After the recent shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were killed, Republicans have been talking about… doors. Specifically, figures including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have pushed the idea of limiting the number of doors at schools. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) shamed these do-nothing Republican loudmouths for their cowardice.
“Many of my GOP colleagues and party leaders like to act tough, “manly,” and courageous,” Kinzinger observed on Thursday. “Jan 6… courageous. Going after Disney… tough. Schoolyard insults instead of debating… manly. Yet they are scared to death of gun legislation and their own constituents. Their own loud, but outnumbered, constituents.” Cruz is really sticking to the “one door” idea — during an appearance on Fox, the Texas Senator said: “Don’t have all of these unlocked back doors. Have one door into and out of the school, and have that one door — armed police officers at that door.” The utter ridiculousness of that argument — has Cruz heard of fire safety? What about windows? — aptly shows just how desperate these cowards have gotten. Cruz also claimed on Twitter to be in support of targeting “felons and fugitives” who might try to procure guns… which isn’t as immediately relevant as he might imagine since the Texas shooter was neither.
Cruz has also promoted the idea in the wake of the Texas shooting to have additional armed personnel on school campuses (as indicated by the comments about doors cited above). There have been conflicting reports about the timeline of local law enforcement dealing with the Uvalde shooter, but even with the police presence that eventually arrived, the incident lasted at least an hour before the shooter was shot by Border Patrol. Kinzinger hailed Border Patrol’s involvement. “I’m getting angrier at the stories of law enforcement inaction in the Texas massacre,” Kinzinger, who’s an active member of the Air National Guard, said this week. “However, The Border Patrol team seems to have acted heroically, including one agent who rushed in without backup, and killed the shooter. I’ve worked with BP and they do very hard work. To be clear, it appears BP entered the moment they arrived, at least this team.”
A Thursday CNN report outlined how, according to Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Regional Director Victor Escalon, the Uvalde shooter “walked in unobstructed initially” — meaning he actually wasn’t confronted before entering the school. Someone from the same department claimed Wednesday that a school resource officer “engaged” with the attacker before he went inside the school — but new information reveals there apparently wasn’t even a school resource officer on the premises when the attack started. The shooter was also revealed to have apparently been outside the school for some 12 minutes firing his weapon before going inside. Escalon “said he couldn’t say why no one stopped [the attacker] from entering the school during that time Tuesday,” The Wall Street Journal summarizes.
A mom of two children at Uvalde was put in handcuffs after urging police and law enforcement to enter the school.
Once freed from her cuffs, she jumped the school fence, ran inside and sprinted out with her kids.
New from @WSJ: https://t.co/SYdgysw0gF pic.twitter.com/ZCadllw9aT
— Megan Menchaca (@meganmmenchaca) May 26, 2022
