Let’s try to connect a couple of dots, shall we?
We have heard from a special panel — two Texas legislators and a retired state Supreme Court justice — looking into the Uvalde shooting in late May. We know that nearly 400 police officers responded to the slaughter of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School. The cops were from the U.S. Border Patrol, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Uvalde Police Department and the Uvalde school district police department.
Also, we have learned of a “systemic failure” in that response. No one knew who was in charge. Still, heavily armed cops were on hand. No one seemed willing to storm the classroom and take out the shooter.
Let’s stipulate that these officers are trained for this kind of emergency. Still, they stood around and looked at each other while the shooter slaughtered his victims.
And yet …
There are those who believe teachers with rudimentary training in firearms can pull a gun out of a desk drawer and shoot a madman with minimal risk of hitting more victims. Do we also believe that teachers are immune from panic, that they could freeze out of fright?
I must be slow on the uptake. There is nothing sensible about arming teachers, some of whom might be in their first teaching job and asking them to do something that trained police officers — in the Uvalde case — were unable to do in time to stop the deaths of so many innocent victims.