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

[Slant]

Any cop, and firefighter or anyone else that says they aren't scared going into a dangerous situation, they are insane. However, being afraid isn't an excuse to not do what is needed. Those cops that were afraid to get shot sealed the fates of those children and teachers. Those children and teachers had a greater then 0% chance at survival up until the point the cops stood outside and refused to let others go in. After that point, those children and teachers had a 100% chance at death. It went from being "Maybe those kids and teachers will live or maybe they will die" to just death.

This is why I state those officers(all the way from the people on the ground to the COs that told them not to go in) should be accessories to each of the deaths of those that died.

Ultimately, you cannot criminally charge someone for being afraid for their lives. You can have disciplinary action going in, but criminal charges? No, human rights stand against that. Nobody on this planet is a criminal because they refuse to potentially sacrifice themselves. What you need to do is prove that they had no fear for their lives and thus are guilty of criminal negligience. You'd have to prove that. Given that the death toll is so high, chances are you'll have the mother of all hard cases to make that proof.

Apart from that, accessory means they have shared the murderer's intention (or at least willingly accept it) to cause death. Which - without even talking to them - is very, very, very unlikely.

I get that you're outraged, but going the other extreme of insanity is not the right play.

[gondrin]

Ultimately, you cannot criminally charge someone for being afraid for their lives. You can have disciplinary action going in, but criminal charges? No, human rights stand against that. Nobody on this planet is a criminal because they refuse to potentially sacrifice themselves. What you need to do is prove that they had no fear for their lives and thus are guilty of criminal negligience. You'd have to prove that. Given that the death toll is so high, chances are you'll have the mother of all hard cases to make that proof.

Apart from that, accessory means they have shared the murderer's intention (or at least willingly accept it) to cause death. Which - without even talking to them - is very, very, very unlikely.

I get that you're outraged, but going the other extreme of insanity is not the right play.

Actually, you can be criminally charged for being afraid for your life. A soldier during wartime, if they refuse to go out on patrol or in general refuse an order because they are afraid to be shot will be criminally charged for neglection of duty. If it results in a death of a fellow soldier, they can be put to death.

[PhaelixWW]

Actually, you can be criminally charged for being afraid for your life. A soldier during wartime, if they refuse to go out on patrol or in general refuse an order because they are afraid to be shot will be criminally charged for neglection of duty. If it results in a death of a fellow soldier, they can be put to death.

But that's a court-martial, not a civilian criminal trial. There's no equivalent for law enforcement.

[Endus]

Ultimately, you cannot criminally charge someone for being afraid for their lives. You can have disciplinary action going in, but criminal charges? No, human rights stand against that.

The criminal charges would, at a minimum, come if for the assaulting of parents trying to save their children, and their actions taken to prevent stopping the shooter, allowing the shooter as much time as he wished to finish his rampage, which has them acting as accessories to that crime, taking specific actions to allow the primary criminal the freedom to commit their crimes.

Nobody's going to charge an officer who panics and starts hyperventilating and can't make themselves go into that kind of situation. That's not what this situation was, and pretending otherwise is wildly unreasonable.

Apart from that, accessory means they have shared the murderer's intention (or at least willingly accept it) to cause death. Which - without even talking to them - is very, very, very unlikely.

Again, preventing people from stopping the shooter, and refusing to do so themselves even though their training and standards required them to, demonstrates exactly that. It's pretty analogous to serving as a lookout while others engage in robbery; you're not in there, doing the robbing, but you're making sure nobody stops the robbers.

Nor do accessory charges require that you participated in the planning of the crime. That's where accessory after the fact often comes in, where someone completely uninvolved with the crime a family member committed nevertheless helps them try and escape justice, for instance.

The officers here actively kept people from stopping the shooter as the shooter continued their shooting rampage, making no effort to stop him. They weren't passive bystanders who just couldn't bring themselves to do their duty, they were actively defending the shooter.

[postman1782]

What the actual fuck? It's like a bad joke: "How many cops does it take to get a kid out of a window?" There's literally 14 in that first picture...

These pictures raise so many questions for me.

(Not that there weren't still lots of unanswered questions already, of course.)

Yeah, I don't know, they had to wait for another group to come and save them apparently. Even though this past year, they got a grant to buy level 4 body armor, armor that stops rifle rounds. So, either they didn't buy the armor, and pocketed the money, or they did and are too chicken shit to do it. Even with their own "Uvalde SWAT team".

Even the right leaning Murdoch owned New York Post is asking if Uvalde's SWAT team responded to the shooting, since they have their own SWAT team for such a small jurisdiction. https://nypost.com/2022/05/28/unclea...hool-shooting/

Even some of the elected officials were dumbfounded to find out they have a SWAT team that didn't show up, and from what I understand, Border Patrol was the one that went in and confronted and killed the kid.

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To be absolutely fair, in a situation such as this forming an orderly and efficient plan on the fly can be pretty hard. Everyone is super stressed and panicked, kids are involved and running around, and I kinda doubt cops have extensive training for such crisis situations. I'm not overly surprised that they'd do stuff like this.

This is not an all-encompassing excuse however, clearly the entire thing was grossly mismanaged by the police. Even if stupid stuff like some guy being on Snapchat isn't true it remains shocking that so many law enforcement officers were on the scene yet did everything but stop the killer.

Worst part is, they'll likely use that to lobby for increased funding- "well things woulda gone better if we had more moneyz". Which instead of using for training they'll likely throw at more guns and military equipment that they're both untrained in and too chickenshit to actually use.

And just like when I showed Phaelix here, Uvalde has a SWAT team apparently, a SWAT team that never showed up, people that are trained in hostage situations and active shooters, they even show them training in some sort of building, could have been a school. https://nypost.com/2022/05/28/unclea...hool-shooting/

Even the elected officials of Uvalde are saying they had no idea they had a SWAT team, because there is no evidence they showed up at this particular event.

[NoiseTank13]

Sounds like some embezzling shenanigans going on.

[Captain N]

So the new talking point is to blame the teacher who left the door unlocked instead of the shooter. This is why we'll never get anywhere and shit like this will continue. It's everyone else's fault but the person with the gun who kills people.

[Edge-]

So the new talking point is to blame the teacher who left the door unlocked instead of the shooter. This is why we'll never get anywhere and shit like this will continue. It's everyone else's fault but the person with the gun who kills people.

Door control is the most important issue of our day. DOOR CONTROL.

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https://twitter.com/amanbatheja/stat...98024305770497

[Ihavewaffles]

If the gunman had no more ammo n the cops knew about it, they would have gone in n shoot him down with 800 bullets, prob take down some kids as well, then charge the town for 40 000 extra bullets.

[Breccia]

If the gunman had no more ammo n the cops knew about it, they would have gone in n shoot him down with 800 bullets

I'm not sure how serious this post was, but while I was reading articles I believe I saw the Border Patrol did shoot him 27 times. Meaning, even if you thought you were being sarcastic, you weren't.

[PhaelixWW]

I'm not sure how serious this post was, but while I was reading articles I believe I saw the Border Patrol did shoot him 27 times. Meaning, even if you thought you were being sarcastic, you weren't.

Is that supposed to mean that you think that's a lot?

[Breccia]

Axios reports on the federal investigation.

The Department of Justice will conduct a review of local law enforcement's response to the Uvalde mass shooting last week that killed 19 children and two adults, it announced Sunday.

Local and state law enforcement officials have faced intense criticism for their response to the shooting as details and a fuller timeline of events have emerged.

At least eight 911 calls were made between 12:03pm — half an hour after the gunman entered the school — and around 12:50pm, when Border Patrol agents and police finally stormed in and shot him dead.

Questions remain as to why officials didn't come clean sooner.

"The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events," department spokesperson Anthony Coley said in a press release.

“This assessment will be fair, transparent and independent," Coley said, adding that a report will be published upon the review's conclusion.

While Abbott, likely looking for an obvious target of public ire, will probably not hate this development, he might pretend that he does. Nearby Border Patrol and police did show up, as soon as they could under the circumstances it sounds, and it really doesn't sound like a state-level problem. It does sound like a specific police department, when faced by the overwhelming firepower of the average American with a weapon of war Texas insists they be allowed to have, acted like civilians rather than law enforcement. You and I might have done the same, but you and I aren't police officers...or Border Patrol, I guess.

So Abbott might yell at the cameras about oversight, but in the end, when he knows for a fact Biden's DoJ is going to say "Texas itself did nothing wrong and there is no systemic issue shown in this incident" he will order every single person on his payroll to assist the DoJ in every single paper they ask for.

I do wonder how this would have gone if the school police had just come clean. "Hell yes we backed off, it was an average American with a weapon of war we insisted he be allowed to have. We're just police officers and not equipped for that, so we called in federal backup and saved who we could." I mean, it's a police district of...seven people? Did they even have vests or rifles? Yes, that announcement would have thrown a lot of shade on Texas' routine insistence that the average American be expected to out-gun an average police officer, but there is a difference between "public servant dies in line of duty" and "glorified security guard fruitlessly throws life away". And let's face it, we're already at the stage where a teacher is being posthumously blamed for not getting the door locked in time as a weapon of war was used in a public children's school to murder them. The school police should have admitted the truth from the very beginning: they knew going against the average American with a weapon of war Texas insists he have was suicide and the death count would have been higher by their own numbers. It might have stopped them from getting fired. Hell, from Texas' point of view, people might have actually agreed the average police officer is no match for the average American and started getting more guns in more schools to protect from more guns in more schools.

[PhaelixWW]

It is a lot, considering for most humans you kind of want that number to be 0.

It's not a lot.

[Breccia]

So apparently Abbott spoke at the Uvdale memorial and said

You can expect robust discussion and my hope is laws passed that I will sign addressing health care in this state. There are an array of health issues that relate to those who commit gun crimes.

Anyone who suggests we should focus on background checks instead of mental health, I suggest to you it is mistaken

Upon reading this, the very first thing I did was look to see if the shooter passed a background check before buying two weapons of war, one of which he would use to murder multiple terrified schoolchildren.

Texas seems to give plenty of background checks, but I assumed Abbott wouldn't have said this if this had been one of them. Abbott has tried to do this before, after all, when he said the Sutherland Springs wouldn't have been prevented by a background check.

Look at what happened in the shooting at Sutherland Springs. There was a background check that was done. It was done in a flawed way that allowed the shooter to get a gun

This was a case where the AF didn't send the criminal record of one of its own to the FBI, and was found $230 million worth of liable. Had they done so, the background check would have shown that.

I cannot find any credible article that says the shooter failed a background check. I have personally cited Abbott as saying the shooter had no criminal record and no mental health issues -- which, of course, immediately brings into question his statement at the memorial. If the shooter had no known mental health issues, (a) why would this be a mental health issue when nobody knew he had one until he murdered his grandmother and (b) if he did have a mental health issue, surely that's part of a background check?

My Trump-loving family on FB are saying "of course it's a mental health issue, sane people don't gun down a school" to which the obvious response is "okay, but how would anyone have known he was murderously insane before?" (It also opens the door for any murderer to immediately get a not guilty by reason of mental instability, which is fucking retarded)

Abbott is, as previously mentioned, in charge of the party responsible for the shooter's ease of access to a weapon of war for a Texan. He was reminded of that when people at the memorial booed him. Wanna see the video? But his defense is...stupid. He already said the shooter had no known mental health issues. How could this be a mental health issue, then? Or, more directly, if this was a mental health issue, why wouldn't that be part of background checks?

There's one last thing I'd like to bring up.

Abbott’s Democratic opponent in November’s election, Beto O’Rourke, confronting him at a press conference on Wednesday.

“You are doing nothing,” O’Rourke said, feet away from Abbott. “You said this was not predictable, this was totally predictable, and you choose not to do anything.”

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin blasted O’Rourke during the encounter, yelling “I can’t believe you’re a sick son of a bitch who would come to a deal like this to make a political issue.”

I have yet to hear Mayor McLaughlin saying anything about Gov. Abbott going to the memorial and making this a political issue. Oh sure, he was asked by the crowd, but that prior case was a press conference. Until I hear that, I will assume Mayor McLaughlin is a hypocrite.

Just to clarify, if anyone has proof one way or the other if the shooter passed a background check, let me know. I assume he did since most Texas gun purchases use one and there was no reason prior to the murders to assume he'd have failed.

[PhaelixWW]

a weapon of war

a weapon of war

a weapon of war

a weapon of war

two weapons of war

a weapon of war

Still not a weapon of war, no matter how many times you repeat it.

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Not a lot of dead kids either?

That's an odd response.

There were definitely a lot of dead kids.

[postman1782]

Still not a weapon of war, no matter how many times you repeat it.

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That's an odd response.

There were definitely a lot of dead kids.

I am just saying, it was designed to be a weapon of war, the only difference between the AR-15 and the M-16/M4, is that the M-16 has full auto and burst fire modes, and the M4 is full auto and shorter.

It was designed to be a military weapon, before it was sold to the Civilian public.

[PhaelixWW]

is 19 dead kids enough, or not enough, to enact a lot more stringent gun laws? Does that number need to be higher? Because it is, and it is climbing.

That's a flawed question, yet you keep asking it as if it's not.

[PhaelixWW]

I am just saying, it was designed to be a weapon of war, the only difference between the AR-15 and the M-16/M4, is that the M-16 has full auto and burst fire modes, and the M4 is full auto and shorter.

It was designed to be a military weapon, before it was sold to the Civilian public.

Except it's not the same gun, because it's fundamentally different from the one that was actually designed to be a military weapon.

The civilian AR-15 looks like a military weapon, but it's fundamentally very much like any semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine, and those have been used as civilian firearms for over 100 years.

I mean, if you want to argue that semi-automatic rifles should not be allowed for civilian use, then that should be your argument. But calling them "weapons of war" is just lying about it, which is really super counterproductive.

[Endus]

I am just saying, it was designed to be a weapon of war, the only difference between the AR-15 and the M-16/M4, is that the M-16 has full auto and burst fire modes, and the M4 is full auto and shorter.

It was designed to be a military weapon, before it was sold to the Civilian public.

It's the silliest goddamned argument.

Semi-autos, all of them, were designed for warfare. Firearms themselves were primarily designed, for warfare. That it doesn't have full-auto is completely irrelevant; the M1 Garand was semi-automatic and clearly a "weapon designed for war". The Barrett .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle is bolt-action single-shot, and has no use for hunting, since anything you shot with it would pretty much explode.

It's a pointless deflection and ignores that all firearms are "designed for war", fundamentally. If that bothers you, maybe start recognizing the danger firearms necessarily present, because they're tools that are designed to efficiently kill the target, and don't have any other meaningful use (and I don't accept "target practice/competition" as a "meaningful use" that's separate, as that's practicing the same skill set for application to that primary use, the same way martial arts are combat arts, even if you never get in a fight.)

There needs to be strong licensing, training requirements, registration, and tracking of firearms. The same requirements as for motor vehicles, I'll note, as a minimum. And a lot of what's currently sold needs to just not be on the civilian market, at all, including the AR-15.

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Except it's not the same gun, because it's fundamentally different from the one that was actually designed to be a military weapon.

The civilian AR-15 looks like a military weapon, but it's fundamentally very much like any semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine, and those have been used as civilian firearms for over 100 years.

I mean, if you want to argue that semi-automatic rifles should not be allowed for civilian use, then that should be your argument. But calling them "weapons of war" is just lying about it, which is really super counterproductive.

Like I just said, all those semi-autos were also designed for warfare. Semi-auto fire was designed for warfare, itself. What's happening here is that weapons designed for warfare have increasingly been sold to civilians with very little checks and balances, in the USA. There's no Venn diagram separating the two, and the line can't be drawn along full-auto and burst-fire mechanics, since there's plenty of explicitly military weapons that don't have those features.

The whole argument just tries to normalize owning these kinds of weapons, when they should be banned. They are here in Canada. And we've got like 70x fewer mass shootings, once you control for populations, as I ran the figures a day or two back when this came up then. Seems like our laws do a lot of good.

[postman1782]

Except it's not the same gun, because it's fundamentally different from the one that was actually designed to be a military weapon.

The civilian AR-15 looks like a military weapon, but it's fundamentally very much like any semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine, and those have been used as civilian firearms for over 100 years.

I mean, if you want to argue that semi-automatic rifles should not be allowed for civilian use, then that should be your argument. But calling them "weapons of war" is just lying about it, which is really super counterproductive.

Everything the modern versions of the gun, were designed based on the literal weapon designed for military use. The ONLY DIFFERENCE is that without modifying the modern AR-15s illegally, they are semi auto only, the original AR-15 designed in 1959 had select fire for full auto.