Schummer blocks Luke & Alex School Safety Act
A lot went wrong in Uvalde. There was an unlocked back door that the shooter used to gain access. Contrary to reports, there was no armed response officer there. Police waited an incredible 40 minutes before storming the classroom and ending the rampage.
The Luke and Alex school safety act, pushed by parents of Parkland shooting victims, addresses these security failures to establish best practices for hardening schools against such attacks.
Schumer has blocked the act for 3 years, including yesterday. He wants gun control and will not make schools safer until he gets his way. Even if you want gun control, what could possibly be wrong with makes schools inherently harder to attack?
The Chesapeake school my grandchildren go to has already adopted many hardening procedures on their own. There are several exits that can be opened from the inside, sounding an alarm, but only one way in, through locked steel doors which will only be buzzed open after you have been checked out by the reception desk. Why is that not standard practice?
Why does Schumer seek to block developing best security practices? Does he want the dying to continue until he gets his way?
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
The same could be said of the GOP blocking any and every attempt to address the issue of gun safety in the country.
Remember, when you point a finger at someone, there are four fingers pointing right back at YOU!
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Yes, Republicans oppose further restrictions on responsible gun owners,
Is that reason to leave schools vulnerable?
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“Is that reason to leave schools vulnerable?”
The bill Schumer is not buying is a DO-NOTHING bill. Federal clearinghouse of best practices? What a joke! There is no money in the bill to do ANYTHING.
Besides, we can never “harden” schools in a way that will stop these kinds of people with the kinds of weapons readily available to them. What kind of country do you want to live in, anyway? Schumer is 100% correct to throw this bull in the trash where it belongs.
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act was blocked this week by the Republicans. Why? Simple. Most domestic terrorists are part of their base and domestic terrorism is their go to plan when they lose elections.
One of the purposes of the bill – creating “an interagency task force to analyze and combat white supremacist and neo-Nazi infiltration of the uniformed services and federal law enforcement agencies.” is especially galling to these deplorable MAGA Republicans.
So, they are pushing this vacuous bill as a smoke screen for their obstructionism. Cynical politics pure and simple.
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Had the precautions taken by Chesapeake schools been in place in Uvalde, what do you think the shooter could have done?
Shoot through the windows? Explaining defilade to teachers would defeat that.
The DTPA is irrelvant to the subject.
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“Had the precautions taken by Chesapeake schools been in place in Uvalde, what do you think the shooter could have done?”
Are those precautions some sort of secret? This bill you are touting does NOTHING.
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Not all good things have to cost a trillion dollars.
Having DHS provide a clearing house for ideas on hardening schools so school districts across the country can compare ideas and see what works.
It’s pretty obvious that the Uvalde Independent School District either had no idea what to do or simply were too lazy to do them.
Since you chose not to answer the question, had the same precautions we take here, the shooter would have still been outside when the police got there to kill him.
But instead an outside door was left open for 12 minutes after he started shooting. No one thought to simply close and latch it.
The classroom door was still open after 12 minutes of shooting. It was a stout door that the BORTAC unit couldn’t breach without the key. Had the teacher simply closed it when the shots were heard th9se kids, and the teachers, would be alive.
So, are the best practices secret? No, but somehow the Uvalde teachers didn’t get the memo.
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In addition, I add two words directly from the Second Amendment: “WELL REGULATED”
SO often ignored by gun zealots, but just as important as “the right to keep and bear arms”.
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Argue with SCOTUS on that.
The Heller decision clearly stated the prefatory phrase was explanative, not limiting
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Regulations do not mean limits.
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“Republicans oppose further restrictions on responsible gun owners,”
Restrictions are NOT equal to hurdles. Jump the hurdles and own your guns.
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Regardless of what happens about guns, is that reason to not take precautions to make schools harder to attack?
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That is a decision that should be taken by local authorities. Isn’t that what a Libertarian would actually say?
ANd why is the GOP blocking the Domestic Terrorism Bill proposed by Dems? What about working to keep the entire country safe and not just schools.
Priorities don’t exist in the GOP; unless it is staying in power.
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Sure, pass a bill authorizing the DHS to spy on citizens it suspects may be planning domestic terrorism.
Did you perhaps forget that this same agency labeled parents speaking at school board meetings as domestic terrorists?
You seem oddly eager to create a US Gestapo.
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“Did you perhaps forget that this same agency labeled parents speaking at school board meetings as domestic terrorists?”
You mean the ones who threatened violence against school boards if they didn’t do the bidding of the very vocal minority of misinformed?
You are way off-base, as usual. Libertarianism seems to only be a unicorn dream. You clutch it when it makes you feel good, but deny it when it hurts your feelings.
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ANd I do LOVE how you ignored my comment about Libertarians.
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RE: “He wants gun control and will not make schools safer until he gets his way.”
We can talk about guns, we can talk about the shootesr, or we can talk about the environment. Schumer only wants to talk about guns. His kind of myopia is a cause of death.
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The environment?
You mean an environment where violent insurrectionists are called “trespassers?”
An environment where a murderous teenager is hailed as a hero?
An environment where the leading cable news network pushes Replacement theory?
You may be on to something.
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Blah blah blah
Nothing relevant to add, as usual.
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Blah blah blah
Face it. Own it. You people are a very big part of the problem.
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RE: “Environment?”
Yes, as in social/cultural environment. Of the three factors I mentioned, this one appears to be the most difficult to talk about. I find that just the suggestion that social/cultural breakdown may be a factor in gun violence causes some people to react in counterproductive ways.
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“Schumer only wants to talk about guns. His kind of myopia is a cause of death.”
Unlike the GOP who continually blocks funding for studying the use of guns as a public health problem.
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All good questions. My daughter’s school in VA Beach has hardened the building in the same way with an armed respurce officer. The situation in the other schools would not happen here as security is rightfully tight. For Schumer and Democrats to block common sense measures in order to push an agenda is deplorable and leaves blood on their hands.
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You do know that there was a resource officer on duty @ Robb Elementary that day? You know what he did? BUPKES!
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Well, he wasn’t on site until after the shooter was in the school.
Robb Elementary had many of the hardening features in place, but they were defeated, not by the shooter, but by teachers.
A teacher, for her own convenience, propped open the self-locking exterior door, allowing the shooter to get into the school.
The deceased classroom teacher, for reasons we will never know, failed to close her classroom door in spite of the shooter firring his rifle for 12 minutes before he entered the school. That same door defeated the BORTAC unit’s efforts to breach it. The shooter should have been trapped in the hallway.
Finally, the local police chief held officers back for almost an hour, leaving kids bleeding out on the floor, before the BORTAC team decided to ignore him and end the episode.
Schools will always be a target for madmen seeking to inflict pain on society. This tragedy could have been prevented by following known best practices for school security, but human error overcame those precautions.
Fix that before trying to curtail the rights of the 85 million gun owners who did not shoot innocents.
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…”he wasn’t on site until after the shooter was in the school.”
Cite?
And again blaming the teachers for not being forewarned and forearmed? You do know that Texas implemented laws to allow teachers to be armed in classrooms. Just because teachers have decided on an individual basis NOT to carry in the classroom is no reason to keep pointing the fingers at them.
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No Resource officer in site.
Actually, Texas allows the Independent School Districts the option of training “Guardians” who can carry on site. About 30% currently take that option, Uvalde did not.
It was a teacher who broke protocol and propped an outside door open for her convenience and a teacher who did not close and lock the classroom door while the shooter fired outside for 12 minutes. Who am I supposed to blame, the NRA?
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You blame the victim on a regular basis. If you feel the NRA is a victim in any way, shape or form, have at it.
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More unbelievable facts come out.
The shooter fired at the building for 12 minutes without effect before finding the unlocked back door. No one thought to lock it while a madman attacked the school?
Once inside, he found the classroom door unlocked and entered, locking it behind him. he then killed everyone in the room When the Border Patrol Tactical team arrived, they were unable to breach the door and had to wait for a key. Had the teachers locked that door when the shooting started. they would have been safe.
But Shumer has decided that there is no point in determining best practices for school safety and sharing them across the nation, because that doesn’t disarm the 85 million gun owners who didn’t shoot schoolchildren.
One more thing, Texas allows school districts to train and authorize ‘Guardians’ who can carry concealed in the schools. About 25% of the school districts have adopted that approach. Uvalde was not one of those.
So, it appears the local schools and police did nothing right.
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“So, it appears the local schools and police did nothing right.”
Always scratching around for someone to blame.
To paraphrase the Bill Clinton campaign – “It’s the guns, stupid.”
The country did Okay the last time the sale of assault weapons was banned. If that ban had not been cancelled by Republicans in return for NRA money, this maniac would not have been able to get them. Maybe if he had been armed with less intimidating weaponry, people would have reacted in ways that meet your approval. We will never know.
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So, if a particular weapon were magically unavailable, the shooter would have just given up?
My nightmare for one of these shootings is a pump shotgun and a shoulder bag full of shells.
A shotgun is far more lethal than a .223 at the ranges these shootings happen and since the magazine can be replenished without having to stop to change it, there would never be the opportunity to rush the shooter.
But even so, most mass shootings are done with handguns.
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“But even so, most mass shootings are done with handguns.”
Of course, you are correct. Handguns are a greater threat than assault rifles. The UK recognized the truth in that when handguns were used to murder sixteen children and a teacher in a Scottish school. They found a solution. We can too.
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So, magically making handguns and AR/AK rifles disappear would accomplish what?
Leave the madman no alternative but the pump shotgun and shoulder bag of shells, and have no survivors.
Decisions stemming from emotion and based in ignorance only make things worse.
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“So, magically making handguns and AR/AK rifles disappear would accomplish what?
We can learn from the experience of other countries. The evidence is that strictly limiting semi-automatic long guns and handguns would greatly reduce gun violence and mass shootings
Even in your scenario of a skilled and determined shotgun-wielding maniac, the rate of fire would be less, and the reloading pauses would be more frequent creating more opportunities for escape or resistance. The outcome could not be any worse than in that classroom in Texas with everyone dead and DNA testing needed to identify the bodies of some of the mangled kids.
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There is no reloading pause with a pump shotgun. Shells are fed into the magazine through a trap door, at any time. You don’t have wait until it’s empty.
And no special skill is needed.
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“There is no reloading pause with a pump shotgun”
Sure, it becomes a single round manual loading weapon after the first 5 shells. Your hand has to come off the trigger, reach into that bag you are carrying, grab a shell, make sure it is oriented in the right direction, move it to the magazine and insert.
I think pulling the trigger on a semi-automatic rifle or handgun is just a little bit quicker and takes even less skill. But I am not the gun expert that you think you are.
But, let’s see. I will give you a shotgun with a bag of 100 shells and I will take an AR-15 with a 100 round drum. Let’s see who gets off 100 shots first. Not fair, okay let’s make it 30 rounds. You with a bag of shells and me with a 30 round clip.
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Rate of fire is not the issue.
Perhaps if you were firing at a marching band with every lined up in rows it might for the first few seconds.
Rate of effective fire is.
The shooter has to find his target, shoot, determine if he hit then find another target. There is plenty of time to replace the shell used in there and you don’t have to take your right hand off the trigger to reload with your left.
I have experience with rifles, handguns and shotguns, At the range that you would be dealing with in a school, the shotgun is the worst case.
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“I have experience with rifles, handguns and shotguns, At the range that you would be dealing with in a school, the shotgun is the worst case.”
Frankly, I do not believe you. You would say anything to divert attention from the real problem – “It’s the guns, stupid.” For example, your silly blather about the rate of “effective fire.” A Glock 9 with a magazine of 15 rounds has a rate of effective fire that is better than your supposedly superior shotgun.
Glock or AR15: Aim. Pull Trigger. Aim again
Shotgun: Aim. Pull trigger. Pump. Replace shell. Aim again
And, I am not sure how much worse it could be than every person in the room dead.
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Shotgun, Aim, pull trigger, pump(which happens faster than you can say it, which is why you can get off three shots at a passing flock of ducks) repeat up to 4 times before replenishing magazine without ever being empty.
And additionally, the .223 and 9mm are not necessarily lethal on the first shot. The shotgun is.
Oh, and there were survivors in that classroom. Might have been more had the Uvalde police not held back the BORTAC unit for almost an hour while children were bleeding out on the floor.
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“Oh, and there were survivors in that classroom. ”
Yes, you are right about that. I was going by what you reported earlier about the door being locked by the shooter before killing everybody.
I have now read that the first 911 call was made ten minutes BEFORE the maniac entered the school. The performance of the police calls into question the whole concept of “hardening” the schools. And even at “hardened” schools the kids go outside at recess, queue up for buses and parent pickup, etc.
In the end, the only way to address the problem is with gun control and gun licensing. Massachusetts has licensing procedures that have apparently made a difference.
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Yes, we were misled by early reports.
Particularly by the Uvalde police, who lied like Clintons.
It will be interesting to hear how that teacher propping open the auto-locking door will be spun.
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Hey, it’s Texas. The state of mass shootings for some reason. Texas Tower comes to mind.
An armed society is a polite…aw, never mind. Gun stocks are rising, so life is good, no?
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Luby’s springs to mind for me.
https://www.kxxv.com/news/lubys-massacre-30-years-later/woman-who-lost-both-parents-in-lubys-massacre-pushing-gun-law-changes
But how about those Utah school shootings? Oh, wait.,,
https://kslnewsradio.com/1969311/teacher-academy-run-by-utah-police-trains-teachers-to-survive-school-shooting/
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So we need to have everyone carry weapons wherever they go to shop, eat, learn, listen to entertainment. Then we need to harden schools. Perhaps we can trade out school buses for armored personnel carriers. Painted yellow of course.
We could have Funky Winkerbean style hall monitors with a water cooled machine gun mounted to a school desk.
If that is the kind of nation we want, then we are well on our way.
We are awash in guns. Guns that virtually anyone with a few hundred dollars can obtain easily, legally…or illegally, but even easier. And this is supposed to increase our safety from “bad guys” and government overreach, however one decides what that is.
Warren Burger, former Chief Justice and no liberal by any stretch, gave us a heads up decades ago.
“The Gun Lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American People by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies – the militia – would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires.”
http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/syndicated/warren-burger-and-nra-gun-lobbys-big-fraud-on-second-amendment/
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Burger was wrong about a lot of things.
But no, I don’t maintain that everyone be armed, everywhere or all the time.
But those who are inclined to defend themselves and others and who have no record of aggression against others should not be barred from doing so.
People who want to cause maximum pain to society in revenge for their unhappiness or rage seek undefended children for maximum terror. Schools are an attractive target.
Utah allows anyone with a concealed carry permit to carry in their schools.
Texas allows local school boards to designate “guardians” among their faculty and staff to take additional training and carry in school. About 1 in 4 localities do so. Uvalde is not one of them.
Those are rational responses. Putting all our children in one place and leaving them undefended is not.
If guns all magically disappeared, madmen would still target children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
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If more guns in a school or other venue are a good security measure, why is the NRA banning guns from their own convention?
Do they not believe their own propaganda? Or are there no “good people” at a convention, so why arm them?
Schools are an attractive target you say. How about a supermarket, a mall, a Walmart, a concert, a church, a synagogue, a movie theater, a night club?
Should we harden all those places. One door in through metal detectors?
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The NRA isn’t banning firearms and never has.
The Secret Service is prohibiting them while Trump is attending just as they did when Pence was there previously.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/25/1101181842/nra-trump-speech-guns-banned-houston
When I last attended Lobby Day, before the Democrats got control. there were thousands of armed citizens present, including the local Black Panther delegation and the Pink Pistols, and I never felt safer.
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Perhaps we should provide Trump dolls to all schools.
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…”who lied like Clintons.”
You misspelled Trump, again. BIGLY!
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“Particularly by the Uvalde police, who lied like Clintons.”
If you are trolling for a response you have to do better than this nonsense.
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Bath school disaster. . .
Interesting how you had to go back almost a century to find a school mass murder that did not involve firearms. Also worth noting – armed teachers would not have been able to prevent such a bomb attack.
So, what point were you making again?
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The point is that when one of these madmen wants to strike out at the world in their rage, they often choose to attack children. Schools put a lot of children in one place, so they are obvious targets.
If firearms did not exist, that rage in some people still would, and there are other ways to kill children.
I chose the Bath tragedy because it remains the largest number of victims. But explosives, fire, poison or vehicles are all possible weapons for that purpose even if you could deny access to firearms.
At least with firearms you have a chance to stop them before too many victims are taken,
Unless, of course, some idiot disarms the good guys.
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Yeah, there are many ways that can be used to kill people. The fact remains, however, that none of them can match the appeal to psychopaths of assault weapons and handguns. The UK has not had a single school mass killing since it dealt with guns in 1997. Mass killings have become almost non-existent in Australia since their massive gun reform following the Port Arthur massacre. Massachusetts with its requirements for a license to acquire guns has a significantly lower rate of gun violence than looser states. And on and on. The evidence is overwhelming and consistent. Your febrile fantasies of “good guys” with guns are no match for it.
The “idiots,” since you don’t mind using that word, are the idiots who fail to understand that guns make every situation more dangerous. Not only are they effective killing machines, they also induce violent behavior.
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Guns induce violent behavior?
Gee, then Lobby Day(Pre Covid) with 20,000 attendees, at least half of them armed, must have been a melee. Especially as there were politically active Black, Gay, Libertarian and Republican groups there.
Odd I didn’t see anything other than camaraderie and good will.
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“Guns induce violent behavior?”
Uh, yes. Yes, they do. The “weapons effect” has been known for decades. You going to pretend it is news to you? Plus, it is just common sense. People with the perceived power of holding a gun are going to be more aggressive. Road rage is one frequent example.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-psyched/201301/the-weapons-effect
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I see a great future for Dr Bushman in Climate Science. That’s the other discipline where you can call garbage like that research.
What I have seen is that when I am armed I go to greater lengths to avoid confrontation.
That’s where the adage that an armed society is a polite society arises.
Now, if you restrict your sample to those who are violent by nature, that inherent violence might be encouraged but among non-violent people, no way.
Click to access BF03329778.pdf
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“Now, if you restrict your sample to those who are violent by nature, that inherent violence might be encouraged but among non-violent people, no way.”
I would hazard the opinion that is people who are violent by nature who are most inclined to go around armed. I will not play battling studies with you on this subject, but there are many – not financed by the gun business – that find a similar psychological effect.
Your adage that “an armed society is a polite society” does not match the evidence. But, it sounds nice.
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Have you read the methodology for that “research” carefully?
All decisions face incentives and inhibitions. By limiting the test subject to harmless electric shocks, the inhibitions are removed. Using a firearm has serious consequences for the user. Those consequences make you constantly aware of the importance of deescalating confrontations.
With no consequences to shocking the target, the test has no connection to the real world.
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“Those consequences make you constantly aware of the importance of deescalating confrontations.”
You can argue the methodology of a particular study all you want. There is plenty of evidence that gun possession induces violence in lots of people. The news is full of incidents where deadly gun use follows minor provocations. Scuffles and arguments turn to shootouts. Road irritation turns to road rage. And the big one – wives and domestic partners constantly being threatened and killed because someone has a gun and cannot control himself.
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Lots of finger pointing in this comment. However, there is a lot of changing and “evolvement” of the narrative from the Police. Let’s hold off until we know more. Just sayin’.
The first casualty in war is the truth. It appears that the same can be said of this incident.
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Your daughter is a teacher, IIRC.
If she doesn’t know to lock her classroom door if she hears shots and shelter the children in defilade from the windows, tell her.
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You are very quick to sit in judgment on the teacher who died. Maybe she thought she had locked it. Maybe the lock was defective. Or maybe she just plain panicked and froze which can happen when someone is blazing away with an assault rifle nearby.
You, on the other hand, stay very cool under life threatening duress – in your imagination.
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The cure for panic is to have a plan, and to practice it.
The lock worked just fine for keep the BORTAC team out until the right key was located
If a criminal wants money, he robs a bank. Bankers know that and harden their banks.
If a madman wants to inflict pain on society, he attacks children. We should recognize that and harden schools.
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“We should recognize that and harden schools.”
Your unstated assumption is false. This is not an Either/Or proposition. Better control of guns AND better “hardening” are called for.
“Hardening” is not a bad idea where it is needed but it is FAR from the real solution. For example, Sandy Hook was “hardened” but the maniac simply used his assault rifle to blast through the locks and the gatekeepers. Other countries have found the real solution because they understand the real problem – “It’s the guns, stupid.”
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Your buddy Schumer is the one making it Either/Or by blocking systematic organization of best practices.
You still haven’t told your gun control solution that doesn’t end with the shooter carrying a standard hunting shotgun and a shoulder bag of shells.
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You keep blaming Schupner when it’s the “no compromise” issue in Congress. This ain’t a one-\man band; it is 100 Senators not willing to work with each other.
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Nope. As Majority leader, Schumer is able to keep the bill from getting a vote.
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ANd as MINORITY Leader, McConnell has blocked a helluva lot more.
Blind to the fallacies of the Right and the GOP is dangerous, yet you continue to wallow in that blindness.
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Whatabout?
How is any of that relevant to Schumer blocking school safety measures to try to force gun control?
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You tend to play in that world all of the tim. The phrase :like the CLintons: comes to mind.
It is ALL relevant for the safety and protection of this country. If you are OK with people threatening government officials with violence because of disagreements, that makes you as dangerous.
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ANd once again, you play deaf, dumb, and blind on the GOP and their tactics.
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Uh, Shumer is holding out for BOTH. Passing a DO-NOTHING bill is just political smoke for DO-NOTHING Republicans to hide in. It is long past time for real action.
You can dishonestly pretend that the kind of hunting weapons that are legal in the UK (shotguns and non-semi-automatic rifles) are just as deadly as handguns and assault rifles, but you are just plain wrong.
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Says the firearms expert.
And I didn’t say ‘just as deadly’ It is actually much worse.
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