Texas Elementary School Shooting, as many as 22 dead, including Children

[Endus]

And I suggest you hurry, because it's a matter of minutes before @Endus reminds you that heavily-armed infallible police are part of the authoritarian regime, and you know what, he's right.

Well, there goes all the wind out of my sails.


Oh wait, here's another breeze!

So again, I'm glad you're upset with the police, and even if I wasn't glad you're still entitled to your opinion. But you read the news, you read these forums too. Your opinion is not shared by most Republicans, most conservatives, and most Party of Trumpers.

The important question here would be "is @tehdang gonna start voting Democrat, or is he gonna continue supporting the regime he's now claiming he doesn't support out of blind partisanship?"

Getting strong "I'm not a Republican, I'm an Independent, even though I've never voted for anyone but a Republican and wouldn't ever consider actually voting for anyone else under any circumstances ever" energies here.

To be clear; I welcome meaningful changes of heart. I've just learned to require action to demonstrate that the change of heart is anything but an empty deflection of culpability.

[Ivanstone]

The important question here would be "is @tehdang gonna start voting Democrat, or is he gonna continue supporting the regime he's now claiming he doesn't support out of blind partisanship?"

Getting strong "I'm not a Republican, I'm an Independent, even though I've never voted for anyone but a Republican and wouldn't ever consider actually voting for anyone else under any circumstances ever" energies here.

Should remind everyone that he lists himself as a Southern California resident. He could vote Republican and not have to live with the fallout of his choices. Cali isn't perfect but its certainly better than most GOP led shithole states.

[Breccia]

To be clear; I welcome meaningful changes of heart. I've just learned to require action to demonstrate that the change of heart is anything but an empty deflection of culpability.

Valid.

I think we're all watching Uvadle and Texas to see what changes they make when their police -- regardless of the reason why -- did not confront the third worst mass shooter in Texas in the last five years (First Baptist and Wal-Mart were higher). Bear in mind, Texas and mass shootings literally invented SWAT teams. Yeah, that trope about a sniper in a bell tower? That was Texas, and he shot 16 or so people with a gun he said he was going to use to shoot wild hogs.

(glares)

That was 1966. Those other two mass shootings, police were generally not criticized -- everyone was dead in moments. Here, the police were already present, and again regardless of the reason why did not confront the shooter. Texas has a long history of mass shootings, everything's bigger in Texas including body counts. and these police knew that when they signed up. There needs to be consequences. Bare minimum, a Texas investigation with publicly-announced Texas results and Texas changes. We'll judge from those results, or lack thereof.

SoCal already has strong gun laws, and what a shocking coindicence, fewer mass shootings.

[Edge-]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pete-ar...lice-response/

The Texas school police chief criticized for his actions during one of the deadliest classroom shootings in U.S. history said in his first extensive comments since the massacre, published Thursday, that he didn't consider himself the person in charge as it unfolded and assumed someone else had taken control of the law enforcement response.

Uh...I don't think this is the strong defense he thinks it is...

Arredondo told the Tribune that from the hallway of the school, he used his cell phone to call for tactical gear, a sniper and keys to get inside the classroom. He said he held back from the door for 40 minutes to avoid provoking gunfire and tried dozens of keys brought to him but that, one-by-one, they failed to work.

Uh...weren't there earlier reports that nobody at the scene was even sure if he was on the scene? And now he was...inside the building?

But Arredondo defended his actions and those of other law enforcement, remarking to the Tribune that, "Not a single responding officer ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put themselves at risk to save the children," Arredondo said. "We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced. Our objective was to save as many lives as we could, and the extraction of the students from the classrooms by all that were involved saved over 500 of our Uvalde students and teachers before we gained access to the shooter and eliminated the threat."

I...guess he's taking credit for all the students that didn't get murdered because they weren't in the locked classroom with the shooter? That's uh...well...erm...fuckin gross and awful and the worst kind of copaganda still.

But Arredondo, who told the Tribune he believed carrying radios would slow him down as he entered the school and that he knew that radios didn't work in some school buildings, said he never considered himself the scene's incident commander and didn't give any instruction that police shouldn't attempt to breach the building.

UH...isn't radios not working inside the school building like...kinda a serious issue you'd think the school police department would want to resolve?

And again, HOW DID HE NOT KNOW HE WAS IN CHARGE

According to documents obtained by the Times, a man investigators believe to be Arredondo could be heard on body camera footage talking about how much time was passing.

"People are going to ask why we're taking so long," said the man, according to a transcript of officers' body camera footage obtained by the newspaper. "We're trying to preserve the rest of the life."

Well, if this was him it sure seems like he was aware of his responsibility and the poor optics of his and the rest of law enforcements inaction.

I mean, there's no reason to believe this dude to begin with, I don't even know if he's responded to DPS for the follow-up interview he was ghosting them on.

Probably had to spend more time trying to come up with the least-bad batch of lies he could. But I guess he thinks these are...good lies?

[Mihalik]

The important question here would be "is @tehdang gonna start voting Democrat, or is he gonna continue supporting the regime he's now claiming he doesn't support out of blind partisanship?"

He doesn't even need to vote Dem. He could just say, from now on I'm only voting for "small government" republicans who want to return to a police force that remembers they work for us and which we can hold accountable. It's not even hard to fit this into the Republican's alleged ideological framework.

[Gabriel]

Hot take: you don't need to be mentally ill to kill another human being, so stop trying to use mental health problems as an excuse.

[uuuhname]

You really take an issue with bipartisan condemnation of cop behavior, and your tribalism demands to push people out? (I want the officers canned, as well as their civilian oversight voted out if they refuse to do it). I make this Exhibit A on why progressives fail to achieve much of their agenda. They can't stand the impure agreeing with them.

just because you seem to think you speak for every conservative, or sorry, "the silent majority" on these forums doesn't mean that in any way shape or form true. and of course you cannot even put up that charade longer than one post before falling back into your bleating over what a victim you are of tribalism. when someone dares to accurately point out how you do not speak for most republicans on this issue.

you would think focusing on the actual issue would be more important but nah, of course it isn't really. this you trying and failing to virtue signal.

[Breccia]

Hot take: you don't need to be mentally ill to kill another human being, so stop trying to use mental health problems as an excuse.

We're seeing it as a common deflection tool. Incidentally, even if it was true, it wouldn't really change anything. There's minimal, if any, difference between "person who is sane gets weapon of war and murders 21 people" and "person who is insane but nobody knows he's insande gets weapon of war and murders 21 people" in that the person still got a weapon of war and 21 people are now dead. The difference, is the solution to one of them is to restrict access to weapons of war, and the solution to the other is -- not that it's being discussed, "mental health" is just a way to handwave -- is health care expanded to the point random citizens are subject to psychoanalysis every few days.

Like I said, mental health is a convenient excuse, and the people who bring it up rarely, if ever, go to the next logical step. Here's Gov. Abbott on the subject:

Abbott calls Texas school shooting a mental health issue but cut state spending for it

If you search for "gov abbott mental health" that's literally the first article you find.

Anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental health challenge

We've heard that before, recently. Again, even if it is true, it's useless unless it's diagnosed and acted upon. Which Texas, and quite frankly not even EU countries, do. Even socialized medicine does not involve door-to-door screenings to see who's recently decided to kill some children.

We as a state - we as a society - need to do a better job with mental health. We as a government need to find a way to target that mental health challenge and do something about it.

That's...pretty much all Abbott said in that article. No solution, no investigation, no task force.

“There is no evidence the shooter is mentally ill, just angry and hateful,” said Lori Post, director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics at the Northwestern University School of Medicine. “While it is understandable that most people cannot fathom slaughtering small children and want to attribute it to mental health, it is very rare for a mass shooter to have a diagnosed mental health condition.”

David Riedman, founder of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security’s K-12 School Shooting Database, said, "Overall, mass shooters are rational. They have a plan. It’s something that develops over months or years, and there’s a clear pathway to violence.”

The much bigger problem, they said, is Texas and many other states are awash in weapons.

“Texas has more guns per capita than any other state,” Post said. “After the tragic 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, the governor signed several bills to curb mass shootings; unfortunately, most of those bills involved arming the public to stop mass shooters."

I'm quoting that part for my homies here who have been saying "rational people can and do commit mass murder". My opinions might differ, but these are experts who don't differ.

But that article is from May 25. He had nothing then, but he was put on the spot by people looking for action and answers. And he needed to change the narrative from "average American has weapon of war he shouldn't have" in a hurry. Surely Gov. Abbott has said something more recently, now that the adrenaline is worn off and he's had a few weeks to think?

Texas governor moves to ensure access to mental health services for Uvalde children after school shooting

From yesterday. Let's take a look.

In a letter sent on Wednesday, Abbott requested that Texas HHSC executive director Cecile Young use all available resources to ensure mental health support services are available to Uvalde children.

Abbott also asked Young to work with the state’s Education Agency (TEA) and the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium in this effort.

“As these families begin to rebuild their lives, it is essential that the children of Uvalde have access to mental health treatment,” reads the letter. “The Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) has jurisdiction over behavioral health services on behalf of the State.”

“Given this substantial capacity, I am asking that you use all available resources to work with families to provide behavioral health services to every child in Uvalde who desires support,” Abbott continued. “Although we cannot erase what happened in Uvalde, we can ensure, through the coordinated efforts of HHSC, TEA, and other organizations, that every child in that community gets the support they need.”

Well, turns out that was irrelevant to the context. Oh, don't get me wrong, those kids are fucking scarred for life, Abbott's doing the right thing in ensuring they get the care they deserve. But it doesn't answer the current question. Let's keep looking.

Here's something from June 1.

Gov. Abbott Calls for Special Committees to Examine School Safety, Mental Health After Massacre

Amid repeated calls for a special session of the legislature in the wake of the massacre in Uvalde last week that killed 19 children and two teachers, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is asking Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Speaker Dade Phelan to convene special legislative committees to focus and review five issues.

Abbott sent a letter to Patrick and Phelan Wednesday requesting the new committees examine and develop legislative recommendations on school safety, mental health, social media, police training and firearm safety. Gun control was not included on the list of topics for the committees.

Okay...not looking good for Abbott. Two of those issues, school safety and police training, were already supposed to have been done. That one Texas govt agency I keep going on about, the one that objectively failed. "Firearm safety" is useless in this context, at least. Since he's not talking about gun control, anything he might say about trigger locks or gun safes means nothing when someone intentionally buys a weapon of war to murder people with. And color me surprised if he actually stored it unloaded, by the way.

Social media, Texas is already fighting a war on social media for upholding the terms of service. I haven't got the foggiest what he plans to accomplish here. Now the shooter did instant message someone in Germany (I think) telling that person "in 30 minutes I'm going to murder some schoolchildren" but I can't imagine what kind of law Abbott could possibly propose, sign, and defend in court, that would allow law enforcement in Texas to listen in on everyone's conversations for that kind of discourse. Or, to require social media to do it themselves. And wasn't the person he was talking to trying to contact local law enforcement? Would it have mattered if they did? The Uvadle response to "someone has a weapon of war and is about to kill people with it" is the length of an episode of Firefly. It took the Border Patrol and hour because they weren't there. And past all that, the easy solution is "I won't tell people on social media I'm about to murder some people".

But mental health is one of five issues on the agenda.

"As Texans mourn the tragedy that occurred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde last week, we as a state must reassess the twin issues of school safety and mass violence," Abbott said in the letter. "As leaders, we must come together at this time to provide solutions to protect all Texans."

Under Abbott's direction, the committees will "review what steps previous legislatures have enacted, what resources the state has made available to local school districts, and make recommendations to the legislature and the executive branch" in the five topic areas.

This, incidentally, brings up the most important issue that I've intentionally withheld to make the dramatic reveal: would it matter if the Texas had the best mental health available to literally every student? The shooter was an 18 year old HS dropout. None of it would have applied. Yes, therapy for the survivors and the grieving victims, yes, but I think people are looking for something other than "we'll get better mops to clean up the blood and 142 shell casings, sorry, 169 shell casings, I forgot the shooter was shot 27 times by the Border Patrol who had to drive a fucking hour to deal with this".

I'll keep an eye on what this committee comes up with, but I believe I've made my point. The GOP has spent years on, and Gov. Abbott at ground zero of this one is following this practice, cutting mental health care and blaming mental health issues for gun violence, including mass shootings. I, and many Democrats, have already voiced solutions for how we view the problem, and almost all of them involve fewer average Americans having weapons of war and/or long-barreled semi-automatic firearms based on a weapon of war. When the GOP is ready to announce a mental health solution that will bring down gun violence, I am all ears.

...they will have to up mental health care funding to do that, and so far, that's not their status quo.

[tehdang]

Tone down the pearl clutching for a second.

I'm asking you honestly, no hostility, just be honest here for a second.

Do you recognize that conservative voters have for forever been putting in power Republican legislatures, governors, city administrators, DAs, judges who ended up creating a massive web of laws, ordinances, regulations, judicial precedents that systematically eliminated almost all police accountability to the point where getting a cop fired for committing a felony on camera is an uphill battle? Let alone expecting any criminal and civil liability.

This as been discussed and explained repeatedly. The Uvalde cops, all of them, are legally fully protected from any liability civil or criminal.

Like, look...this is mostly unrelated to this specific incident, but just now the conservative SCOTUS effectively gave full exemption to federal agents from the 4th amendment. Like the 4th amendment no longer protects US citizens from search and seizure as long as the search and seizure is being done by a federal agent. It's insane.

https://www.vox.com/23159672/supreme...atrol-immunity

And this happened because conservative voters afraid of immigrants and of abortions voted for politicians who created a supreme court that is on a mission to completely dismantle 70 worth years of civil rights protections.

Honestly, tell me with a straight face that conservative voters are not responsible for this complete and total lack of accountability?

The issue people have with the conservative pearl clutching now is that - You guys made this system. You created this.

You could always go - Fuck! We were wrong. Let's get some accountability rolling. But what we get instead is more money thrown at the failed system, then when the next black person gets shot in his own bed by the cops or choked to death in street you guys pass another set of rules and laws and whatnot that further reduces accountability.

Conservatives don't grasp the fact the accountability that protects the people they don't like also protects them when the cops finally fail or target them.

I stand by my opinions on what’s right for the country, even despite your smears of conservatives in the most generalized context possible. “No hostility … conservative voters afraid of immigrants and of abortions” … seriously? You have a very strange approach to showing hostility and pretending otherwise.

Look, I'm glad you're upset about this...but you've posted on these forums often enough to know @Verdugo has a point. Think back over the issues from defund the police to George Floyd, and ask "has any of this been bipartisan?"

And while you're doing that, think back on this specific case. Other than that time Abbott got angry because the police lied to him and made him look the fool -- and one could easily defend that's not a police/shooting issue, that's a PR issue -- name one Texas Republican who has come down on the police for this.

Days after the shooting, Trump went to the NRA. Find one thing he said about the police that was negative. This link might help. And I suggest you hurry, because it's a matter of minutes before @Endus reminds you that heavily-armed infallible police are part of the authoritarian regime, and you know what, he's right.

So again, I'm glad you're upset with the police, and even if I wasn't glad you're still entitled to your opinion. But you read the news, you read these forums too. Your opinion is not shared by most Republicans, most conservatives, and most Party of Trumpers.

You should be old enough to know the actions of the cops have been widely condemned on both sides of the aisle. Trying to make individual posters out to be a scapegoat in league with defending the Uvalde cops is tantamount to admitting you value assigning policial blame and retribution above fixing school safety before the next time. It’s a real fun, edgy position to take, but I doubt it really satisfies a long-term sticking-it-to-the-cons agenda.

[Breccia]

You should be old enough to know the actions of the cops have been widely condemned on both sides of the aisle.

I've been following this thread. No, they haven't.

[Glorious Leader]

You really take an issue with bipartisan condemnation of cop behavior, and your tribalism demands to push people out? (I want the officers canned, as well as their civilian oversight voted out if they refuse to do it). I make this Exhibit A on why progressives fail to achieve much of their agenda. They can't stand the impure agreeing with them.

Right because you're all about that ACAB. Condemning one group of what were apparently cowards is VERY easy for you to do as it's amounts to essentially nothing since you will only vote for candidates who will only support law enforcement at literally every turn regardless of how badly they screw up.

Nobody is objecting to you being on board with calling out the cops. Whats being objected too is how much of an empty statement that is on your part.

[Endus]

I make this Exhibit A on why progressives fail to achieve much of their agenda. They can't stand the impure agreeing with them.

I want to underscore precisely how dishonest this position is, and I'll pre-emptively note I'm going to use a hyperbolic example to make some points on the principles in play, and the hyperbole is meant to be about a hypothetical person, not you yourself.

The problem with your approach, here, is not that you're supporting penalties for Uvalde police who let these children die. It's that you're seeking to be seen as a fellow of others who also want that. You want to be seen as part of a Venn bubble with them, labelled "bipartisan". You want to be part of that "tribe" for whatever reason, in your own words. It isn't about the issue, it's about how you are seen.

To draw the hypothetical, imagine you were at a 2nd Amendment rally. I'm not attacking you or the position, here, just using a cause I imagine you might support; we're not gonna be discussing the position, here. Now, imagine you look to the side, and a dozen of the people chanting beside you are Nazis. I mean, SS-uniform-wearing, swastika-armband-displaying, "Kill The Jews"-sign-waving Nazis. And they're supporting the 2nd Amendment too, because, in their own words, they want to shoot a lot of socialists and Jews and non-whites and so on. Can't genocide if you can't kill people, and guns are super good for that!

Are you going to accept them as your brothers-in-arms on the issue, and march beside them without complaint? They want the same things you do! That would make you a Nazi sympathizer. You're part of the Venn bubble now that's titled "pro-Nazi", as is the entire pro-2nd-Amendment movement, if they all support their inclusion as you would have. It's irrevocably changed the meaning of what that group is. You're now seen walking arm-in-arm with Nazis, and that's now what you stand for. That's what the entire movement now means.

And to bring it back; that's why people don't give a shit about people like you trying to be "bipartisan". They want nothing to do with you. They don't want your allyship. You've tainted yourself beyond redemption in so many other ways and they do not want to be seen on "your side", no matter how badly you want to be seen on theirs, for whatever reason.

It doesn't mean they want you to support the cops in this. They just want you to leave them alone and stop claiming some bullshit kinship with them that you have in no way earned and have, in so many other ways over the years, roundly rejected. They don't want "bipartisan" anything. If you want to have your own conservative movement that pushes for the same things, by all means. Go nuts. Nobody'll have a problem with that. But stop trying to be seen like you're on their side, when you so clearly aren't.

Because this call for "bipartisanship" is all about how you're seen to be, it has nothing to do with the value of the policy being pushed.

[Ihavewaffles]

bill maher, baby-boomer take

[Jotaux]

I don't know why its so hard for the US identify why they have such a huge issue with shootings. Somehow I don't think its movies because the rest of the world watches violent movies and they manage to have less shootings per capita. How hard is it to take a look at the world and figure out what is different between the world and the US.

[Captain N]

I don't know why its so hard for the US identify why they have such a huge issue with shootings. Somehow I don't think its movies because the rest of the world watches violent movies and they manage to have less shootings per capita. How hard is it to take a look at the world and figure out what is different between the world and the US.

Because Americans believe they exist in a vacuum. That they're the best country on the planet and that the world strives to be like them. It's the same nonsense you get when discussing Universal Healthcare or Labor Protections. Americans want to believe they're the best -- even if the rest of the world can prove otherwise.

[Poopymonster]

I don't know why its so hard for the US identify why they have such a huge issue with shootings. Somehow I don't think its movies because the rest of the world watches violent movies and they manage to have less shootings per capita. How hard is it to take a look at the world and figure out what is different between the world and the US.

They have identified it. It's they don't want to do anything meaningful about it that is the real issue. They'd lose their jobs in congress if they said the truth. "If we removed as many guns as possible there'd be less mass shootings." So, rather than risk their comfy jobs, they'll offer thoughts and prayers as the body count rises.
It's not outside the realm of possibility that some of them want these mass shootings to occur. Wiki says 3+ victims to be a mass shooting. At a ratio of 3 or more to 1, that'll weed out the Democrats before they run out of Republicans.
"Mental illness" cut mental health funding.
"Video games" that the rest of the world plays with far less mass shootings.
"Music" that the whole world listens to with far less mass shootings.

Plus you throw in some American Exceptionalism, the Religious Right, and the thought that the Founding Terrorists could do no wrong, and you've got a cult based on live babies that become dead children.

[Endus]

bill maher, baby-boomer take

Bill Maher again proving he's still just a Republican who likes weed.

Maher's a fucking bigot and a moron, and he's not even a good comedian, which is why he's been hosting this kind of show for so long. Nobody should take any of his hot takes seriously, on any subject, ever. I used to watch his show for the panel debates, because you'd actually get multiple sides going at it openly and getting called out when they were being shits about something, but then he started platforming truly awful shitheads like Yiannopoulos and treating them with absolute kid gloves rather than his usual venom, for whatever goddamned reason.

Here's your hot tip; way more films and TV are made in Canada than you might think, and Canada largely enjoys exactly the same media content as Americans, the same violent Hollywood films Maher's ranting about. And still, vastly lower gun violence.

It's almost like that's not the cause and you'd have to be a giant fucking moron pushing a bullshit child-murdering agenda to claim otherwise.

[tehdang]

I've been following this thread. No, they haven't.

Then your problem is using this thread to try to gauge opinions on both sides of the political aisle. You can certainly find some approximation of one side of the aisle here. But like if four people aren't online posting, or are banned, then you're out of luck (and I'm not being paid to serve as an on-demand conservative for the entire forum). Your better choices are WSJ op-ed pages, National Review, The Federalist, Washington Examiner, Free Beacon. They condemned the cop behavior and called for firings for cause.

So, relying on this forum to relay to you conservative opinions is an extremely poor choice. You may, however, rely on this forum to bring up any nutcase Republican from any seat in the entire nation running for office that said something incredibly stupid. Nut-picking is a primary motivation in these parts.

Right because you're all about that ACAB. Condemning one group of what were apparently cowards is VERY easy for you to do as it's amounts to essentially nothing since you will only vote for candidates who will only support law enforcement at literally every turn regardless of how badly they screw up.

Apparently, in your mind condemning a group of cops is identical to voting to support the same group of cops. However you got so twisted in connecting any support of any law enforcement anywhere to specific support of UCISD cops, I will never know.

Nobody is objecting to you being on board with calling out the cops.

Uhh saying its voters like me that will keep the cops from getting punished goes quite a bit further. Maybe more people need to level the same accusations at you and see if you similarly think it's directed at empty statements.

[uuuhname]

you know, if you really cared about moving forward on this issue, part of it is at the very least acknowledging your sides failings in the matter. but of course to conservatives personal responsibility is always someone else's problem, not your own. and more to the point once again instead of any attempt to actual do what you claim to want to do, all you're doing is bitching about people pointing out material reality to you. yeah NO FUCKING SHIT conservative voters have made the current climate we are dealing with, sorry if pointing that out triggers you so hard.

it's almost as if this is just another exercise in gaslighting the rest of us.

[Endus]

Then your problem is using this thread to try to gauge opinions on both sides of the political aisle. You can certainly find some approximation of one side of the aisle here. But like if four people aren't online posting, or are banned, then you're out of luck (and I'm not being paid to serve as an on-demand conservative for the entire forum). Your better choices are WSJ op-ed pages, National Review, The Federalist, Washington Examiner, Free Beacon. They condemned the cop behavior and called for firings for cause.

So, relying on this forum to relay to you conservative opinions is an extremely poor choice. You may, however, rely on this forum to bring up any nutcase Republican from any seat in the entire nation running for office that said something incredibly stupid. Nut-picking is a primary motivation in these parts.

A lot of us have and do read exactly that content, and are well-acquainted with the fact that it's the same garbage reasoning at play, just with a graduate-level vocabulary applied to the bullshitting.

It doesn't matter how many complex economic terms you throw into the mix, if you're pushing trickle-down economics, even if you never use the term (any variation on pushing the wealthy/corporations as "job creators", or that subsidies to the same "boost the economy", or any such bit of nonsense), then you're a buffoon who should be mocked by anyone who knows anything, not so much for parroting the lie, but for thinking anyone reasonable would believe it, that it's in any way a defensible argument. Same goes across the board.

We decry conservatives' takes on things because those takes lack internal and objective merit. Not because of a couple silly bees posting on an Internet forum site.