One thing is very clear about what happened in Texas. Active-shooter drills, guards with guns and locked or unlocked doors won’t stop a person armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. The door would get shot open in half a second. And if they have full body armor, which this guy had, it’s even harder to stop him.
It also seems the police didn’t go into the school for a very long 40 minutes, with parents of the children begging them to do so. That is just breaking and no doubt will be investigated. We hope, if this turns out to be true, that there is severe fallout. Time will tell.
The other thing that is crystal clear is that along with monitoring mental health – which needs to be seriously upgraded – no one, absolutely no one needs to own an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Not farmers, not hunters and certainly not people living in cities. If this shooter used a handgun, many lives would have been saved, armor or not.
AR-15s were created for war, to kill as many of the enemy as quickly as possible. It was made to inflict much more damage to human tissue than the typical handgun. It is now by far the most – if not only – used weapon in mass shootings.
There are 400 million guns in the United States. There are 330 million people in the United States. Something is very wrong with those numbers.
Now for the Texas gun laws. People aged 18 and over can buy a handgun from another Texas resident in a private sale with few if any restrictions: No background check…No record of sale…No permits required.
There is no waiting period to buy a gun from a firearms dealer in Texas. There is no state firearm registry in Texas.
While you must be 18 to buy a handgun or a long gun, there is no minimum age to possess firearms under Texas law. So, parents and legal guardians are allowed to give written permission for one to be sold or given to a minor as a gift. In other words, your ten year old can have a gun in Texas. Now that is particularly special.
The murderer on Tuesday had legally bought two AR-15 automatic rifles days before the attack, soon after his 18th birthday.
Another issue in the United States is the ease with which guns can be purchased, legally or illegally. If you think this is part of the second amendment and right to bear arms, here are a few words that may begin to change your mind. It came from a reader of Blanche who lives in the United States:
“My daughter is very involved in the U.S in restorative justice. Through speaking to young men in prison, she learned that if any former 17 or 18 year sentenced to jail for life is asked why they killed someone, they all have the same answer – obtaining guns was like obtaining candy for them. It was too easy.”
They weren’t mentally ill- they were a product of society. No background checks and immediate access to guns – especially in the heat of the moment ruined many livesforever.
Talk about timing is everything. This weekend an NRA (National Rifle Association) convention will be taking place in Houston Texas, about 275 miles from Uvalde, where the latest mass shooting occurred.
This convention, according to Houston’s mayor, has been in the making for over two years and simply cannot be cancelled.
It also just so happens that such conventions are places where guns and rifles, yes AR-15 automatic rifles – are sold with no background checks. It’s called the gun show loophole. In other words, any yahoo – with or without mental health issues, gets to buy whatever he or she wants on the spot.
There is a way to stop mass shootings. This past April, Australia marked the 25th anniversary of the country’s worst mass shooting on Wednesday in which a lone gunman killed 35 people. How did they do it?
Within two weeks of the 1996 massacre, the then conservative prime minister John Howard banned all semi-automatic rifles and all semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns and thousands of unlicensed firearms were surrendered under a gun amnesty.
They gathered hundreds of thousands of guns out of communities and since then, there have been no mass shootings. Where there is a will, there is a way. It appears the United States has no will to end this madness. The NRA convention is a glaring example of that.
And in case you haven’t had enough news today, here ya go: Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback who refused to stand for the National Anthem and likened police officers to pigs, reportedly worked out for the Las Vegas Raiders as he attempts a comeback after five years away from the game.
He’s 34 years old, wasted five years of his life on something that was both stupid and insulting to people whose lives are spent protecting the population and now he’s remorseful because he has no job? Someone must have bought him an alarm clock.
How about this retribution for mr.-take-a-knee-and-don’t-stand-for-the-national-anthem – no police protection of him or his house. Let’s see what happens when his alarm goes off in the middle of the night, he calls 911 and nobody comes. What a dufus.
One cannot help but think the following: The United States has the accent on the wrong SLLYable. Change the focus away from the less than useless woke culture. So when a five-year-old boy who wants to identify as a girl or when someone gets insulted if she or he wants to be called they – how about this: change the channel.
How about after mass shootings elected officials stop saying we are praying for you which is a total crock and focus on changing the gun laws. Instead of democratic politicians screaming for people to be able to identify as they, them or it, how about putting the screws to the NRA?
It always, always comes down to two things: Follow the money. And. There is no leadership in the world.
Good Shabbos We’ll talk…
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