The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

A gunman killed at least 18 children and 2 adults at a Texas elementary school (https://www.npr.org/2022/05/24/1101037902/texas-elementary-school-shooting-uvalde)

The number of people confirmed killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, has risen to 20, according to Sgt. Erick Estrada of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Estrada told CNN that 18 children, likely between the ages of 7 and 9, and two adults are among the dead. The shooter is also deceased.

Estrada also offered new details about the events leading up to the horrific slaughter at Robb Elementary School, about 85 miles south of San Antonio.

According to calls to law enforcement beginning at around 11:20 a.m. local time, the gunman, who has been identified as an 18-year-old male resident of Uvalde, shot his grandmother at her home before heading toward the school in a large, dark truck. He crashed the vehicle in a ditch near the small campus.

Callers told law enforcement that he was seen exiting the truck carrying "some sort of rifle," a backpack, and wearing body armor. The gunman made his way into the school building through a south facing door and began shooting, Estrada said.

It is unclear if the shooter had a specific target or targets in minds.

---

(https://media2.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/imager/u/original/10826666/onion.jpg)

Let's all keep in mind that had someone tried to regulate or restrict this killer's access to guns a week ago, conservatives across the nation would have decried reducing the ability of "a good guy with a gun" to defend himself.  Every one of these murderers is a Good Guy With A Gun - a person we want with a gun in their hands! - right up until the instant that they start butchering children, at which point nothing could have been done to stop this.  No, wait, that's wrong... there is only one way to "stop this," and it's to put as many guns into the hands of as many citizens as possible.  You know, citizens like this guy, or the guy in Buffalo.  Say, what's going on over there with that Johnny Depp trial?  And I heard some schools are forcing half the kids to become trans for "diversity."  That's the REAL DANGER!

Predicting the legislative response to this is as boring as it is obvious: nothing.  Absolutely nothing will change, and even if it did, SCOTUS would immediately rule it unconstitutional.  That ship has sailed.  The only really interesting question is: how long until the right starts claiming that this was a false flag operation?  It's Tuesday now, so I imagine by week's end that Newsmax or OANN will have some segments about how some people are questioning the convenient timing of this """attack""".

And there go the liberals again, using a situation like this to push their no guns agenda. 

Had the school had properly armed security personnel and had teachers been allowed to carry guns to school, this wouldn't have happened.   No more gun free zones is what will stop this.   Not stricter gun laws.

It's sad but that's the truth. We live in a world that is more evil than ever. The schools who are protected have yet to be hit and why would they? Taking protection away from the innocents will not stop gun violence any more than prohibition and the great war on drugs. Before anyone talks about taking guns away they will need to prove how our current laws stop illegal activity like drugs, prostitutions, crime, and murder without guns. Laws are only useful in protection if everyone else follows them.

It's not a "liberal" thing. I'm probably the only conservative Republican living in Boston. I'm on the no guns agenda side. So, blame the school for not being locked up tight like Fort Knox for this having have happened? Maybe if the teachers were all armed to the teeth, and maybe if all of the 10 year olds in the school were also armed to the teeth then this wouldn't have happened. I mean, hey, this is  Amurica after all, a flag to wave, a Bible to thump, and a gun to fire for everyone. I really like what the PM of New Zeland did a couple of years ago after a mas shooting in her country. Took all of the guns away. Can't do that here, though, because the King of England might show up and start throwing his tyrannical weight around.
Yeah, I'm kind of being snarky and I'm angry about this whole thing. The best way to prevent this from not happening is to not have kids going to schools that are as impenetrable as a super max prison. But maybe to have more strict gun laws. Just by a little so as not to get a certain segment of the population's stars and bars undies all knotted up.

And you're pretty dense if you think strict gun laws will stop this.   Criminals don't follow the laws and will get guns anyway.   All strict gun laws will do is render the good guys unable to defend themselves.   

The day they take our guns away here in the States is the day I respond by firing them at those who come to take them.

Another lie.  Parkland had an armed SRO, did absolutely nothing to deter or stop the carnage. 

I'm not talking about armed SRO.   I'm talking about armed teachers.   And pay them more for chrissakes!!   Lord knows they do enough. 

Seems to work pretty well in every other country in the world.  I wonder why it is that the United States of America is the only country that cannot prevent regular mass shootings from occurring?

The fact that you guys insist shootings have nothing to do with gun availability because criminals don't obey laws is delusional.  Why aren't we having regular mass chemical weapon attacks in this country?  Why aren't we having a new Timothy McVeigh every day of the year?

"Arm the groomers!" is the perfect conservative response to this kind of event.

Everything you say today is completely attached from what you said yesterday or will say tomorrow.  Yesterday, teachers were pedophiles who need to be prevented by law from grooming our children; today, they are the underpaid frontline who need to be armed to the man; tomorrow, we will need to cut taxes because of the waste from these lazy teacher's unions.

Your statement is complete bullshit.  There are mass shootings in schools and villages in third world countries and even developed areas worldwide.   Again, criminals will get guns regardless of what you do.

If people weren't allowed to own guns, there would be a LOT more crimes nationwide.

Why do you think Chicago and New York lead the nation in gun related crimes?   Because they don't allow their residents to own guns.

In other countries, mass shootings are a rare and catastrophic event, prompting an immediate response.  In America, we average more than one mass shooting a day.

Other countries' gun laws are EXTREMELY effective at preventing the kind of mass shootings that are commonplace in this country.

Because the states of New York and Illinois are not legally allowed to conduct searches at the state border, so people from gun-crazy states can just bring in whatever they want.

We trust that national bans on drugs like heroin and methamphetamine have a positive effect on our society, and the existence of drug users - and even drug addicts! - is not EVER taken to mean that drug bans are useless.

If gun free zones are such a bad idea, why are attendees at the NRA national convention, prohibited from bringing “firearms, firearm accessories, knives, and other items,” including backpacks and selfie sticks.

Yes, the NRA national convention is a gun free zone. 

SCOTUS ruled that laws that establish a mandatory minimum distance for abortion clinic protesters violate 1st Amendment freedom of speech.
But when there are rumors that some people might protest near the homes of SCOTUS families?  WE NEED SAFE SPACES IMMEDIATELY

They don't believe any of this BS; it's theater for the rubes.  Every Republican in the US Senate would sooner quit than allow civilians to bring guns into the US Capitol.

Because of Secret Service regulations.

My stance isn't exactly get rid off all of the guns. I think that the kinds of guns, like AR15s don't belong in the hands of civilians. I don't see why We the People need or should have guns like that. I suppose that if you want to go on a killing spree then that kind of a gun would be perfect, but for everyone out there who talks about home and personal protection a hand gun, shotgun etc... should be enough. Admittedly I'm not a gun guy. Really don't know anything about them. Never had one, never interested in owning I've been up in the woods of Maine and New hampshire and have shot some trees with licensed owners, and it was fun. But I just feel like owning certain kinds of guns are unnecessary, or overkill, or some guys just trying to wave their big dicks around.

Limit age purchases
Limit weapon types
background checks
armed guards at school
mental health funding

Do it all.  It's worth going too far.

When 911 happened we didn't ban airplanes. We protected the pilots. Not sure why we can send mega billions to other countries all the time yet we refuse to protect our kids, assist our Vets, and deal with our homeless.

Just like these "mass shootings" ... if it can't be turned into political fodder then you won't hear about it being an issue. 213 "mass shootings" this year but only a few are national news and coincidentally it's the ones that can be used as a poltiical tool. Media, politicians, and keyboard warriors are the biggest phonies ever.  

No, but we didn't ban airplanes.  But we did ban bringing box cutters onto airplanes. Instead maybe rather than ban the box cutters encourage all passengers to bring a box cutter on board, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a box cutter is a good guy with a box cutter.

I've seen this said a few times on social media, so I guess these were the selected conservative marching orders for this round of murders.  Blame Ukraine spending for a reason to make no legislation changes.

You can't protect everyone with guns.  Soft targets will always exist.  Cops were on the scene in this case.  They guy locked a door and killed everyone inside.

So, sure -- if you want to put money into schools to have an armed guard or whatever -- go for it.  But we both know that's not enough.  You have to do all things.  And you have to start limiting fucking assault rifles to crazy people...jesus fucking christ.  Background checks for mental health are such a simple, basic starting point.  Why do people even fight against it?  Who actually wants crazy people to have guns?

Salvador Ramos had coconspirators --- the fucking police. 

The police too cowardly to timely confront the shooter.  But this is Texas where every fucking yahoo owns a gun.  So when parents heard that their was an active shooter at their kids school they showed up with their guns. 

The cops weren't going in the rescue the kids.  But they weren't going to let the parents in either. 

So maybe it is time to update the phrase, "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" to "the only thing that stops a good guy with a gun from stopping a bad guy with a gun, is a bad cop with a badge"

Cops love the "warrior cop" mantra when it comes to tasering a nine year old in handcuffs, but when it comes actually confronting a threat to civilian lives...not so much. 

The same reason why Twitter can't use algorithms to automatically ban people who are trafficking in conspiracies about Jewish space lasers, posting racist rants about n-----rs, or advocating violent overthrow of the government:  it's going to mostly affect Republicans.

Any system that restricts "crazy people" from having guns will necessarily snare a lot more people who believe that our government is run by a bunch of pedophiles who are harvesting adrenochrome from children in the basement of a pizza parlor (i.e. extremely standard MAGA conservatives).

Republicans would never tolerate a system that prevents people like Ammon Bundy or Kyle Rittenhouse from getting a gun.

You can't protect everyone with guns but if the kids were protected before he got into the school it would have been minimized if not completely eradicated. We have security at many local government buildings where I have to empty my pockets and go through an x-ray machine to get clearance from the armed law enforcement. I have to do this just to get to Engineering for the City of Orlando. Why should it be easier for me to walk onto a school and start blasting away with a freaking rifle? I mean ... that's pretty much the hardest thing to hide and we aren't even trying? Makes no sense to me if we really "care" about protecting our kids.

That's a pretty simplistic view from the safety of a couch. They didn't know the kids were dead. They were trying to assess and confront the threat. It isn't like they were sitting back trying to get the nerve to attack him. What if half the kids were alive and they were trying to negotiate instead of attcking him and getting them killed too? There are so many variables that I couldn't begin to think them up but in the end an officer did confront him and kill him. What happened before then is anyone's guess right now.

I can't blame the cops.  They're damned if they do, damned if they don't.

I'm fine with having a marshal on site at schools, but it will only serve as a deterrent.  Realistically, you can't just go shooting people you think might be trespassers....a gunman will always have the jump on security.  This kid went in and locked the door -- there's just no stopping that, no matter who has guns.

Also, while some level of reasonable security for schools is fine, when someone is on a death mission -- none of that matters.  Plus there will always be soft targets.  Grocery stores, concerts, movies....we have to add security, yes but we have to limit the amounts of guns in the hands of crazy people.

Then you shoot the locked door and bust your way in if you're the cops.   It's as simple as that.   You signed up for this when you became a cop.  Defend innocent lives, even at the cost of your own.

I'm noticing a weird shift with this whole incident with the cops.  It started with people on the left criticizing how they handled it.  Last night Tucker Carlson was very critical about it too, and I'm seeing people on the right all over these cops.

I'm more of Dave's opinion.  It was a Sophie's Choice any way you look at it.  They don't maintain the perimeter, parents die and the cops are crucified.  You go in guns a blazing and god forbid you hit a kid, the cops are crucified.  I've heard that they were told to stand down until the border agents arrived too.  The information changes daily.

This is just further proof that more guns aren't going to help the situation.  A bunch of parents storming in there with guns wouldn't have fixed this anyway.  Armed teachers, either.  They'd be shooting each other.

An active shooter has the element of surprise.  Even if you had a gun it would take a long time to figure out what was going on -- who you should be shooting at -- if multiple people have guns and weapons, when do you know it's over?  There's a whole host of reasons that the idea of more guns is stupid.

If you wanted to have one armed officer on campus to be put in a position to respond, fine.

Even other cops are saying the cops failed to do their job.  And given how much cops defend each other during obvious fuck ups, this was a mega cluster fuck of cluster fucks.

Here's a timeline for you:

The gunman entered the school at 11:33.
Officers first entered at 11:35.
There were 19 officers in the hallway at 12:03.
That's when the 911 calls begin.
A 911 call came in from a girl in room 112 at 12:03 p.m. local time.
The call lasted one minute, 23 seconds. She identified herself and her location in a whisper.
At 12:10 p.m. local time she called back and said there were multiple dead.
She called back at 12:13 p.m. local time and again at 12:16 p.m. local time to say there were “eight to nine students alive,” McCraw laid out.
At 12:36 p.m. local time, McCraw said that on a 911 call, two or three shots could be heard.
The student called back “and was told to stay on the line and be very quiet,” McCraw said.
At one point, the girl said she could hear police nearby.
At 12:51 p.m. local time, McCraw said the call got “very loud” and sounded like officers were moving children out of the room.

This is despicable.  Utterly disgusting.  Why do we have hyper-militarized police with body armor and freaking TANKS who are standing outside in a hallway when someone is executing children in a classroom?  Apparently the only time these cops are willing to promptly use deadly force is if some unarmed brown person with a broken taillight reaches anywhere near their waistline.

Scumbags like Ted Cruz say we should arm the teachers.  How should we expect teachers to confront armed killers when THE COPS are too afraid to do it themselves?

These "make it so there is only one door in and out" responses are mind-bendingly stupid.  Do we also need dozens of kids to die in the next fire as a sacrifice to the gun god?

I can't believe they didn't allow the parents to save their kids.

The police are not legally obligated to do anything.  This is absurd to me, but if we changed the law, almost nobody would become a cop.

As citizens, it is up to ourselves to defend ourselves.

I am surprised the parents didn't just shoot the police who tried to stop them from entering.

In terms of gun control, this is something I want to know.

Most shootings I hear about, the guns were purchased legally.

This seems to contradict the idea that background checks would not stop criminals from obtaining guns.

This kid should never have been allowed to buy a gun

The teachers would be also trying to save themselves.  The cops wouldn't confront the shooter because they don't want to put themselves in danger.

The important thing is that no cops died.  They are the real heroes!

As the famous saying goes, "Better to be judged by twelve let twelve kids be executed than be carried by six."

I strongly doubt that.  Every year hundreds of thousand of Americans join the US military committing to put themselves directly in harms way if necessary.  Firefighters enter burning building to save strangers.  Punks that aren't willing to do either of those things but want to be tough guys with a gun join the police force.  

It is true that if cops were required to do their jobs, there would be less cops.  But that is okay.  Any cop who would hesitate to put themselves between a gunman and school child is useless, in fact worse than useless as they suck up tax dollars and rather than serve and protect they harass anyone they can.  

We have way too many cops.  Get rid of any cop that isn't willing to put his life on the line to protect children.  Shrink the police force.  Remove responsibilities from the police department that would be better served by other agencies -- homelessness, mental illness, etc. and use the money saved by having a smaller police force on those other agencies.      

The Chauvin verdict caused many cops to quit.  Apparently, they think kneeling on somebody's neck until they die should be allowed.  Imagine how many cops would quit if you required them to actually protect the people who pay their salaries.

A few cops may have quit in wake of Chauvin, but certainly not many.  But I wish more did.  Any cop who had a problem with the Chauvin verdict is a menace on society. 

If you, as a cop, aren't willing to put your life on the line to save a classroom full of third-graders being executed one-by-one literally in the next room, WTF use are you?  What possible value do you have left to offer when you are unwilling to do the most fundamentally basic Good Thing a cop can do?

They have more important things to do like handcuffing a 3rd grader for refusing to remove their sunglasses in class.

Who would bust all the hippies and brown people for minor marijuana possession?

Inside the safest schools in America NBC News

https://youtu.be/kcpsnrxHdCc

Only  $52.5 billion dollars to put such a system in every school in the USA.  For a system that wouldn't actually stop school shooting, but would be reasonable effective at limiting the carnage to one or two class rooms

I corrected the title.  RIP

Again, why do we give cops guns and body armor and all this absurd military surplus equipment meant to put down uprisings in Fallujah if they won't use any of it to stop third-graders from being executed 10 feet away?

Might as well totally disarm the police if that's the case.  Looks like the only time they want to shoot people is if they are unarmed.

I have seen first hand how police do not want to interact with "armed" suspects. a few years ago when I worked from home a suspect in a stolen vehicle was chased nto my neighbborhood, which wasnt a smart turn if you are familiar with my nighborhood at all. I was in my office and my roomate came to get me to tell me about the excitement. When we walked outside the guy was in my yard asking two of my friends that were over for a cigarette. the police just sat down the street with an armed suspect interacting with residents (my neighbor let the guy inside to get water). We gave him his last smoke and told him he needed togo ahead down the street and get into his ride with the cops. We had to do the police's job for them.

Did you guys get any kind of recognition from the police or town you live in for turning a suspect over to the cops? And what is it about your neighborhood that is a bad idea for turning into if you’re running from police?

All we got was a search of my property looking for the gun he tossed. The reason it's a bad idea is because there is only one entrance/exit. There is no way to get a vehicle out.

Strangely this wasn't the only chase to end at my house.  For the second I was in my office again when I heard tires screech and a loud thud. I looked outside and couldn't see anything so I stepped outside to get a full view. I spotted a car up the side/back of my house. I could see the front wheel was mangled and three young people getting out. I could tell they somehow hit the oak tree root sticking up and immediately asked if everyone was ok. They seemed off and I noticed the out of state tags so I knew something was wrong.  I went back inside, grabbed a gun, locked up and had the roommate call 911. The cops handcuffed the two older ones and had the youngest get her belongings from the car. I never heard how it all played out.

Nurses:  Risked their lives to save Covid patients wearing garbage bags as PPE.

Police: waited in the hallway wearing $1000 taxpayer purchased body armor while children were bleeding out.

With all the other needs in the community why is police resources and tax dollars being spent to provide guard 24/7 the house of Pete Arredondo? 

Hoodie is just screaming into the void now.

Nonstop since April 20. 1999.

How many more dead children will it take?

To be fair, we haven't had an instance of something else important happening, like a child somewhere reading a book in which a girl kisses another girl.
Give it time and I'm sure we'll be back to normal, where the biggest threat facing the nation is our children being taught that slavery was bad and existed in America.

While you haven't condemned the police for their actions, I will consider it progress that you, just this once haven't defended the police for arresting, pepper spraying and tasering parents while their children died from police inaction.

Ron DeSantis definitely ain't passing a law to reduce school shootings!
(unless the shooter is transgender... maybe)

hahaha ... you pick protecting kids for the line you won't cross on spending everyone else's money? It's much easier to respect liberals like Tusi Gabbard who actually throws out ideas that would help than it is a bunch of people who use the deaths of children for their self rightous agendas.

Politicians rush to send $40 billion to Ukraine, yet we don’t have enough money to protect our children with simple life saving solutions, like single points of entry to schools, staff training, mental health services, threat hotlines, and more.

^ There's the Ukraine thing again.


Go ahead and put money into making safer schools.  That's fine -- but it's just one aspect.


Also, Gabbard is a fraud and has weird Russia ties.  Be careful of her.

I don’t draw the line at spending the money.  I draw the line at pretending that the problem isn’t the gun culture but rather what we need to do is turn every school into Cheyenne Mountain.  Or divert attention from the fact the police are fucking useless piles of shit.
 
This system is just window dressing.  It does little more than teachers locking the door with a key. 

A special panic button every teacher wears doesn’t do jack shit, when cops ignore the pleas of 10 year olds that call 911. 

We need meaningful gun and police reform.  We don’t need to turn every school into a prison.

Blaming guns is like blaming the teeth of the wolf for killing sheep instead of the wolf himself. Imagine taking all the teeth from the sheep and thinking it would save them. It's the same logic with guns. You can't correct people who break the freaking law by making law abiding citizens follow more laws and I'm not sure why you don't get that except for refusing to. We need to make schools safer and pretending me turning in my guns is going to help that is just goofy ass thinking.

I litterally saw one of my freinds post recently about making all guns illegal so we can have a safe society and then she freaked when the Supreme Court leak and said if we outlaw abortions young girls will just find illegal dangerous ones. Which is is Suzy? Do people who break the law follow the new laws or not? It's pretty obvious with drugs and murder they do not.

Some of the worst mass killings in the United States have occurred without firearms:
Before the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, the deadliest attack on the LGBT community in America occurred in 1973 when an arsonist killed 32 and injured 15 at the Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans.
-In 1987, a disgruntled former airline employee killed 43 people after he hijacked and intentionally crashed a passenger plane.
-In 1990, an angry ex-lover burned down the Happy Land social club where his former girlfriend worked, killing 87 others in the process.
-In 1995, 168 people were killed and more than 600 were injured by a truck bomb parked outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
-In 2017, a man in New York City killed eight and injured 11 by renting a truck and plowing down pedestrians on a Manhattan bike path.

Do I even need to bring up 911? People with mental issues or a desire to break the law will always find a way.

While I'm on the side of severe and strict gun control, a story that I read on some news site over the wknd shows that banning firearms for citizens isn't as good as it may sound. I'm not going to be bothered with trying to dig it up. Anyone of you guys who cares can, but basically, at a graduation or birthday party in W. Va. over this past wknd an uninvited random dude crashed the party and got off a couple of indiscriminate shots into the crowd with, of course, an AR15. Didn't hit anybody. In attendance at this party was a licensed gun owner who promptly pulled out her 9mm and put that attempted mass shooter out of his misery, saving how many lives.
So score one for the 2nd Amendment, but I'm still really on the fence about gun ownership.

It works in literally every other country in the world.  The one country where guns are given out like candy just happens to also be the only country where there are more mass shootings each year than there are days in the calendar.

"No way to prevent this..."

This is a really weird way to argue that abortion, drugs, and murder should all be legal.

You don't believe any of those things, but somehow only for guns we shouldn't even TRY to outlaw them because criminals exist.  So according to you, why do we outlaw speeding?  Why do we outlaw dumping oil in the storm drain?  Why do we outlaw prostitution, or child labor, or literally anything?

Over the last FIFTY years, you have cited:

- one instance of a fertilizer bomb that directly resulted in new regulations on obtaining and transporting fertilizer; that kind of attack has not been repeated in the nearly three decades since
- one instance of a plane hijacking; you may recall that there was another instance of a plane hijacking that led to some... rather significant security changes in this country, which have very effectively curtailed the occurrence of plane hijackings in the US
- two instances of arson
- one instance of eight people being killed by a truck

Surely you do not need an explanation as to why outlawing trucks and fire is not remotely comparable to outlawing deadly weapons that serve no purpose whatsoever but to inflict injury.

If neither one of them had a gun, the outcome would have been even better.

For the "criminals can't be stopped" crew, please note that the criminal in this case Just Happened to be using a gun that is easily & readily available, and not a heavily regulated gun like an M-16.  How convenient that criminals always seem to prefer to use guns that can be legally acquired easily, instead of deadlier guns that are legally more difficult to acquire!  Seems relevant to the discussion.

Five mass killings without guns over the span of 35 years.  Of those five at least two of which resulted in changes in federal law.  We have more than 5 mass killing with guns every 35 days.  More people die from guns in the USA every month than died on 9.11.

I am not proposing banning all guns.  Nor would what I am proposing eliminate all mass shootings.  But would eliminate most of them.

1. Eliminate the Dickey amendment.  It is easier to solve a problem if you can research it and collect data.  If you support the Dickey amendment what do you fear we will learn? 

2. Require all gun owners to be licensed.  Require all guns to be registered.  Require all gun transfers to recorded.  End the gun show loopholes.   Yes, you can still sell a gun to a friend (you don't need to go to thru a dealer) just as you can sell a car to a friend.  But you need to file paperwork.

3. The following are not allowed to own or possess a gun:  any conviction of a violent felony, any conviction of domestic violence, any conviction of violating gun laws, any conviction of animal abuse, any adjudication of not guilty by reason of insanity, any felony drug conviction,  any crime involving a gun, any person who went thru a diversion program to avoid a DV or violent crime conviction and anyone who has an current restraining order.  Close ALL the loop holes to domestic violence prohibition with no exceptions.  It is perfectly constitutional to regulate behavior.  We don't let felons vote, we certainly don't need to let violent felons have concealed carry.

4. Raise the purchase age to 21. Person's under 21 may only possess a gun while actively under supervision during target practice or while hunting.  We don't allow people under 21 access to alcohol or tobacco we can do the same with guns.  As for the oh...but...but..but...but...w e let people join the military under 21....but they can't own a gun.....  An exception can be carved out for anyone who has completed IET and successfully completed their branch's firearms training.  Processing the authorizing of underage firearm permits will be administrated by the SecDef who can delegate such to individual services.  Please note almost every school shooting is done by boys under the age of 21. 
 
5. Require all stored guns to be stored unloaded and secured.  Attach class E felony liability for failure to do so (and see point 3) 

6. If an owner of negligently stores a firearm or gives the firearm to someone who is not allowed to possess a firearm (not licensed, minor, etc) and the firearm is subsequently used in a crime the owner is criminally and civilly liable to the same level as aiding and abetting. 

7. Make gun theft reporting mandatory.  Failure to do so in a timely manner is a felony. 

8.  Make possession of a ghost gun a felony.  You can make a homemade gun if you want.  But you must registered it and engrave it with a serial number.  Possession of an unregistered gun is a felony in its own right and can be introduced as evidence of intention to commit other crimes. 

9. Repeal PLCAA.  Treat guns like every other consumer product.  The gun industry is the ONLY industry with such protection. 

I heard about that too.  Only 2% of all bad guys with a gun are stopped by a good guy with a gun.  The NRA will use this a proof not enough people have 9mms. I think the problem is that a convicted felon with an extensive criminal history had access to an AR-15.  

Finally ...  you have found the issue and the person who needs to be dealt with.

How did he get it?  Did someone give it to him?  Did he buy it a gun show?  Off ebay as a kit?  Did someone leave it loaded in a car?  Who owned it before him? 

Gun reform is NOT about making guns illegal.  It is about laws that prevent guns from getting in the hands of criminals.  You may note that is exactly what my 9 point plan addressed. 

This is guy is my favorite youtuber.....He is funny and insightful.  But this was his first video that caused me to tear up.

This is America today.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5JzV_yb1fQ

I knew it would be Beau of the Fifth Column before clicking the link.

CF, that YouTube channel is run by the kind of liberal that I think you would probably understand more, instead of the caricatures of transgender communists that Fox News tells you about every day.

I just want to give props to these tangible solutions.  I'm not sure they're all possible, but they are real, reasonable steps and I don't think they'd trample on the rights of good people who want to own guns.

In my (somewhat limited) experience with gun enthusiasts, none of the things here would hamper their style and in fact are already in line with what they're doing -- people who love guns also love training, certification, safe storage, etc.  The kind of person who wants to make sure their guns aren't registered probably don't have the best head about the situation.

I particularly like banning weapons to felons and people who use guns in crime.  Stopping loopholes and having everything work like cars also makes a lot of sense.  We just need to shift our thinking in how this stuff works.  The right kind of people that want guns won't be negatively affected.

Thanks for the props, but none of them are originally my ideas.  Many of them were taken from Beau of the Fifth Column.  (Spider already knew that)  Spider probably figure out I was a Beau fan because of how much I have used his points in my all time favorite video.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M6CXhUS-x8

Don't know how many times I have to remind you that I don't watch Fox News. I did find it interestinng that Jack Dorsey recently admitted left leaning individuals on Twitter typically only follow liberals while right leaning individuals tend to follow both ideals.  You know ... it does kind of support the rhetoric you guys continue to spout. Just sayin' ... LOL.

Okay, your favorite news source is the even less reliable Daily Mail. 

Read an interesting theory today, to explain what happened/lack of cooperation afterwards, etc.  One or more of the 19 children were shot by a police bullet, not the shooter.  The subsequent cluster fuck was them trying to figure out how to cover it up.  While there is no hard evidence of this, it certainly would explain all the lying, inaction, refusal to cooperate with other agency investigations, etc.

I just had the most depressing conversation with a friend at lunch today.  She looked like she had been crying and I asked her what was wrong. 

She said the school shooting had her upset.  I asked, “was there another one today?”  She said “no, god at least I hope not”.  We both then checked our phones just to make sure.  She has twin 9 year-olds. So I asked, “The shooting in Texas hit particularly close to home?”  She says “yeah, the conversation I had this morning was just awful.  Kids asked me at breakfast what photo I would use when they got shot.  At first I didn’t understand what they were asking.  And then they explained that after every school shooting they always do a collage of the kids killed.  And they wanted to know what photos I had picked out for them. This was NOT a conversation I wanted to have, so I tried to reassure them that despite them being big news stories, school shootings are extremely rare and that it is very unlikely I will ever have pick such a photo. They persisted and demanded I tell them what photos.  So I picked their most recent school photos and tried to change the subject.  They didn’t like those photos and picked out photos for me to use instead. They then wanted to know what photo I wanted.  I told them I don’t have to worry about school shootings.  They pointed out that I do go to the grocery store two or three times a week.  So I picked out a photo.  As I drove them to school they told me how they wanted their caskets decorated.  So yeah, it hit way too close to home.  They are only nine years old.  This isn’t something they should be thinking about.  And it isn’t something I should have to worry about as a mother.  How did our society get this fucked up?”   

Because you went from organized crime families to complete whack jobs.  Back in the old days, gangsters and outlaws had an honor code. Part of that code was that places like schools and churches were off limits.   These days, nobody gives a shit and will do whatever they want.

Just to be clear: your theory is the root cause of school shootings is the take down of the Gambino crime family?

More like the weakening of all crime families nationwide.   They wouldn't tolerate that type of behavior in their cities. 

Would be pretty difficult for them to stop it.  For the most part the shooters go into with the expectation of dying and wouldn’t be concerned about mob retribution.  And I doubt the mob would be filling the role of SRO.

But wait, Well maybe…….

Much of the mob business was protection.  So probably they wouldn’t want ordinary folks to get armed themselves, they might run gun shops out of town or own them themselves so they could keep track of who had a gun and make sure they don’t fall into the hands of psychopaths.

It is also possible that if the child or grandchild of a mob member was a random victim of a school shooting, the mob might decide the retribution would include killing the gun shop owner that sold the punk a gun along with the entire family of the gun shop owner.  That would motivate other gun shop owners to be more careful with future sales.

And it is also possible the mob might be effective at knowing which people in the community were psychos and take forceful action in removing their access to guns.

And the mob wouldn’t be encumbered by NRA bought politicians and 2A extremists.  They could have meaningful “laws” to limit gun access and do background checks.  And could have a swift and meaningful “red flag” system.

So mob organized gun control….without the boundaries imposed by the gun industry lobby or their fictional rewrite of what 2A intended.   Interesting curiosity. 

Obviously allowing the mob to continue and letting them run cities had a host of other problems and so their take down was a net positive and this isn’t close to being a serious solution.

Buf you would support mob (criminal) run gun control but not civilian run gun control.  Got it.

Watch this video.  If you don't have the full 7 mins, feel free to watch til 1:20 and then skip to 3:02.  Or even just start at 3:02.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVZ1c9O2L6Y

After further thought, the problem is not the cost.  It is claiming that this school is in fact safer than other schools.  It is not.  Not one bit.  In many ways this is more security theater than actual security. 

Admittedly it has a more robust system at preventing SECONDARY KILL ZONES than most other schools.  But it has the exact same risk of having a MASS SHOOTING as every other school in America.

Every aspect of this system is designed around a single concept: once the shooting starts, limit the shooters freedom of movement and limit him to a single location.   Once the first shot is fired, he is denied freedom of movement in the hallways and classroom doors are locked.  The only students who are at serious risk of being shot are the ones in the immediate vicinity of the first shot.  And it is an outstanding system for doing that.  It would require outstanding planning and strong combat skills on behalf of the killer to achieve  multiple kill zones in this school.  The upper limit of those killed and injured in an attack on this school would be 25-30.

But here is the rub:  Most schools have achieved the same single kill zone harm reduction mitigation through much simpler methods, replacing non-locking wooden doors with locking metal ones and eliminating interconnecting classrooms.  It is still possible for there to be two kill zones if the shooter spends less than a minute in the first kill zone.  And as some schools have decided that the educational value of team teaching outweighs the security risks and have some interconnecting classrooms with the single kill zone being 50-60 people instead of 25-30.  But almost every school has had protocols in place for 20 years that effectively limit the shooter to a single kill zone.  Admittedly some of them might not be as hard to defeat by a well prepared and organized killer as the system in this school.  But multiple kill zones during school shooting hasn't really been a problem for 20 years.  And limiting the casualty count to under 30 is never considered a win.

I am not interested in spending time, money or other resources on creating more robust and complex systems of limiting shooter to single kill zones and limiting the victim count to 30 or less, which is all this system does.

The single kill zone harm reductions systems were a logical response and useful FIRST step.  But we achieved everything we can achieve with that system by locking the door and barricading the door with classroom furniture. 

It is now time to take the second step and implement changes that will prevent the first death.  And that can't be done by more advanced security systems or arming teacher.  Preventing the first death requires keep guns out of the hands of would be shooters. 

It's fine if you want to put a bunch of money into making schools physically more impenetrable.  It will probably be most effective in reducing the likelihood of shootings THERE, but will just move them to other soft targets.

However, at this stage, I'm not about to turn down someone trying to do something positive to limit the carnage, as I don't want them to try to stop what I want, either.

However, it definitely will not solve the underlying issue, which is that a crazy person with a gun is going to go someone and try to murder as many people as possible.  So, making impenetrable schools will do something to that school on that day, but there are water parks, concerts, sporting events, grocery stores, malls, parades, festivals, graduations, etc -- you can't have security and metal detectors everywhere, all the time.

It doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to make schools safe -- fine.  But that's one part of a larger host of issues.

If you want to make schools impenetrable then fine.  Nothing in that video does that. 

Making an elementary school impenetrable:. One way in.  Multiple armed guards at entrance.  Needs to be multiple because any one halfway competitant can pop off a single guard if he has the  element of surprise.  Maybe one in the open and two observing behind cover.  Being we haven't had a problem with parents or others that would have a legitimate reason for being at the school using access to commit murder this should be sufficient if we just keep strangers out.

High school different story.  Here most of the shooters are students with a legitimate reason to be in the school.  So in addition to guards we need TSA style security.  To prevent a handgun in a backpack or an ak in a violin case. Similar to what you see at a courthouse.  Problem will number of people going thru the system in a very small time window.  So you will need lots of equipment and personal.  Keep in mind courthouse employees, law enforcement etc don't go thru courthouse security just the visitors.

Of course this all dependant on the officers being willing to engage the shooter.  There are two types of LEO that sign up for school duty.  One type would be someone highly motivated to protect children the other choose school duty because it is safer and easier than patrol duty, cops who are motivated not to protect kids but to come home to their own kids.  Which ones were in Tx  or Parkland? 

If we are going to turn out schools into prisons let's at least focus on preventing the first kill zone, rather than focus on limiting the carnage to a single kill zone.

I see the reasoning behind point 5 but it is bullshit for those of us gun owners who don't have children or allow children into our homes. It's useless for home protection if unloaded and locked away.

I can compromise.  You may keep a loaded gun within arms reach.  So on the nightstand while sleeping, next to you in the living room.etc. You can not have an unsecured gun in a different room or unoccupied car.  Based on why you want a gun, I would assume you see a value in keeping it within arms reach. A gun that you have physical control over is not a stored gun and doesn't need to be unloaded.

I think that's a reasonable compromise and can see storage differently when not at home. I don't know about your different room stipulation. Too fine a line if I need to take a piss, get a glass of water, etc.

You want it for home security, right?.  What use is having a loaded glock on the bedroom nightstand if the home invasion begins when you are in the kitchen?  Isn't that just as problematic as the gun being locked? If you are worried enough to want to have a loaded gun I would think you would want to always have access.  But I think we can still find some sort of middle ground.  My concern is your gun being stolen and then used that is less likely if you have control over it.  Less flexibility if minors in house.

So you're conceding that the school isn't safe.   It's doors were not secure.  The police refused to act.   And the FBI knew about this guy.

But people like you get on your soapbox and say that the problem will be solved by taking away the right to own firearms from everyone

Huh?  I am not sure your point on most of that.  But I did not say the problem would be solved by taking away everyones right to a firearm.  Why would I be discussing the difference between storing a gun and having it under active physical control if the plan was to take away everyones gun.

 There very tiny subset of people whose conduct and poor life choices would result in loss of gun ownership rights.  Did you not see that list? Or did you read that list and realize your own poor life choices placed you in the tiny fraction of society that should not own firearms?

Well, I mean, that would absolutely solve the problem but could create other problems.

ArtieChokePhin -

You haven’t answered my question.  My proposal would not take firearms from everyone just a small set of people who have engaged in violent behavior and made poor life choices.  Isn’t it true that your opposition to disarming violent persons is rooted in your own history of violence and that you would be a member of that very small set of people who would be denied access to firearms?  You claim that the breakdown of society stems from a lack of accountability, but that only applies to others, isn’t that right?  You don't feel remorse for your own violent actions or the harm it has caused others but you resent any personal consequences you have had for that behavior, right?  My proposal would interfere with your free reign to bully and hurt others but would not affect the gun rights of your victims and you are scared by that, right?

Not trying to defend but I recently got an inside scoop of something that might have affected the outcome here.

In the fight for "defunding" police many departments quit training for these type of events. Many places now focus more on how to keep police from getting into public trouble and less resources /training/equipment against attacks like this. The person that brought this to my attention was part of the Pulse response. They also stated they are less prepared today for this type of event than they were 5 years ago for this very reason.

Obviously I can't say for sure but it makes sense when split second decisions under duress matter.

As it is, convicted felons and people who have domestic violence restraining orders on them can't possess guns.  That's how it should stay.   You start going into mental health history, you're basically saying that HIPAA laws have no merit anymore.

And as for me personally, I've committed no crimes in my life and I don't fight unless it's for defense.  You assuming I'm a bully out to hurt people pretty much tells me all I need to know about you. 

The Uvalde PD specifically trained for school shootings in March of this year (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/04/uvalde-police-training-school-shooter-response-time), for all the good it did.  And as part of that training, the following statement was given:

“A first responder unwilling to place the lives of the innocent above their own safety should consider another career field.”

But according to this theory you cited, as a result of the anti-police brutality movement, police are not only putting their own safety above the lives of the innocent... now they are also putting the possibility of any professional criticism over the lives of 4th graders being systematically executed in the next room.

Essentially, you are saying that the police could have stopped this massacre within 3 minutes of it starting (https://www.npr.org/2022/06/21/1106372103/uvalde-shooting-timeline-3-minutes-pete-arredondo), but intentionally chose not to because they would rather let children die than face the possibility of people saying mean things about them.  That would be a FAR more damning indictment of the police... especially since people are saying a lot worse than "defund" right now!  Their disgusting cowardice didn't even work to achieve their only goal of avoiding public criticism!

I'm sayinng some places are putting political correctness above preparing for evil or enforcing the law. See places like Washington  State, Minneapolis, New York City and LA for how well that is working out. I honestly have no idea what happened in TX. Just stating what I heard from someone who has dealt with worst of the worst and didn't just read about it.

Well, we can see that in TX, where politicians disavow "defund the police" with full-throated enthusiasm, the police has reached the absolute pinnacle of rank cowardice in standing by idly as children are executed one-by-one in the next room.  So what could be worse than that?  What kind of hellish dystopia is currently happening in WA state, MPLS, NYC, and LA that is worse than the disgusting debacle that just took place in the very heart of crimson-red small-town Texas?  I don't remember hearing about any of those heavily defunded police departments sitting on their hands while listening to the screams of children being murdered 10 feet away for over an hour.

Like I said, they won't because their lives are not in danger.

In the shooting I cited, the citizens AND the security personnel responding because their lives were in danger.

If the officers of a city's police department are unwilling to intervene in the hour-long systematic execution of children in the next room because "their lives are not in danger," they serve no purpose whatsoever and should all be summarily fired, if not prosecuted.

The police are apparently unwilling to use their ample weaponry on someone other than unarmed brown people.

Spoken like a true race baiting MF.

That's my point.  That's why we need armed citizens.

Nah, this isn't race baiting at all.  True race baiting would be doing something like this clown (https://newsone.com/3838215/florida-state-football-coach-meme-tom-shand/), who was summarily fired for being a racist dirtbag.  It takes a special kind of talent to become nationally famous for your racism when you're not even a celebrity.  What a pathetic loser!  I'm sure you would agree that there are few people in this country as pitiful and wretched as that openly obvious racist, right?

A nation full of George Zimmermans and Kyle Rittenhouses is not the answer.
The solution is to fire these incompetent cowards and replace them with real police.

99.9% of people will only respond to a crisis if their lives are in danger.

We simply won't be able to hire enough police officers who are willing to act the way you are saying.

You shouldn't let these deplorable cowards in Uvalde shape your opinion of your fellow Americans as a whole.

We have plenty of brave people in our fire departments all across the nation who regularly put themselves in danger to save the lives of others.  Similarly, there are many patriots serving in our military who have more courage and self-sacrifice in their little finger than the entire Uvalde Police Department.

Not all Americans are as selfish and heartless as the police officers who stood by stone-faced as fourth-graders were executed one-by-one in the next room.

Fire fighters fight fires, not active shooters.  They are brave men and women, but facing an active shooter is much more dangerous.

Military soldiers fight for their own self-preservation too.  It's a different situation than police officers responding to an active shooter.

The fact remains: firefighters don't run away from fires, they run into them.
Not all Americans are as cowardly as the Uvalde PD.

I hope you are right Spider, but from what I've seen I'm not hopeful.

Officers quit in protest against murdering people.  Do you think people will actually become police officers if they are held responsible to the people they are supposed to protect?

I remember reading that story in the Miami Herald.  Apparently it made national news.   That guy is a dumbass but he wasn't even baiting.  He was being a full blown racist.

You on the other hand, bringing your defund the police and BLM agenda into this situation is flat out baiting.  

CF is the one who brought "defund the police" into the discussion as an excuse for why the Uvalde PD refused to act.

So you're gonna keep that same energy and call him the "race baiting MF" now, right?
Or is it only "race baiting" when criticizing the police?

AHEM!!!!


This is race baiting at it's finest.   If you don't realize it, then you are really dense.


Now THIS is more along the lines of a fair criticism of the police as well as a fair opinion on gun control.  The above quote is a really fucked up opinion.

No, it is a pretty spot observation.  The police DO shoot unarmed African-Americans at a shockingly high rate and they DO shy away from confronting actual shooters. 

Again, you liberals need to actually do some research.   More white people get killed by police than black people.  Not to mention, at least in the state of Florida, there are more white people on death row than black people

Tell me why this statement is stupid.

True, but irrelevant for two reasons:

1. There are more white people than black people. Per capita, more African-Americans are killed by police than whites.

2.  I wasn't talking about all people.  I was specifically talking about unarmed people.  More unarmed African-American's are killed by the police than unarmed whites.   

But how many of these said people are committing crimes is the question

Point 2 is mostly false.  This year so far 1 unarmed white person was killed and 2 unarmed black people were killed.  The same amount of unarmed whites ( 8 ) and blacks ( 8 ) were killed in 2021.  In 2020 more unarmed whites (26) were killed than blacks (18).  In 2019 more unarmed white's (26) where killed than blacks (12).  Whites outnumber blacks in unarmed police deaths every year before that going back to 2015 where blacks (38) outnumbered whites (31).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/)

While I'm happy to have the discussion about police brutality, it's off-topic in this thread.

You claimed I was "race baiting" by bringing defund the police and BLM into the thread, but CF was the person who brought it up... as an excuse for why the Uvalde PD refused to do their job.  So why are you diverting the conversation into crime statistics?  Why aren't you criticizing your fellow conservative for "race baiting" by sidetracking this discussion into BLM?

Seems like you are fine with introducing "defund" and BLM into a discussion as long as it's in service of a) making excuses for the cops or b) assigning blame to brown people.  You were super energetic about calling me out as a "race baiting MF" when you thought I was the one who brought up police protests, but when I point out that it was another person on your team who shoehorned it into the discussion, suddenly you've lost all interest in that and it's time to change the subject.

If you want to call out CF for inserting BLM where it doesn't belong, then do so.  But in this instance, we are criticizing police for their selfish cowardice, not their more-common wanton brutality.

Because he doesn't go bitching about it in every thread like you do.   That act is getting tired and old.

None of them.  In not a single one of these cases did they stand trial and adjudicated guilty.  So it is impossible to know if they committed the alleged offense.

However, the alleged offense of many of the killed AA were misdemeanors or civil violations. 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/02/us/pete-arredondo-resigns-uvalde-city-council/index.html

It was unquestionably the right thing to do.  But it just took way too fucking long.  I am noticing a pattern with this douchebag.

If any of you have the courage to watch this video, you're braver than I am.

Why the Austin American-Statesman chose to publish video from inside Robb Elementary (https://www.statesman.com/story/opinion/columns/2022/07/12/uvalde-shooting-video-austin-american-statesman-editor-investigation-publish/65371937007/)

Sorry, but I don't have the stomach to watch a video of armed cops fleeing because they heard gunfire in a classroom full of children, then refusing to take a single step back down the hallway for 44 minutes.  Maybe one of our more pro-law-enforcement members can watch it and report on whether that description is accurate.

Look at this asshole with a Punisher wallpaper on his phone, as he stands at a safe distance down the hall from a classroom of children being slaughtered:

(https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/943eb641eb6349ae49e7dfb5bbc3f7fab2f02db365c8bc83c36c41e0734884a0.jpg?w=600&h=373)

What a pathetic coward.  Again, the only time these guys are "brave" is when they are confronting some unarmed person with a broken taillight, or maybe a 12-year-old with a squirt gun.  Then it's time to start blasting!

These cops needs to be sued by the parents of the dead kids for millions of dollars.

Or better yet, they should be locked up.  As a cop, your job is to serve and protect.  That means defending innocent lives, even if it costs you your own.

I really hope you are referring to the officers in the video and not all officers. I think things like the Pulse shooting have proved otherwise. In fact many police are former miltary who actually have experience in war zones. There are local shootouts on local levels that happen all too often and the police agresssively go after the shooter. Like the sorry arse SRO in the Parkland shootings, these are isolated instances.

I don't know squat about this, but is there an expectation that cops put their lives on the line to protect civilians?  I'm being literal -- is it asked of them to do something that can get them killed, or is it at the cop's discretion as the scene?

Damn right there is an expectation.  Cops and firefighters are your soldiers that don't get deployed to foreign places.  They are expected to put their life on the line to protect yours.

And we should give them the same respect we give soldiers for doing so.

Is that your expectation or an actual expectation of the job?  I was under the impression that it's not....I think I'd heard that before.

No.  Unlike soldiers, police have no duty to protect the public (https://prospect.org/justice/police-have-no-duty-to-protect-the-public/), as per a 1989 Supreme Court ruling.

Soldiers who behaved in the way these police did would be instantly court-martialed and would be headed to Leavenworth for a long time.

In this entire thread, you have yet to voice a single word of criticism for the Uvalde PD and how they handled this debacle.  And upon the release of this video, the first comment you have is... you'd better be talking about only the cops in this video!  Priorities must be maintained.

Any cop who defends the action in this video is just as bad as the cops in the video.  Police in this country act like a gang, with a code of omerta just like the mafia; the cops who may not themselves be directly taking corrupt action will pull out every stop to defend and obstruct attempts to hold corrupt cops accountable.  And the officers that DO attempt to bring corrupt cops to justice are punished by their fellow officers under the very same code.

Pulse is *YOUR* best example of police officers acting bravely to save others.  You choose this as the best example of cops acting bravely.  

It should be noted that of the 49 killed and 58 injured, none of the cops lost their lives in the incident and one suffered a very minor injury.    
It took the police approximately THREE HOURS to confront and kill the perpetrator.

Like in Uvalde it is impossible to know how many of the 49 that died could have been saved if they received medical attention earlier, like in Uvalde it is impossible to know how many victims would not have been shot if the police engaged earlier drawing his gun fire away from civilians and towards the police.  

But what most certainly is known that at the Pulse night club just like at Uvalde the police placed their own safety above saving others.  This is shown both by length of time it took to engage and the almost complete lack of police injuries and death.  

And like in Uvalde law enforcement did its utmost to protect the reputations of the police that engaged in cowardice behavior.  Investigations into the police were heavily redacted.  Footage was hidden from public scrutiny.    

What you claim is the best example of police acting bravely.  Is in fact police acting like the cowards they are.  Police didn't risk their lives to save other they waited as long as possible let many die and then only well after there was more than enough fire power on the scene to kill the perpetrator with almost no risk to the officers did they engage. 

Implicitly he admitted the Uvalde PD fucked up while blaming the "defund the police" movement for diverting training resources.  

So he assigned fault to the "defund the police" movement.
Again, not a single word of criticism for the Uvalde PD. They did the best they could while being constantly undermined by the wokesters!

has police actually been defunded really ? .. cause it doesn't look like it

Sorry, I didn't realize my criticism of the police involved was required for this thread. While immediatley I didn't have many facts on the case ( So i didn't criticize them) it has been proven that in fact they failed miserably in their response. I still don't know why it was so bad but I'd be pretty embarrased and sick with myself if that was me. 

In general I caution to criticize police because most times it is proven they acted in the right. More people jump the gun to attack them than support them and are typically incorrect about most facts of the situation. That doesn't appear to be the case here.

It has in extreme liberal cities and as a result crime is way up in places like Portland, St Paul, Philly and New York City.

Since you seem to be confident in your response, please elaborate.

In which ways have police been "defunded" in those cities?
Has crime in the cited cities increased relative to 2019 (i.e. before the pandemic and George Floyd)?
Has crime also increased in large cities located in deep-red states where "defund the police" has no power?

It would be pretty silly to blame "defund the police" for a crime increase in NYC and Portland if crime also increased in St. Louis and Dallas, right?

I don't know why I even bother to check, nothing you post is ever remotely true.

NYC 2023 police budget $5.53 billion.  2022 was $5.44 billion. That is an increase, less than the increase the police was asking for but still and increase. For context the Ukraine military budget for 2022 was $5.40 billion.  The NYC police department receives enough funding to go to war with Russia. 

Portland 21-22 $230 million.  Police department asked for $253.5 million.  CBO is recommending $240 million.  That is not defunding. (And larger than the military budget of Honduras).

Once again St. Paul saw increase as well.

Philly did see a budget cut because of an overall city budget problem not defending the police movement. 

 

Consider that if you gave me $100 two years ago and $200 last year, if you give me $250 this year then you have defunded me by $50.

This is the logic used any time we talk about spending on the military or law enforcement.  This logic is not used for any other sector of the government, especially not schools or social services.

Rather than your critism of the cowards in Uvalde I am interested in your justificatilon for the police inaction at Pulse. Critism of Uvalde is trivially easy.  But for the life of me I can not fathom the rationale for waiting 3 hours to engage an active shooter, yet you cited this as an example of police acting bravely.  Why? How?

LOL ... like always you post half of the facts to try and support your lies. It's basically the whole add some truth to the lie so they will believe it. They most certainly cut millions before adding it back recently.

Among the rallying cries were “defund the police” — a call for elected officials to reallocate some law enforcement funding elsewhere. In June 2020, the Portland City Council and the mayor answered by cutting millions from the police budget.

Now, a year and a half later, officials partially restored the cut funds. On Wednesday, the Portland City Council unanimously passed a fall budget bump that included increasing the current $230 million police budget by an additional $5.2 million. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/portland-among-u-s-cities-adding-funds-to-police-departments#:~:text=In%20June%202020%2C%20the%20Portland,partially%20restored%20the%20cut%20funds.

I originally only looked at current year's budget.  Portland did see a slight in 20-21 vs 19-20. After 18=20 saw growth that vastly exceeded inflation.  But that is not refund the police.

Defund the police is permanently cutting the police budget signifcantandly and shifting the money to social programs.  That has not happened.  A sight dip after multiple years of huge increases followed by another increase is not defund the police.

But why fund the police at all if they won't engage shooters?  Why does the Orlando police justify a single penny after letting people die for three hours?

What justificatilon exists for waiting three hours?

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/17/law-enforcement-failure-uvalde-shooting-investigation/

In total, 376 law enforcement officers — a force larger than the garrison that defended the Alamo — descended upon the school in a chaotic, uncoordinated scene that lasted for more than an hour. The group was devoid of clear leadership, basic communications and sufficient urgency to take down the gunman, the report says.

Well, you know what they say: you need at least 377 extensively-trained good guys with guns to stop one bad guy with a gun executing schoolchildren.  If it wasn't for Defund The Police, maybe our law enforcement could have had enough officers and weapons to quickly take down this one armed teenager.  Alas!

In conclusion, There's No Way We Can Prevent This Kind Of Thing From Happening, which is why it happens all the time in many countries all over the world, and not just in this broken country full of morons.

The more that comes out the more it appears leadership and training were the issue. While some of them panicked under pressure the majority were doing as told.

We recently had a guy here in little ole Mt Dora kill his father and then shoot at police during a chase. The police didn't shy away and went right at him and eventually took him out. The ending of this chase and shootout is pretty intense but it's just small town cops doing their jobs as most officers do. they even saved the guy afterwards. For those reasons they will always get the benefit of the doubt from me until proven otherwise.

https://youtu.be/WyCFQocjTOc

This video offers zero evidence that these police officers place the safety of the general population above their own.

Nobody denies that if you are firing a weapon at a police officer they will return fire.  Nor that a police officer will risk his life when a FELLOW POLICE OFFICER is being shot at.  The problem is police in Uvalde, Parkland, Pulse etc remain behind cover when it is children or civilians rather than other police who are at risk.

It should be noted that at 2:16 one of the police officers (deputy #2) if he had chosen to could have ended the chase eliminating the risk that the truck driver might crash into an innocent bystander.  However that would have required placing his safety at peril.  THAT would have been heroic.  He choose not to and rather followed behind the chase.  

It should also noted that while Grinnall makes a point of chastising media for not showing all of the video that he released it should be noted that he choose not to release the body and dash cam footage of deputy #2 allowing the fleeing suspect to pass by him without engaging.  When such an obvious example of the police selectively releasing cam footage to show an incomplete picture they don't get the benefit of the doubt and I wonder what else there might have been on the unreleased video portions that might not have shown the police in the most favorable light.  This video obviously does NOT begin at the beginning of call.  I wonder what else is missing.  

Also police doing their job should be the norm not a rare event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSZG5eKfqGg

Somebody explain to me how the 911 dispatcher gets charged with manslaughter but the cops in Uvalde don't. 

Texas vs. Pennsylvania

Because they're different cases in different areas, with different public sentiment.  Also, one can be an under-reaction and another an over-reaction.  It's a big country with a lot going on.


There's always "how was this old lady arrested for jay-walking but OJ walks free?" conversations but they're never helpful.

Ever heard the term "we write the report?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFfH2UCfJ7E

Um ... it's called evidence. I can't count on my hands how many liberals changed their tune once they went through a police training to see how easy it is for someong to kill them. I for one, am amazed how easy it is to shoot an officer by a running suspect who never even turns around. If the job was easy everyone would be doing it but no, just those irritating alphas.

The term "we write the report" does not mean "evidence"  But you are familiar with that term and what it means, right?   If you don't maybe watch that video.   

And what happens when the "report" doesn't match the evidence? Do they discount the evidence or the report?

Problem is sometimes the report is all of the "evidence"  However, random citizen with a cell phone camera is what allows us to know the truth.

This was the "report" in the Floyd case. 

https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1384622849562873856/photo/1

After viewing the body camera footage but this was the report.