On the recent mass killing in Texas

Yes, I think most of what I'm writing here is just hot air. There's little reason to think we won't be here in another week, month or year, talking about another 10-20 people being executed in a store, school, or church, which still won't be more than a rounding error in the overall number of Americans killed by firearms in a given year.

Hey, it is very sad :/ But indeed is any expectation of a change in gun regulation based on something more than personal wish to see it happen? As far as I know, USian society is pretty split on the issue and change extremely hard to come by.

PS Should go without saying, that my pun on the tree of liberty thing was alluding to the (amer)internet at large, not anyone here - let alone so nice a poster as yourself ^_^
 
Hey, it is very sad :/ But indeed is any expectation of a change in gun regulation based on something more than personal wish to see it happen? As far as I know, USian society is pretty split on the issue and change extremely hard to come by.
USian society is complicated, and so are our politics. To name just one variable, there's a big enthusiasm gap around a lot of 'hot' topics. So while a majority of us might favor gun regulations, answering a poll is low stakes - getting people to prioritize gun control when they vote is another thing entirely. The 2022 midterms will tell us about people's priorities. That's not just a federal election, either; Texas, for example, will be electing a governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general in the Fall. Beto O'Rourke, the challenger for the office of Governor, got a big bump in the polls after the shooting in Uvalde, although I think Gov. Abbott is still ahead. But who gives a f about polls in May & June. Texans will tell us what really matters to them on November 8th.

PS Should go without saying, that my pun on the tree of liberty thing was alluding to the (amer)internet at large, not anyone here - let alone so nice a poster as yourself ^_^
No, I didn't think it was aimed at me. :)
 
we've been doing that longer than most people here have been alive with no meaningful long-term change in us homicide rate. great depression's homicide rate was comparable to parts of 1990s. 2018s was comparable to 1960s.

The 30s were a product of Prohibition, when it was repealed in '33 the homicide rate declined 13 years in a row and stabilized until the mid to late 60s. The peaks in the 80s and 90s were the result of the drug war and culture it produced, no country for old men, scarface... The various crime bills passed in response did lower the homicide rates.
 
The 30s were a product of Prohibition, when it was repealed in '33 the homicide rate declined 13 years in a row and stabilized until the mid to late 60s. The peaks in the 80s and 90s were the result of the drug war and culture it produced, no country for old men, scarface... The various crime bills passed in response did lower the homicide rates.

sure, and how many of these can be directly attributed to laws specifically about weapons used in a tiny fraction of homicides, generally?

laws that randomly constrain pieces of rifles are roughly as sensible in this context as trying to constrain emissions by exclusively tightening regulations on private shipping vessels > 50m or something, otherwise completely ignoring automobiles and energy production. except for some reason, people continue to think it will work in the case of rifles.

The 2022 midterms will tell us about people's priorities

if history is any guide, i expect > 5$ per gallon gas to be a lot more present in peoples' minds than another dose of regulation with nearly no observed effect.
 
I think there was a decline in mass shootings with the ban on assault weapons back in the 90s and that was repealed around 2005
 
Uvalde School Police Chief A No-Show At First City Council Meeting
Mayor Don McLaughlin said he was unable to explain why the district police Chief Pete Arredondo wasn’t at the brief meeting.

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The school district police chief criticized for waiting too long before ordering law enforcement to confront and kill the gunman during a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school did not appear at a City Council meeting in Uvalde on Tuesday, despite being newly elected to the panel.

Mayor Don McLaughlin said he was unable to explain why the district police Chief Pete Arredondo wasn’t at the brief meeting. Two weeks ago, 19 students and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Law enforcement and state officials have struggled to present an accurate timeline and details, and have stopped releasing information about the police response. McLaughlin told reporters at the meeting that he was frustrated with the lack of information.

“We want facts and answers, just like everybody else,” the mayor said. Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, has said Arredondo, who was in charge of the multi-agency response on May 24, made the “wrong decision” to not order officers to breach the classroom more quickly to confront the gunman.

As the mayor spoke in Uvalde on Tuesday, lawmakers in Washington heard testimony from the son of a woman who was killed in a recent mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, as lawmakers work toward a bipartisan agreement on gun safety measures. And at a White House press briefing, actor Matthew McConaughey, a Uvalde native, spoke with passion about his conversations with the families of the children who were killed and the need for more stringent gun control.

The gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, spent roughly 80 minutes inside Robb Elementary, and more than an hour passed from when the first officers followed him into the building and when he was killed, according to an official timeline. In the meantime, parents outside begged police to rush in and panicked children called 911 from inside.

Arredondo has not responded to repeated interview requests and questions from The Associated Press. After the City Council meeting, Alfred Garza III, whose 10-year-old daughter, Amerie Jo, was among the Uvalde students killed, told reporters that he attended the meeting to see what else he could learn about what happened that day. “I have so many questions and not every one can be answered. They’re still collecting data, they’re still collecting information on what happened,” Garza said.

He said he had been curious as to whether Arredondo would attend the meeting, and said he had “mixed feelings” about the district police chief’s absence. “He obviously didn’t show up for a reason,” Garza said, adding that he assumed Arredondo thought if he did appear he would get a lot of questions. Garza said he doesn’t have “a lot of ill will” toward Arredondo, nor does he blame just one person for what happened, but he does think more could have been done that day.

“They did take a long time to get in there,” Garza said. Since the shooting, there have been tensions between state and local authorities over how police handled the shooting and communicated what happened to the public. The Texas Department of Public Safety has begun referring questions about the investigation to the Uvalde-area district attorney, Christina Mitchell Busbee. She hasn’t responded to repeated interview requests and questions from AP.

McLaughlin said he has asked officials for a briefing but “we’re not getting it.” He said the city’s police chief was on vacation at the time of the shooting and that the acting city police commander was on the scene.
 
This is just adding more......don't know how to put it that's different than "digging themselves deeper in a hole". But I'd be calling for the resignation of the chief of police. If it were a sheriff system, I'd be calling for a vote of no confidence (even if that was possible in US Politics) and an election for a new sheriff.
 
There's no two ways about it, if you are the police you have to try to save citizens, otherwise you are simply a mercenary force for the ruling monarch.

yet the us has case law demonstrating that police are not obligated to protect all the same. the example that comes to mind is a guy getting knifed in a subway with an officer witnessing it, yet the officer didn't jump in and was not held legally accountable for not doing so.

their job is to enforce the law, and only that, it seems. anything beyond that is not required. i think some places have passed laws that compel more though?

either way, their conduct during this event was a disgrace. not only were they useless, they were actively harmful in stopping other people who desperately wanted to act to help. it's a bad look and them being fired would not surprise me, but unfortunately i also wouldn't be that surprised if they were not.

keep in mind that since we know + have seen (multiple times) that nobody else is compelled to protect the individual, the ultimate last line of defense is oneself.
 
Out of curiosity, would the US government be able to pass a law that would require police to intervene in such circumstances?
IIRC, they’d have to have it go through the constitution first to ensure that it doesn’t interfere with the powers reserved for the states.
 
Out of curiosity, would the US government be able to pass a law that would require police to intervene in such circumstances?
Roe v Wade is a federal law that the states have found ways to confound. I think that any federal law about local police would be a challenge to enforce. State laws are bound by state constitutions and there are many empty spots in the US constitution that allow states to do their own stuff their way.
 
Roe v Wade is a federal law that the states have found ways to confound. I think that any federal law about local police would be a challenge to enforce. State laws are bound by state constitutions and there are many empty spots in the US constitution that allow states to do their own stuff their way.
I am not sure I should be correcting you, but my understanding is that Roe v Wade was a court case about the interpretation of the constitution wrt state law. The US government actually passing a law is a whole different thing. Considering the things they have passed federal laws about I find it hard to believe regulation of the police would not get through.
 
I stand corrected that Roe is a federal law, but the 1973 ruling does make it legal in every state. Sorry.
 
I thought it was a court ruling :confused:
Its both. Roe v. Wade is the name of a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court of the US, and the ruling of the Court in that case becomes the new interpretation of the Constitution. So by that mechanism, the ruling became the law.
 
An interpretation of a law isn't itself law, otherwise it would have to be cancelled by another law. In the case of an interpretation, a new interpretation would be enough to replace it as precedent. It's why there are articles on "Rue vs Wade" decision being "at risk"*
The government is free to legislate anything - and it can then be taken to court (or special courts, where they apply) if there are arguments for that new law being unconstitutional. It's also why there is separation of powers.

*the first google hit on that comes from a rather well known US organization: https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/issues/abortion/roe-v-wade

The US government could try to legislate against guns, and obviously it would be challenged immediately for matters having to do with the constitution and state rights. That itself has nothing to do with supreme court decisions, which aren't set in stone although they are of importance in the ongoing legacy of law - which is why they often are cited in other cases. But they are of an entirely different nature themselves, and not as stable as a law.
 
Police don't have to do anything and News is just another entertainment (Fox News court case explaining why they can be totally biased).

What a bloody strange place.
 
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