Protest by Teens for Gun Reform
Last Sunday, the Texas House of Representatives released an Investigative Committee Interim Report indicating that 376 law enforcement officers arrived at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX to confront an active shooter on May 24, 2022, but none of them acted to rescue the students and teachers. As a result, 19 children and two teachers were killed. The report in particular faults a lack of leadership and command, especially by school district police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, who claimed to be in charge on the scene but did not act or order his officers to try to take down the gunman. Arredondo has since resigned.
The failure of so many officers in Uvalde to confront the shooter and try to save the children and teachers belies the Republicans’ frequently used “good guy with a gun” talking point, or the Republican idea that teachers should be armed in the classroom, as demonstrated by this sampling of tweets on the subject:
https://twitter.com/richardhine/status/1549039660596228096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
I know no better arguments for banning AR-15 type semiautomatic rifles
Than 400 cops being afraid to take on an 18 year old with one— William Buecker (@wcbuecker) July 17, 2022
ALMOST 400?!
If 400 “good guys with guns” are too scared to confront ONE bad guy with a gun? And let 19 people die?? Our children and their teachers?
What does that tell you?? IT’S THE GUNS. Ban assault weapons now https://t.co/TOx5bydoY9
— Sophia Bush (@SophiaBush) July 17, 2022
Moreover, the issue isn’t that somehow there were too many officers present in Uvalde, as some have claimed. On the contrary, during the 2018 Parkland, Florida school shooting, there was only one armed guard on the scene, a Sheriff’s deputy, and he also failed to respond to the school shooter. Rather, he “retreated to take cover instead of rushing towards the gunfire.” The most logical explanation in both these cases is that law enforcement officers, whether or not they have backup, are scared to death of a shooter with a semiautomatic rifle a/k/a an assault weapon, such as an AR-15, the type of rifle which was used in Uvalde, Parkland and many other U.S. mass shootings. As the tweets above indicate, that is precisely why these weapons should be banned.
The federal Assault Weapons Ban in place from 1994 to 2004 reduced the number of mass shooting incidents and deaths. Moreover, according to a recent Gallup poll, a 55 percent U.S. majority supports a renewed Assault Weapons Ban. Indeed, the U.S. House is currently considering an Assault Weapons Ban. The bill may well be passed in the House, given its Democratic majority. More likely, however, such legislation would then get bogged down in the U.S. Senate, where Republicans would certainly filibuster it. Therefore, the way to get a new Assault Weapons Ban passed is to elect more Democratic U.S. Senators this November, who can vote to repeal the filibuster and pass a ban that President Joe Biden would sign into law.
Photo by Lorie Shaull, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/ccUh54
