the SWAT team. I.e. 'We let the big boys go in there, since they're getting the big bucks'.
Second, they also had to await the Robb principal to arrive with the master keys - which had Figliuzzi rolling his eyes. "Why wasn't the on- site person or janitor at the school equipped with the master keys?" Well, at least it offered yet another excuse not to put themselves in harm's way. Can get in the line of sight of a mad punk's AR-15 after all.
Figliuzzi himself noted in a barricade situation one never depends on "master keys" to breach a barricade and there are methods for doing so. But all this time was being wasted while kids were being shot. The main reason for the goof up? The cops believed it was a barricade situation and not an active shooter one. But this was false. Even at 12: 15 p.m. secret 911 calls were being made by at least 8-9 captive kids in the classrooms and they could plausibly have been saved if the onsite 19- odd lawmen had acted.
But they did not. And yet the Gun Nut GOOPs and their daft NRA supporters expect us to seriously believe that one or two armed teachers - with just handguns - could have done what 19 law officers with as many guns and tactical gear could not or would not.
The WSJ editors today ('When Police Make A Wrong Decision', p A12) note the "irony" of how cops nationwide "have been vilified for excessive use of force". But let's be clear that shooting a running, unarmed black man in the back in N. Carolina is NOT the same as an unwillingness to stop a madman blowing away 4th graders with an AR-15. The WSJ editors also write:
"No doubt police everywhere are asking themselves how they would behave under such circumstances. But the terror in Uvalde is a reminder that, especially in these days of violence, we need the bravest to take those risks. And we need to give them the training, and the public support, to do."
But let's also be very clear: If we are serious at all, we also need to remove lethal assault weapons from availability on the open market - weapons like the AR-15 which fire bullets with a velocity 3 times the speed of sound, and discourage most police forces from acting against an active shooter clad in body armor as well. To do all the rest noted by the WSJ editorial, and omit the ban on mass murder weapons, is a total waste of time
Einstein once averred that insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I will expand that definition further and say it is also: "believing the same thing repeatedly when reality repeatedly controverts the myth."
In this case the myth being: "A good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun." Anyone who believes this codswallop is not only certifiably insane but a certified moron as well.
See Also:
by Lucian K. Truscott IV | May 29, 2022 - 6:55am | permalink
And:
by David Badash | May 27, 2022 - 7:52am | permalink
— from The New Civil Rights Movement
Excerpt:
Barely days after 19 elementary school children and two teachers were shot to death by an 18-year old with two AR-15 style assault rifles, questions are swirling about the actions of local law enforcement, supported by video and photos apparently taken by those who were outside Robb Elementary School during the massacre. NCRM has not confirmed the authenticity of the photos or videos posted to social media.
“Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team,” the Associated Press reports.
“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the close-knit town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.
And:
by Meaghan Ellis | May 29, 2022 - 6:45am | permalink
Excerpt:
New York Times National Correspondent Mike Baker has shared a number of disturbing excerpts from Uvalde shooter, Salvador Ramos' training materials that appear to contradict the reports detailing the days leading up to the mass shooting and the aftermath that followed.
And:
by Amanda Marcotte | May 27, 2022 - 7:31am | permalink
Excerpt:
After the shooting in Uvalde, TX on Tuesday, the Republican response has been so glib and cold-hearted that one has to wonder if they want people to hate them.
Despite perfunctory rhetoric denouncing the shooting, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas's overall message could be summed up as the shrug emoji. "More people shot every weekend in Chicago than there are in schools in Texas," he argued. He added some boilerplate Republican language about "mental health," even though everyone knows he is actively fighting to take away mental health care. Sen. Ted Cruz was equally facile, sneering that it was "crass" of Democrats to be angry and victim-blaming the school for having more than one door (yes, he said this). He also insisted that "armed law enforcement on the campus" is the answer, even though there were already multiple armed police officers on the scene who stayed outside the school while parents begged them to charge in and rescue the kids.
Tucker Carlson of Fox News, of course, only speaks in Smarmy Jerk so he really leaned into the "there's nothing to be done" message Wednesday night. "A person who is intent on committing violence is very hard to stop," he claimed, adding that neither "act of Congress" nor "gun control" will do a thing to stop it. In reality, of course, international data shows the opposite, gun control is very effective at stopping gun violence.
by Meaghan Ellis | May 28, 2022 - 7:18am | permalink
Excerpt:
While most of the world is well aware of the fact that the United States' lenient gun control laws have contributed to the number of disturbing mass shootings, Republican leaders and lawmakers are attempting to make excuses to divert attention from the firearm discussions.
As the days progress, the excuses are becoming more outlandish. According to HuffPost, Republicans have blamed everything from liberal teachers to ADHD medications for shootings that have taken place across the country. Then, there are bizarre remarks from far-right conservatives like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). While Greene believes there's not enough "God" in schools, Paxton and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) believe there aren't enough guns in school.
And:
by Steven Singer | May 28, 2022 - 6:47am | permalink
And:
by Chuck Idelson | May 28, 2022 - 6:44am | permalink
Excerpt:
If there’s one lesson we should draw from the horror at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tx, it's that we cannot rely just on school guards, calling 911, or tepid “solutions” by extremist politicians to safeguard our school children. Or to protect people in supermarkets, houses of worship, or any other public settings targeted for mass carnage.
In disastrous press conferences, Texas public safety officials struggled to explain the long law enforcement delay in responding, up to an hour while large numbers of officers were on scene before stopping the bloodletting. "They did contain him in the classroom," intoned Steve McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety. "Contained" in that classroom, the shooter had all the time he needed to murder 19 children and two teachers.
There apparently was no armed guard on the premises when the gunman walked through the door. Would it have mattered? It didn't at the Tops Market May 14 in Buffalo when an overmatched armed security guard was killed by more heavily armed mass killer, in this case a white supremacist who drove 200 miles to terrorize a Black neighborhood.
And:
by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan | May 28, 2022 - 6:03am | permalink
And:
by Meaghan Ellis | May 27, 2022 - 8:05am | permalink
Excerpt:
Fox News' Tucker Carlson has a new, disturbing conspiracy theory he's circulating in an attempt to explain the so-called real reason for the mass shooting that took place in Uvalde, Texas.
On Wednesday, May 25, the conservative news host attempted to create some form of connection between the Texas school massacre, the Buffalo, N.Y. supermarket shooting, and the measures that were previously in place to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
“Oh, so the lockdowns dramatically increase the incidence of mental illness among young people and in 10 days, we’ve seen two mass shootings by mentally ill young people. Could there be a connection?” he asked. “Now, that’s not finger-pointing. It’s not to blame [Dr. Anthony] Fauci for yesterday’s shooting. We’re not that low. We’re not Joe Biden. But if people are becoming mentally ill because they’re disconnected from others, what can we do to connect them to others and thereby reduce the incidence of mental illness? That’s a real conversation.”
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