As the nation absorbs the horror of yet another massacre of schoolchildren, questions about the police’s response to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, have become paramount. There are still conflicting reports that police were alerted to the presence of an active shooter at Robb Elementary School, but they did not enter the school to confront the attacker for more then 70 minutes. The gunman was able kill 19 children and two teachers using an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.
The Washington Post reports:
Officials have received harsh criticisms over the details they have released about this shooting since it happened. But, later, they admitted that they were wrong. Authorities initially said the gunman exchanged fire with a school police officer outside, only to later say this never happened; they also said the shooter was wearing body armor but reversed course on that count as well…
Police have been criticized for not moving faster to pursue the gunman while he was inside calling 911 and pleading for help. McCraw said the school district’s police chief, Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, had determined the gunman had “transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject,” so there was a delay of more than an hour before officials stormed the classroom. “It was the wrong decision,” McCraw said.
The national psyche has been permanently influenced by the image of police officers refusing entry to the building and tear-gassing and handcuffing parents trying to get in, To add tension, the Uvalde Police Department (and the Uvalde Independent School District police force are now refusing to cooperateWith investigators.
The police may have failed to act on Sunday night because of this, which could explain why an answer was not given. CBS News show “60 Minutes” aired a harrowing reportWhy mass shooters often choose this rifle. The reason, according to “60 Minutes,” lies within the ballistics. The speed of sound travels three times faster than rounds fired by the AR-15. According to report, this high-velocity ammunition “is the fear of every American emergency room.”
Using a long gelatin brick rectangle specifically designed to mimic the human body’s soft tissue, 60 MinutesOne round was fired from a Glock 9mm pistol into a block. The bullet passed through the material straight-line and exited intact. However, the AR-15’s round exploded within the gelatin and caused a huge internal void.
The report was filled with first responders who shared their experiences of being in a room where an AR-15-wielding gunman was at work. The rounds that struck the victims have smashed the bodies into unrecognizable pieces. Bones are not broken by impact, they are shattered. Multiple buzzsaws break down internal organs when the bullet breaks through living tissue. Any shots to the head or face make physical identification nearly impossible; there’s nothing left to identify.
This may have provided the answer to the question as to why Uvalde police refused permission to enter the building even though the shooter was still active. 60 MinutesReport: I suspect that they knew better than anyone what this weapon could do and they wanted nothing to do with it. It is quite stark to see their inaction in comparison to the parents they had arrested. Parents wanted to rescue their children as soon as possible, but they didn’t know what they were running towards. Maybe the cops knew what they were running toward and therefore stopped.
This is not a defense for the Uvalde officers. Their actions and the scrambled story that followed speak for themselves. This is the defenestration of the “Good guy with a gun” NRA talking point. There were plenty of state-sanctioned “guys” with guns at Robb Elementary, and still 21 bodies hit the floor. That level of violence can be overcome by no amount of security guards nor armed teachers. If law enforcement officers cannot handle that situation, it would be foolish to assume that kindergarten teachers can.
Neither should be expected to, and that’s the rub. The AR-15 managed to evade close scrutiny. Despite being the most popular rifle in the nation, it is still a great choice. I expectThe NRA was influential in this. This is because the NRA is a front for the gun manufacturing industry and all it is interested is selling the thing. The AR-15 is a combat weapon that is meant for soldiers. It has no business on civilian streets in the U.S., regardless of how this veil of secrecy was created.
The debate over how to best deal with this ongoing calamity has been varied. a coordinated student strikeWhen school starts in September, there is the argument that the public should view the aftermath of one these butcher sessions. If only to understand why the AR-15 defenders are so passionate about it. That was the approach chosen by Emmet Till’s mother, who allowed the public and the press to observe the body of her son after he was murdered by a vicious, racist mob.
“In the case of Uvalde,” writesSusie Linfield The New York Times “a serious case can be made — indeed, I agree with it — that the nation should see exactly how an assault rifle pulverizes the body of a 10-year-old… A violent society ought, at the very least, to regard its handiwork, however ugly, whether it be the toll on the men and women who fight in our name, on ‘ordinary’ crime victims killed or wounded by guns or on children whose right to grow up has been sacrificed to the right to bear arms.”
It is telling how militaristic and nihilistic our nation has become that the idea of getting rid of AR-15s in any political forum is not even worth considering. They are combat weapons that deliver combat injuries, “civilian” appellations notwithstanding. According to Uvalde cops, they probably resisted the idea of facing one of them. CBSToday, 11 million of these weapons are in mass circulation. They must be thrown out, immediately.
