Editor;
I write fully aware the recent horror in a small Texas town is outside your coverage area but I will broaden my comments to hopefully make them relevant.
Comments focusing on how the police response failed in Uvalde are off the mark IMHO because they distract from the real issues behind mass shootings: our access to military grade weapons, our degraded national mental health, and the lack of health care and other social safety nets in our country today. This “police failed” thinking leads to the assumption that if only the police had responded “correctly” that the methodical assassination of innocent children would not have happened. Most of us realize that’s not the case.
Could police have reduced the number of children murdered had they responded differently? Possibly. There seems to have been critical breakdowns in communication and training we have yet to fully understand. Once complete, I believe, we’re likely to have even more victims as players found culpable will be forced to live with that guilt for the rest of their life. The result? A socially inept loser with the firepower of a Marine rifle squad will claim EVEN MORE VICTIMS.
We are left to dissect an event that has already swept over us. Leadership in the affected state cut their mental health spending and boosted their citizen’s ability to procure weapons in the months before the murders. We need to focus on keeping weapons similar to those issued to our military out of the hands of the homicidal, providing needed support and help to people feeling this type of anger and frustration long before they buy a gun or start planning a mass shooting.
Is it important for the police force and local/state agencies to review their response and improve their training? Of course. But I believe it’s equally important not to confuse that process with identifying ways to reduce and prevent mass shootings in the future.
Sincerely,
Aidan Murray/Pleasanton
I pretty much agree with you. I think there was a critical breakdown in police communications that day with the Border Patrol team essentially disobeying standing orders to seal off the area and going inside to confront. It has been interesting to see how Texas is dealing with the aftermath.
How is an AR-15 different from a grenade in this context? You don’t need either one for hunting or fishing. They spray large quantities of bullets or shrapnel. They are weapons of war, for killing people, lots of people, quickly.
“But it’s only semi-automatic!” C’mon. Parents are being asked to submit DNA samples to help identify their own children positively. Who wants that? Who needs that?
I think we’re looking at a breakdown in police communications — something that can happen in a tactical situation. The breakdown results in orders being issued and obeyed even though they may be wrong. I think we’re also going to find that some police, specifically the Border Patrol special weapons team, acted bravely when they disobeyed their orders and stormed that classroom. I think it will be small consolation because every officer there knows they were too late. As for Texas politics and politicians – no comment. The people get the leadership they want, good or bad.
The other 2 comments here focus on the tactical situation. Go in or wait. A valid discussion, but a diversion from the main problem. How do teenage males acquire weapons of war when their teenage minds are aggrieved, time after time, in these situations? Why are we so bleeping exceptional in the modern world in making these weapons of war readily available? This is not a mystery. It is more than a little crazy.
I agree – it is more than a little crazy, which is fitting because this country has gone crazy. Despite all the promises — don’t expect anything to change.