Uvalde: The Fallout
The fallout and post-incident analysis has begun in the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas on May 24th, and some familiar patters are emerging.
It has been learned the shooter had threatened violence in the past via social media, and, reportedly, also had a history of being abusive to animals.
“[The shooter] could be cryptic, demeaning and scary, sending angry messages and photos of guns. If they [his female social media audience] didn’t respond how he wanted, he sometimes threatened to rape or kidnap them — then laughed it off as some big joke.”
This troubled behavior has been seen before on many, many occasions, including the 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, in addition to many other such attacks.
“In the days leading up to the deadliest school shooting of 2021 in the U.S., 15-year-old [name redacted] made a series of disturbing comments and messages — both online and in a drawing. He had been caught at school searching online for bullets. The drawing on his desk, discovered by one of his teachers, depicted a gun pointing at the words ‘The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.’”
In both these, and many other school shootings, the perpetrators tend to display violent and erratic behavior prior to the event. And time and time again, we see a failure of adults and authorities to intervene.
You would think that creating strategies to prioritize mental health of young people would be a high priority for elected representatives. Instead, democrats are using this shooting, as they’ve done so often in the past, to attack law abiding gun owners, the National Rifle Association, and also demonize republicans.
“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., also was quick to blame Republicans. There is no such thing as being ‘pro-life’ while supporting laws that let children be shot in their schools, elders in grocery stores, worshippers in their houses of faith, survivors by abusers, or anyone in a crowded place,” she wrote on Twitter. “It is an idolatry of violence. And it must end.”
To my knowledge, politicians using the murder of innocent children to advance a long-standing political agenda of gun restrictions has never worked to prevent future murders. I believe if we truly want to prevent these horrific acts from occurring again, different approaches are needed. Taking violent threats seriously, and intervening early on, would be a good start.
