The Tragedy in Uvalde

On Tuesday, an 18-year-old gunman fatally shot 19 students and two teachers at an elementary ...

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On Tuesday, an 18-year-old gunman fatally shot 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Our hosts are here to discuss the latest updates and what comes next. Sarah, Steve, Jonah, and David then turn to this week’s round of primaries. What did they learn? They finish by discussing the latest from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What does Russia’s Black Sea blockade mean for the world?

Show Notes:

–The Dispatch: “After Uvalde, What Now?”

–Uphill: “Mass Shootings Reignite Gun Control Debate in Washington”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Slp

    For Steve...but late.
    https://thehill.com/news/campaign/3502910-ranking-the-five-democrats-most-likely-to-win-party-nod-if-biden-doesnt-run/

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  2. Avatar photo
    Patrick

    David mentioned that the study showed “vast majority” of mass shootings used handguns over last 50 years. But I’d be curious what the trend is, and particularly the trend for school shootings.

    I think most 2A absolutists are afraid to modify their position for fear of becoming a hypocrite. But the reality is that technological developments can and must adjust policy prescriptions. Social media can radicalize our troubled youth today in a way that simply wasn’t possible in 2005 or 1985. For that reason, there’s nothing hypocritical to say “I was against an assault weapon and body armor ban in 2005, but I’m for one now.”

    If the Uvalde shooter could only legally buy a handgun or hunting rifle at that store, maybe he still commits this atrocity. But maybe he doesn’t.

    For me, 2A is fundamental. But an honest assessment of the types of arms available to the public based on their usage should be baked into the discussion.

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    1. Mathew A

      " think most 2A absolutists are afraid to modify their position for fear of becoming a hypocrite."

      No it's because we don't trust the other side at ALL. After every piece of gun control legislation there is ALWAYS another piece of gun control legislation. And that will continue until guns are basically banned in the country.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Scarlette Tarte

        And we can say the same for the absolutists. The right is constantly trying to make it easier to own and to overturn those laws. Hello, Heller etc.al?

        The fact is, we are always updating how we own anything...like cars. More legislation does not mean "closer to banning all guns".



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    2. Avatar photo
      Scarlette Tarte

      It is a fundamental right...the right to self defense. But it is not an absolute right...it can be regulated, just like any other right. How you possess can be regulated. It even says it right in the amendment.

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      1. Mathew A

        Regulated means well trained.

        It also says shall not be infringed..

        And of course finally, there's already LOTS of regulation.,

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        1. Avatar photo
          Scarlette Tarte

          Well I am for that TOO. Well trained? Hell yeah. How about 30 hours before you can legally own? 60 hours before you can carry?

          300 hours before you can own any silly as hell "assault weapon", which after that, you won't want to own it anyway.

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  3. Avatar photo
    Holly

    What David is describing is the need for a psych evaluation in order to qualify to have a gun.

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    1. Mathew A

      No it's not. It's a process if someone throws off red flags, they can temporarily have their constitutional right to arms removed.

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  4. Mike

    I've taken care of kids (and adults) who were shot for over 20 years. Not in these types of incidents, but it doesn't really change my depressed feelings about our current state of affairs.

    I think I share the panel's opinion that there are no easy solutions and the sadness that the usual principals will simply perform as they always do in the days/weeks to come.

    The most interesting comment I have heard so far came from Former Attorney General Barr....who postulated that we might need to treat schools like airports, which didn't have nearly the security presence back before 9/11 and have been safe for the past 20 years, more or less. With that said, someone will make up something resembling the TSA and it will be completely non-functional within days....

    My advice is hug your kids a bit extra if you have them....

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    1. Avatar photo
      SD

      My kids go to schools with metal detectors. The problem with it is that all the kids are entering at the same time. If one (low wage) hall monitor is out sick or has to go break up a fight, one entry point has to close and kids are late to class. And all that milling about outside school isn't great for keeping down fights and would make kids a great target as they wait in line to be searched. And the people who are carrying these high powered guns could easily shoot through airport or school security if that's what they wanted. There are more police at airports, but I am not sure I want more police in schools - as both a parent and a taxpayer.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Tracie

    Also, I hope a more thorough discussion of this timeline might be appropriate once all the facts are out:

    Robb Elementary School
    Uvalde TX
    5/24/2022

    1133 a.m. - gunman enters
    1135 a.m. - first police arrive
    *
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    *
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    *
    *
    *
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    *
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    *
    *
    *
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    *
    1250 p.m. - tactical units storm the building, kill the shooter.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Tracie

    Not obsessed with Uvalde b/c of social media but b/c I'm from South Texas. Was working with a patient in her room when it came on her TV. She asked me if I knew where it was, and I said my high school used to play Uvalde in basketball, had driven through it many times, knew it was a small ranching/farming community in South Texas brush country where people worked hard and all knew each other.

    It's also a place most kids get the opportunity to shoot a gun. Shot my first long-barrelled shotgun, across a ditch at somebody's "ranch" - how most rural property with +1 acre tends to be referred to in Texas. Despite my hand being steadied by a male relative, I didn't like the kickback and infrequently shot guns after that.

    (I'm from the Coastal Bend +3hours from Uvalde, but S. Texas is relatively sparsely populated, and we tend to have property inland, and family/friends in the Rio Grande Valley.)

    I've told myself up to now that the rural culture was somehow a protection against mass shootings. How could we have grown up with guns always available, yet I was nearly 30 when Columbine occurred. Have an aunt who was on the UT campus during the Bell Tower shootings, but that guy was a military-trained sharpshooter. Shooters with that kind of skill are rarer than you might think.

    Of course, skill wasn't necessary in this case.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Tracie

      Correction: long-barreled *pistol*, not shotgun. Obviously, I didn't grow up to be a gun expert.

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    Marian Cates

    I would prefer you not continue with the not-worth-your-time segments. It's time taken away from more important stories.

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    Ben Connelly

    With all due respect, Sarah, I’ll take your predictions on Ukraine with a grain of salt given that you said back in December that Steve and Jonah and David were hyperventilating about the possibility that Putin might invade and that it wasn’t going happen and we’d be looking back a year or two later and laughing about how dumb we were to think there might actually be a war. Sorry if that’s a mischaracterization but that’s the way it came off at the time.

    Also, can the four of you please stop preaching to the choir about Twitter? I’d bet money the average Dispatch subscriber spends less time on it and pays less attention to it than most of you (except Mr Stirewalt).

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      Ben Connelly

      Also I wanted to add another point on the tone deafness of lecturing Dispatch listeners about Twitter. On an episode of AO back in March or maybe April, David and Sarah answered a question by a young listener thinking about law school who wanted book recommendations to learn about the law. INSTEAD of giving book recommendations, David and Sarah said that there wasn’t a single book they could recommend and they gave a list of Twitter follows that they said would be better than reading a book. Pot. Kettle. Black.

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    Paul B

    Delete-Your-Twitter-Account Reason #719: Everything Sarah just said.
    Twitter (and social media writ large) is a toxic cesspool that corrodes our culture either:
    1) Directly through its daily users, most of whom are the most dangerous type of fool: smart enough to form coherent opinions but too stupid to know their own limitations; or
    2) Indirectly through our national media figures and journalists who filter their own news sources and worldviews, which trickles down to broader American society.
    Seriously...the most terrifying aspect of this "bipartisan" push to regulate Big Tech isn't the overweaning government regulation. It's the inevitable barriers to entry that regulation will raise, which will in turn lock these companies into permanent oligopolies and solidify them as semi-permanent institutions of American life and culture.

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  10. Raincheck

    Can someone please tell David French that the expression is “mano a mano” (hand to hand) and not “mano y mano” (hand and hand)?

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      Tracie

      Wow totally missed that. Guess my ear for Latin prepositions is rusty lol.

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