is to shoot me in the back.
Yet another very difficult post to write.
Before commenting on something, I prefer to get as much information as I can. That way, I don’t sound like the idiot most people think I am. But at this point, it just isn’t possible.
All the information about the Uvalde, Texas school shooting isn’t available yet, and won’t be for some time. But there are a few established facts. Security protocols were not followed, doors were left open, security personnel was nowhere to be found, inadequately trained and ill-equipped police officers used poor judgment, and children died.
Again, the facts about this horrific catastrophe are not yet available, but already I hear people saying that we need to learn more from this tragedy. We must stay calm, refrain from casting blame, study the facts, debate them, and finally, legislate to keep disasters like this from ever occurring again. If that’s the correct course of action, where are the lessons learned from Columbine?
I agree that we need to do something. I even have some commonsense solutions of my own, but the time for that isn’t now.
At the moment, I only have two questions. First. How much learning do we need to do?
If I see a four-year-old child standing in the middle of the road, I don’t have to see her hit by a speeding car to know that I need to pull over, dodge rush-hour traffic, and get that child to safety.
If I know a heavily armed gunman has breached security and entered an elementary school, I don’t need to wait for children to die before I go in and do what’s necessary, especially if that is my job.
When I think about what happened, I try to empathize with the parents of those children. If I saw that police ignored 911 calls from inside the school and refused to do their job, I’d have no choice, I must go in myself. The only way to stop me would be to shoot me in the back.
It’s really simple math. If the gunman is shooting at me, he isn’t shooting at my kid. The gunman only has as much ammo as he can carry, and the more he wastes on me, the better. If others go in with me then our chances of success greatly increase. Sadly, this fact eluded the trained police officers at the scene.
I’m appalled.
Oh yeah. I almost forgot my second question. Did any of those police officers, waiting around for over an hour, lose a son or daughter?
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