;)
May 27, 2022
Afternoon Update:
Texas officials have drastically altered the Uvalde timeline they initially provided, and what occurred during that time: ~~~
~~~ From the New York Times live updates: "In an emotional and at times tense news conference, Steven C. McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, gave the most detailed accounting of the shooting yet, diverging in substantial points from the original timeline given by officials. Most of the time the gunman was at the school, Mr. McCraw explained, he was inside the classrooms where nearly all of the killing took place, while as many as 19 police officers waited outside in the school hallway. Multiple people in the classrooms, including at least two students, called 911 over that horrifying stretch, begging for police. But apparently believing that the suspect had barricaded himself in the classroom and that 'there were no kids at risk,' the police did not enter the classroom until 12:50 p.m., 78 minutes after the shooter walked inside.... By 12:15 p.m., agents from Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement had arrived with tactical shields, he said, far earlier than previously known. But local police at the scene would not allow them to go after the gunman who had opened fire on students inside the school. ~~~
~~~ "The National Rifle Association's annual convention opened Friday in Houston. In years past, the conclave has taken on the tenor of a gun-rights rally. This one was planned months ago, but its timing, days after an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers with a semiautomatic rifle, has drawn nationwide attention and protests. Numerous scheduled speakers and performers have withdrawn from the N.R.A. event, including Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas who backed out late Thursday in favor of another trip to Uvalde and will provide prerecorded video remarks at the N.R.A. meeting. The latest to cancel was Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas.... Donald J. Trump, who ran on a pro-gun platform in 2020, and Senator Ted Cruz who has rejected new gun laws since the attack, were expected to offer an unapologetic defense of gun rights in addresses at the N.R.A. convention on Friday." ~~~
~~~ Jim Vertuno & Elliot Spagat of the AP: "Students trapped inside a classroom with a gunman repeatedly called 911 during this week's attack on a Texas elementary school, including one who pleaded, 'Please send the police now,' as nearly 20 officers waited in the hallway for more than 45 minutes, authorities said Friday. The commander at the scene in Uvalde -- the school district's police chief -- believed that 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos was barricaded inside adjoining classrooms at Robb Elementary School and that children were no longer at risk, Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a contentious news conference. 'It was the wrong decision,' he said." ~~~
~~~ CNN has the latest timeline related by Texas law officials.
Pete Williams of NBC News said that although the classroom door where the gunman who killing children was locked, the door had a broken window -- the shooter broke the window -- and the room had exterior windows, some of which the shooter also broke. MB: So it isn't as if the law enforcement officers who were gathered outside the room had no way to access it.
Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "The owners of Daniel Defense, the manufacturer of the rifle apparently used in the massacre of 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex., are deep-pocketed Republican donors, giving to candidates and committees at the federal and state level aligned against limits on access to assault rifles and other semiautomatic weapons.... The rifle reportedly used in the shooting, the DDM4 V7, sells for about $2,000, according to Daniel Defense's website.... An image posted on the company's Twitter account shows a child [Marie: really, a toddler!] handling a rifle with the caption, 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.' Shortly after the shooting, the company locked its Twitter account."
** Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "It will be impossible to do anything about guns in this country, at least at a national level, as long as Democrats depend on the cooperation of a party that holds in reserve the possibility of insurrection. The slaughter of children in Texas has done little to alter this dynamic.... Victims of our increasingly frequent mass shootings are collateral damage in a cold civil war.... Guns are now the leading cause of death for American children. Many conservatives consider this a price worth paying for their version of freedom." MB: There's that child sacrifice thing again. Thanks to P.D. Pepe for the link.
Trumpty-Dumpty Takes Another Fall. Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: In the latest legal blow to Donald J. Trump, a federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit the former president filed that sought to halt the New York attorney general's civil investigation into his business practices. On Thursday, an appellate court ordered Mr. Trump and two of his children to sit for questioning under oath from the office of the state attorney general, Letitia James. Together, the rulings clear the way for Ms. James to complete her investigation in the coming weeks or months.... Last month, one of her lawyers indicated that a suit could be coming soon, saying that the office was preparing an 'enforcement action' in the near future."
Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "As many as 50 witnesses are expected to be subpoenaed by a special grand jury that will begin hearing testimony next week in the criminal investigation into whether ... Donald J. Trump and his allies violated Georgia laws in their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.... [Fulton County, District Attorney Fani] Willis is weighing racketeering among other potential charges.... Her investigators are also reviewing the slate of fake electors that Republicans created in a desperate attempt to circumvent the state's voters. She said the scheme to submit fake Electoral College delegates could lead to fraud charges, among others...."
~~~~~~~~~~
The New York Times' live updates of developments in the Uvalde massacre are here.
Jon Swaine, et al., of the Washington Post: "A gunman roamed outside a Texas elementary school for about 12 minutes, entered without challenge and spent an hour inside before he was killed by law enforcement, authorities said Thursday, revising key details in their account of the massacre as the police response to it was criticized by some parents. The new details of how 18-year-old Salvador Ramos was able to kill 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Tex., on Tuesday, together with cellphone videos and witness accounts of police outside tackling or handcuffing desperate parents who tried to rush into the building, called into question earlier claims by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) that a 'quick response' by law enforcement had saved lives." The AP report is here. ~~~
~~~ Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "Officials, who are facing mounting questions about the police response to the massacre, have offered varied timelines and explanations of the massacre and law enforcement's response. They have also made sometimes inconsistent or contradictory announcements about key details, such as how the shooter entered the school or how long he was inside. They have even withdrawn some claims outright. While it is common for details to shift following mass attacks, some of the changes in Uvalde made during news briefings and interviews have been striking. Here is a brief rundown of some ways the official accounts have differed[.]" MB: Most striking (to me): the fictitious -- and "heroic"! -- armed security guard who confronted the gunman as he entered the school grounds. There was no such person on the scene.
Kipp Jones of Mediaite: "A Texas Department of Public Safety official said responding officers were cautious as they entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas because 'they could've been shot.'... The New York Times reported the shooter was inside the school for about an hour before officers finally breached the classroom he was in and shot and killed him.... On Thursday's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, the host discussed the Tuesday's horrifying events with DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez.... 'Don't current best practices, don't they call for officers to disable a shooter as quickly as possible, regardless of how many officers are actually on site?' Blitzer asked him. Olivarez ... said, '... if they proceeded any further not knowing where the suspect was at, they could've been shot, they could've been killed....'"
Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "Texas Department Public Safety spokesman Lt. Christopher Olivarez confirmed to a reporter during a live shot that police officers went into Robb Elementary School to get their own children during the massacre." This happened Amid outrage over reports that frantic families who complained about police inaction during the massacre were held back by police, a clip of a live interview with Olivarez from Tuesday has gone viral." Includes clip & text of interview.
Salvador Hernandez of BuzzFeed News: "... when members of law enforcement were pointedly asked during a press conference Thursday why it took more than 60 agonizing minutes -- during which the shooter killed 19 children and 2 adults -- before armed officers went in to stop the gunfire, officials turned and walked away. 'What were you doing between 11:44 and 12:44?' one reporter asked Victor Escalon, regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety.... Escalon told reporters, 'We will circle back and answer all of your questions.' Escalon and other law enforcement officials standing beside him then ended the press conference suddenly and walked away." Officials called the presser, they said, "to clear up misinformation.
His Heart Broke. Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: "Joe Garcia, the husband of Irma Garcia, one of the two teachers killed in the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, died on Thursday of a heart attack, said his nephew John Martinez.... The couple had been married for 24 years and had four children, with the oldest 23 and the others teenagers."
~~~ Thanks to unwashed for the link.
Ted Can't Handle the Truth. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) attended a vigil Wednesday for the victims of the massacre in Uvalde, Tex., he stormed away from an interview after he was asked by a British journalist why mass shootings happen 'only in America.'" Here's the Sky News story, by Cruz's interviewer Mark Stone. Stone tries to explain U.S. gun culture to the Brits in the child-friendly way a loyal aide might try to explain Zulu culture to Donald Trump. ~~~
"Hershel Walker Has Some Thoughts." digby, citing what may be an Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-ed (no link): "'On Tuesday night, CNN's Manu Raju asked the former football player, "Do you support any new gun laws in the wake of this Texas shooting?" Walker responded, "What I like to -- what I like to do is see it and everything and stuff." This morning, the Republican candidate shared some additional thoughts on the subject. After reminding viewers that "Cain killed Abel" -- I'm not entirely sure how that's relevant -- Walker added: "What we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You know, they talk about doing a disinformation, what about getting a department that could look at young men that's looking at women that looking at social media. What about doing that? Looking into things like that? If we can stop that that way?"'" MB: It's likely getting hit too many times on the football field damaged Hershel's brain, and that's a tragedy, but a concomitant tragedy would be to elect him to a policy-making job.
GOP More Extreme Than NRA. Isaac Arnsdorf & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "GOP politicians are taking more-uncompromising positions on guns even as lawsuits and infighting have dragged down the flagship gun lobby.... For GOP voters and lawmakers, gun rights have become a central culture-war issue animating their movement. Arguments that once centered on hunting and rural traditions have turned into bitter battles over identity, with no need for a giant lobbying group like the NRA to stoke the flames.... Now, many of the most vocal gun rights voters are turning to activists ... who fault the NRA for negotiating in the past on some legislation."
Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Hopes for a long-shot deal to pass a new federal law that could keep guns out of the hands of potential mass murderers were left Thursday in the hands of a small bipartisan group of senators, who pledged to explore multiple options even as lawmakers left Washington for a Memorial Day recess. The talks, to be led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), began in earnest less than two days after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school -- and just moments after Senate Republicans blocked a bill aimed at addressing a previous U.S. mass shooting, the May 14 killing of 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket. The 47-to-47 vote on that bill, which was aimed at focusing the federal government on combating domestic terrorism and white supremacy, demonstrated the partisan polarization around any measure addressing acts of mass gun violence." MB: Yeah, well, my thoughts and prayers go out to that small bipartisan group. ~~~
~~~ Alas, once again thoughts and prayers likely will come to naught. Apparently Texas' Big John did not voluntarily join this effort to pass some mild form of gun safety legislation: ~~~
~~~ Lauren Fox, et al., of CNN: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told CNN on Thursday he met earlier in the day with Texas Sen. John Cornyn and encouraged the senior Republican senator to begin discussions with Democrats, including Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, to see if they can find a middle ground on legislation to respond to the tragic Texas elementary school shooting."~~~
~~~ Marianne Levine & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked legislation intended to combat domestic terrorism.... The GOP widely views the legislation as unnecessary and an attempt by Democrats to politicize the killing of 10 people, mostly Black.... Democrats noted that all House Republicans supported a nearly identical domestic terrorism bill less than two years ago, when it passed by voice vote."
Too Young to Buy a Handgun; A-Ok for two AR-15s. Kiah Collier & Jeremy Schwartz of the Texas Tribune & ProPublica: "The fact that the gunman responsible for this week's massacre in Uvalde was able to buy two AR-15s days after his 18th birthday highlights how much easier it is for Americans to purchase rifles than handguns. Under federal law, Americans buying handguns from licensed dealers must be at least 21, which would have precluded the gunman from buying that type of weapon. That trumps Texas law, which only requires buyers of any type of firearm to be 18 or older."
Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "The Biden administration will begin to allow certain migrants to ask for asylum as they arrive at the southwestern border at the end of the month, even as it continues to use a pandemic-era public health rule to quickly turn migrants away without the option to seek it. The new process, intended to deliver a decision within months instead of the years it currently takes via the immigration court system, will apply to a 'few hundred' migrants a month, administration officials said. The policy's immediate effect is likely to be minimal, dwarfed by vast backlogs in the immigration system and a recent surge of migrants at the border, and it is far from a broad restoration of access to asylum, which was curtailed by the Trump administration and the pandemic."
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Four House Republicans including Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, signaled on Thursday that they would not cooperate with subpoenas from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, posing a dilemma for the panel that could have broad implications for the inquiry and for Congress itself. Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona each sent letters to the committee objecting to the investigation ahead of the depositions scheduled for this week, and Mr. McCarthy, of California, filed a court brief arguing the panel's subpoenas are illegitimate." MB: About a thousand people, many of whom did not want to do so, concluded that it was their legal & patriotic duty to do whatever they could to protect their country from insurrection. These jamokes are lawless traitors.
Betsy Swan & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows burned papers in his office after meeting with a House Republican who was working to challenge the 2020 election, according to testimony the Jan. 6 select committee has heard from one of his former aides. Cassidy Hutchinson, who worked under Meadows when he was ... Donald Trump's chief of staff, told the panel investigating the Capitol attack that she saw Meadows incinerate documents after a meeting in his office with Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.).... The person familiar with the testimony said investigators pressed Hutchinson for details about the issue for more than 90 minutes during a recent deposition." MB: So much classier than stuffing the papers down the toilet, as Trump has done.
Jonah Bromwich, et al., of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump and two of his adult children must sit for questioning under oath as part of the New York attorney general's civil investigation into their business practices, a state appeals court ruled on Thursday. Mr. Trump's lawyers had argued that the inquiry by the state attorney general, Letitia James, was politically motivated and that she should not be permitted to question him or the children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump. The lawyers also claimed that the attorney general could not force Mr. Trump to face questioning in her civil investigation because he was also the subject of a criminal inquiry into some of the same business practices. But the court found that the Trumps had not shown they were being treated differently from other investigative targets and argued that 'the existence of a criminal investigation does not preclude civil discovery of related facts.'... The unanimous ruling from a four-judge panel of the New York State Supreme Court's Appellate Division, First Department, upheld a decision from a lower court granting Ms. James permission to question Mr. Trump and his children.... Lawyers for the Trumps could appeal the ruling to New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Lawless Little Prick Runs for Oklahoma Senate Seat. Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "Scott Pruitt, while in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Trump administration, repeatedly pressured his federal security officers to drive at excessive and sometimes dangerous speeds on routine trips, with sirens and emergency lights on, because he had a habit of running late, according to a federal report released on Thursday. The security officers said they knew this was a violation of federal policies and 'endangered public safety,' the report said. Among the incidents cited in the report was a 2017 trip in which a special agent drove Mr. Pruitt with the lights and sirens going, in the wrong direction into oncoming traffic, to pick up Mr. Pruitt's dry cleaning, when Mr. Pruitt was late for an agency meeting.... Until now, an internal E.P.A. report that substantiated the allegations about the abusive use of lights and sirens on his government-issued car had never been made public, even though it was completed a month before Mr. Pruitt resigned. Mr. Pruitt ... is now running as a Republican for the United States Senate in Oklahoma and previously served as the state's attorney general...." A Huffington Post story is here.
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court said on Thursday that it would allow the Biden administration to continue to take account of the costs of greenhouse gas emissions in regulatory actions, rejecting an emergency application from Louisiana and other Republican-led states to block the use of a formula that assigns a monetary value to changes in emissions. The court's brief order gave no reasons, which is typical when the court acts on emergency applications. There were no noted dissents."
David Gelles & Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times: "Across the country, Republican lawmakers and their allies have launched a campaign to try to rein in what they see as activist companies trying to reduce the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.... [Republican state officials] have pushed climate change from the scientific realm into the political battles already raging over topics like voting rights, abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. issues. In recent months, conservatives have moved beyond tough words and used legislative and financial leverage to pressure the private sector to drop climate action and any other causes they label as 'woke.'" MB: I suppose this story will get lost in the clutter of more sensational reports, but this is pretty astounding. It isn't just that these Republicans don't care about the demise of Earth; it's that they are encouraging it.
Sarah Bailey, et al., of the Washington Post: "Southern Baptist leaders on Thursday evening released a list of alleged church-related sexual abuse offenders that denomination heads had kept secret for more than a decade. The Executive Committee for the Southern Baptist Convention said earlier this week it would publish the names after it issued a third-party investigation that suggested a widespread coverup by top leaders who ignored and even 'vilified' people who came forward with stories of abuse. The database, which an SBC attorney said includes people who have been criminally convicted of abuse and those who have confessed to abuse, is expected to show what top leaders knew behind the scenes while telling Southern Baptists they could not create a list of accused abusers because the denomination is not hierarchical and churches operate independently from one another." You can read the database here. (MB: If this link doesn't work, please let me know.)
Alex Marshall & Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: "The British authorities have authorized criminal charges against Kevin Spacey on four counts of sexual assault against three men, the country's Crown Prosecution Service announced in a news release on Thursday.... The authorization of charges followed a review of the evidence collected by London's police force. Mr. Spacey cannot be formally charged unless he enters England or Wales, a spokesman for the service said in a telephone interview. The spokesman declined to comment on whether the service would pursue extradition proceedings...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Ariana Cha of the Washington Post: "A large U.S. study looking at whether vaccination protects against long covid showed the shots have only a slight protective effect: Being vaccinated appeared to reduce the risk of lung and blood clot disorders, but did little to protect against most other symptoms. The new paper, published Wednesday in Nature Medicine, is part of a series of studies by the Department of Veterans Affairs on the impact of the coronavirus, and was based on 33,940 people who experienced breakthrough infections after vaccination." This article is free to nonsubscribers.
Beyond the Beltway
New York. Lou Michel & Dan Herbeck of the Buffalo News: "Law enforcement officers are investigating whether a retired federal agent had about 30 minutes advance notice of a white supremacist's plans to murder Black people at a Buffalo supermarket, two law enforcement officials told The Buffalo News. Authorities believe the former agent -- believed to be from Texas -- was one of at least six individuals who regularly communicated with accused gunman Payton Gendron in an online chat room where racist hatred was discussed, the two officials said. The two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation stated these individuals were invited by Gendron to read about his mass shooting plans and the target location about 30 minutes before Gendron killed 10 people at Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue on May 14. The News could not determine if the retired agent accepted the invitation."
Wyoming House Race. Zach Shonfeld of the Hill: "Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) formally launched her reelection bid on Thursday, seeking the Republican nomination for her seat for the fourth time amid rebukes from her own party. 'Some things have to matter,' Cheney said in her announcement video. 'American freedom, the rule of law, our founding principles, the foundations of our republic matter. What we do in this election in Wyoming matters.'... In this year's Aug. 16 primary, she will face a challenger, attorney Harriet Hageman, backed by [Donald] Trump and his allies, who have viewed removing Cheney as a top priority. Trump is slated to stump for Hageman at a Saturday rally, which will also include video addresses by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who became chairwoman of the House Republican Conference after Cheney was ousted from the role last year."
Ukraine, et al.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "As Russian forces make incremental gains in eastern Ukraine amid an intensified military campaign, including seizing the city of Lyman, the wide-scale devastation of towns and cities in the region has widened a spiraling crisis for civilians.... Lyman's fall followed intense artillery bombardments, including from one of the most fearsome weapons in Russia's conventional arsenal: fuel-air bombs that set off huge, destructive shock waves.... President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine warned in an overnight address that Russian forces were trying to turn cities and towns in the east of the country 'to ashes.' With civilians also being killed at an alarming rate, he charged that the actions amounted to 'an obvious policy of genocide pursued by Russia.' A new report from international legal scholars released on Friday echoed such claims about the war generally. It said that mass killings, deliberate attacks on shelters or evacuation routes, and the indiscriminate bombardment of residential areas by Russian forces established a 'genocidal pattern' indicating an intent to wipe out a substantial part of the Ukrainian population."
** Katie Lillis, et al., of CNN: "Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been processed through a series of Russian 'filtration camps' in Eastern Ukraine and sent into Russia as part of a systemized program of forced removal, according to four sources familiar with the latest Western intelligence -- an estimate far higher than US officials have publicly disclosed. After being detained in camps operated by Russian intelligence officials, many Ukrainians are then forcibly relocated to economically depressed areas in Russia, in some cases thousands of miles from their homes..., sources said.... In some cases, Ukrainians have been sent to Sakhalin Island, a distant spit in the Pacific Ocean on Russia's far east -- 10,000 miles from the Ukrainian border. If they are fortunate, sources tell CNN, Russia will provide housing in residential areas and perhaps a Russian SIM card and a small amount of money. Others are simply dropped off with nothing and expected to survive on their own."
David Ignatius of the Washington Post on how the Biden administration secretly -- and effectively -- planned for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. MB: One part that interested me was the major role CIA Director William Burns (no relation), a one-time ambassador to Russia, played in the effort: "CIA Director William J. Burns traveled to Moscow on Nov. 1 to warn ... Vladimir Putin that the United States and its allies were prepared to arm Ukraine and impose crippling sanctions on Russia if he invaded. Putin apparently thought Biden wouldn't be able to deliver.... The Ukrainians knew the Russians were coming. Burns had secretly traveled to Kyiv in January to brief Zelensky on the Russian plan...." I shudder to think of what buffoonery a Trump administration would have unleased during such a period.
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Reader Comments (17)
The Republican Way, Pt. 3,748 and a half.
Good guys with guns…hide. Bad guy with gun? Kills kids and teachers. GOP-NRA plan works to perfection.
CNN reports that.no fewer than 7 armed law enforcement officers were on site before the slaughter took place. They bravely went into hiding. They must, of course, all be Republicans. How do I know? Because faced with imminent horrific murder of children by a man with a weapon, they did nothing.
An hour(!) later, Border Patrol whatchamacallits showed up (kids already dead). An hour. In fairness, it was around lunchtime. They probably stopped for drive through. Couple ‘a burgers and a Coke. Just the thing .
Some Border Patrol flack/commander guy had the absolute gall to announce (in his best tough guy cop voice, no doubt) that these brave officers (40 or so) “wasted no time”, came up with a plan and swung into action! Yay!
But oops. Kids all dead.
“Wasted no time”??
The standard answer given by supporters of killing babies when asked why every man, woman, teacher, resource officer, and kid need to be packing more heat than a syndicate gunsel in 1930 Chicago iz to do in the bad guys.
They just don’t say when.
Meanwhile, outside the school, parents are begging the big strong bad ass Texas lawmen on the scene to DO THEIR FUCKING JOB.
Now I ask you. If this wonderful “good guys with guns” plan doesn’t work in big, bad, gun totin’ Texas, where will it work? And yessss, gun knobbers, it does happen. On rare occasions. Rare enough to merit yuuuge Faux news headlines. But not nearly enough to stop, or prevent, tens of thousands of other deaths.
But look, here’s the thing. I am really not surprised that these guys feared for their lives and refused to help those kids, even though it was, um, their job. And who knows what the holy hell that phalanx of Border yahoos was doing for an hour. Maybe watching a John Wayne western to get in the mood.
The point is, the real answer, the ONLY working answer is no guns on that kid in the first place. This is like saying, well, the best way to cross the street at rush hour is NOT a traffic light. The best way is for pedestrians to run out into traffic and try to dodge trucks and cars racing along at 75.
They’re using Ockham’s dull razor. The sharp one is too simple.
But hey, what’s cooler than a presser full of tough Texas lawmen in great looking black tac gear, vests, and badges carrying enough weapons to invade Poland?
Living kids. That’s what.
But no, then we couldn’t have lots more of these cool pressers where some Texas Ranger type tough guy sez, “We wasted no time. Went in and shot that bad guy to hell and gone. Sorry about those kids”.
The Republican Way.
But no fetus was lost in the shooting. That seems to be all that
matters to a lot of people.
After you're born, you're on your own. A moving target if you
go to school, a church, a party, a grocery store, etc.
Maybe with those vaccines before starting school, every kid gets
an AR15?
So the brave, armed school security guard who first confronted the murderer but failed to stop him now doesn't exist? Is this because he wasn't able to fulfil the right wing fever dream of a good guy with a gun saving the day? Or was he really not there?
The trouble with lying is that it keeps getting harder to remember the "correct" story line.
One of the most ubiquitous and perhaps "persuasive" arguments that the right uses to justify semi-automatic guns in the hands of 18-year-olds is that if they're old enough to put their lives on the line for their country, they are old enough to own a weapon deadlier than any cop on the beat is carrying. A dingbat Trump-appointed federal judge used that argument a couple of weeks ago to strike down a California law designating 21 as the minimum age to purchase semi-automatic weapons.
But let me say this about that. The military spends weeks or months training troops not to go about willy-nilly shooting at whatever but to slavishly following their commanders' orders. This training to follow orders is reinforced constantly. Young troops may not make their own decisions on when to use their deadly weapons; they must almost always follow the instructions of their, usually older, leaders. And those in-the-field leaders are themselves supposed to be following the orders of likely even older higher-ups. And generally, when troops engage with an enemy combatant, they work as a team under the guidance of that leader. I realize that in combat, not all goes according to plan, but the plan, the intent, is for troops to work together, under leadership, when they're on a combat mission.
So the notion that an 18-year-old has the discretion & discernment to know when to use his gun and when not to, based upon his reaching an age when he may follow the orders of a military leader, is absolute nonsense. Learning to make your own decisions and learning to follow orders are two completely different -- and pretty much opposing -- skill sets.
It's a hazy, fuzzy, somewhat humid day which I liken to our current situation writ large. I keep trying to grasp onto something that looks like progress but it keeps slipping away. One of the many columns I came across this morning that I think hits it out of that ball park now given to political messaging is Michelle Goldberg's whose heading is:
AMERICA MAY BE BROKEN BEYOND REPAIR.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/opinion/uvalde-shooting.html
She ends with this:
"The real nightmare is not that the repetition of nihilist terrorism brings American politics to an inflection point but that it doesn't. The nightmare is that we simply stumble on, helpless as things keep getting worse."
Marie,
Aside from the obvious (to any sentient person) difference in gun's firepower between then and now, from 1789 to 2022, your take down of the argument for allowing eighteen year olds to possess advanced weaponry (because he or she is old enough to serve in the military) neatly skewers the major Constitutional error that has taken us to our awful present:
What happened to the "well ordered militia" that argument presumes?
MIA, I'd say.
@Ken Winkes: Excellent point.
Marie: I totally agree with your thoughts above, up to the end when you wrote:
"So the notion that an 18-year-old has the discretion & discernment to know when to use his gun and when not to, based upon his reaching an age when he may follow the orders of a military leader, is absolute nonsense. "
An 18-year old knows damn well not to use his weapon on 10-year- olds boxed in a room. This is not a "discipline/skill" issue. He (and yeah, almost always "he") does not require military training and command oversight to know that and refrain from shooting kids.
Again -- you are right that the argument "old enough to shoot for your country" is specious bullshit.
The army training, by the way, is not just about fire discipline. That early training program is in large part the acculturation of nice young men (Yep, mostly men wrt Army infantry. Female fighter pilot candidates are already motivated, largely because they have given actual thought to the question, in advance, and buy in. Female Marines, too.) to the idea that killing people is necessary and good, so that when the time comes they won't hesitate. But when they go out on town after all that acculturation, they still know it is not OK to shoot ten-year-olds in a box, and don't feel the urge to do so. And nothing in their training was "don't shoot schoolkids."
The problem is too many guns, too easily obtained. We all know that. The legal age issue is a red herring.
The problem (one of the many) about 18 year olds, or for that matter, any year olds, owning a semi-automatic killing device, which can easily be transformed into a fully automatic even more efficient killing device with a cheap after market doo-dad, is that arguments put forward by ideologically brain warped hacks like the Trumpy judge Marie references, simply bypass any form of even vaguely learned critical thinking in favor of pure casuistry.
The process at which these jiggery pokery jamokes arrive at momentous legal decisions involves no greater mental effort than “becuz I say so”. This, by the way, is what passes for all right wing excuse making when faced with issues they could never, in good faith, support with the jankiest of arguments.
The Great Tub o’ Lard Leader himself once declared that if everyone in a school was strapped and ready to empty their clips into a GOP-NRA approved assassin, no bad guys would ever try anything, cuz they’re cowards anyway.
Solomon himself must needs relinquish his seat in the pantheon of great legal (not to mention logical) minds, poor guy.
Okay (*sigh*), here we go again. Fire up the Trump “logic” dismemberment machine (two moving parts, one AAA battery).
“They’d be too scared to show up” argument. Where does that leave your “they’re all mentally unstable” assertions? Mentally unstable people operate almost as illogically as Fatty. They wouldn’t care if a division of Panzer tanks was guarding the place.
Second, a lot of these people, I’m guessing, would take armed interference as a challenge.
Third, many expect (hope) to die. It’s long been noted that a committed person who doesn’t care about their own life, could kill anyone as long as they could get within shooting distance.
But this is the sort of fractured “logic” that gets tossed around every day by confederate schmucks whose goal is to control the rest of us and to evade any serious discussions.
And now we have hundreds of these juridical termites chewing away at long standing legal supports.
I guess “becuz I say so” is the best they can do. At least it saves the rest of us the pain of reading through protracted legal opinions less astute and honest than a five year old could muster.
That same argument was used to justify dropping the legal age from 21 to 18 in order to purchase/consume alcohol during/after the Viet Nam war.
It wasn't until mothers got mad about all the kids dying in car wrecks that it was changed back to 21. I recall states being threatened with withholding of federal if they didn't raise the age.
But then, I guess, drinking alcohol isn't considered a god-given right. At least here in Amerika.
Cornyn will do for gun control what Tim Scott did for police reform, make sure it doesn't see the light of day.
And last night on Chris Hayes they said that after an hour someone finally had the bright idea to get the door key for the classroom from the principal so they could confront the shooter. If that is true then it's no wonder they are walking away from press conferences without actually giving us answers.
Last September Oleaginous Raphael (Ted) R-ussia, honchoed a letter to the President and Secstate, signed by the usual gang of R traitor-types (Boebert, Biggs, etc etc), demanding that the US lift sanctions on the import of Russian ammo. The sanctions were imposed because of the Navalny poison offense.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22040452-letter1?responsive=1&title=0
These R's are such whores. Russia, NRA, gun sellers ... these R's don't work for the US, and don't mind showing their ass any more.
The Fat Fascist is screeding today at the NRA baby killers convention in Texas. Why cancel a perfectly fun time with gun knobbers and supporters of mass murder just because of some stupid dead kids? Those fourth graders should have all had Uzis in their desks just in case. Dumb ass kids.
But guess what? No guns allowed today. Fatty’s gonna be there. And I’m sure he’ll be singing the praises of uncontrolled deadly weapons. So why no guns?
Couldn’t possibly be because they’re potentially DANGEROUS, could it?
Racism is bad for everyone. So is general bigotry. And misogyny. Bad for everyone. The attackers as well the attacked. Totalitarianism is bad. Theocracy is bad. Ignorance hurts everyone. Systemic lies in pursuit of raw power hurts everyone. Uncontrolled, huge supplies of guns in America hurt everyone. Curtailing needed healthcare hurts everyone. Stealing elections is bad. Unbridled capitalism and out of control cupidity hurt everyone. Ferocious, unfounded conspiracy theories hurt everyone. Purposeful misdirection about public health hurts everyone. Justice only for one side hurts everyone. Treason is bad for everyone.
In fact, nothing supported by the Party of Traitors is any good for anybody, anywhere, at any time.
Even when they think it is.
They are a menace to the human race, to the planet earth, to all living things, to civilization, decency, learning, healthy existence, and even love.
To paraphrase Edwin Starr, “Republicans. What are they good for? Absolutely nothin’”.
@Patrick: I think that all semi-automatic weapons should be illegal, with the exception of those deemed necessary for policing and of course for the military. I cannot think of any legitimate reason for an ordinary person to have a weapon that fires dozens of rounds without reloading.
However, I think scientists have evidence that older adults are better (if a long way from perfect) at impulse control than are young people. I don't mean to suggest that the military teaches soldiers not to shoot little children. But by demanding that troops "follow the leader," they do, in effect, train them not to use their weapons to satisfy impulses.
Patrick;
As you say,…”The problem is too many guns, too easily obtained.”
Too many guns? Then quit making the f**king things.
There IS a solution that does NOT violate the Second Amendment but is, unfortunately, “long term”:
1). BAN the manufacture and importation of semiautomatic firearms for the civilian market. (easier than trying to control “human” behavior…especially the mentally ill doncha' think?)
2). BAN the transfer of ownership of ALL semiautomatic firearms.
If you own a semiautomatic weapon, KEEP IT (as the Constitution suggests). You don’t sell it to your brother-in-law or out of the trunk of your car in the WallMart parking lot. You may turn it in to law enforcement for compensation, or…you can be buried with your “precious” after you die.
3. Enforce #1 & #2.
Twice, in the wee hours, burglars have broken into my house while I was at home with my children. These incidents happened about 15 years apart; both times in L.A. but in different residences, one of which was in a fairly tough neighborhood. Each time I yelled, "Get the fuck out of our house!" And they did. No one was hurt; no television sets changed hands. I'm not saying this is the best way to protect your "castle," but anecdotally, it worked for me.