It would blow the Twitter crowds mind to know how well liked the USBP is in border communities and how big a role they play in the day to day policing in support of often severely underfunded and understaffed rural departments.Originally Posted by HCM
How many violent domestics, traffic accidents, heart attacks, baby deliveries, lost kids, and on and on they are often the first on scene at.
"For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night."
-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy --
Columbine was 23 years ago. I'm talking "immediate" meant not waiting for SWAT and going with the first 3 or 4. The thought at the time was a singleton was less effective. The singleton ASAP thing started about 15 years ago and really went mainstream within the last 10 years.
However how many depts out there have officers who shoot once a year and get active shooter training only once in their career ? Too many.
Let's wait for the facts to come out before the trial by internet goes too far.
Everyone is a hero from the safety of their keyboard.
There's nothing civil about this war.
I was trained to do this, during the wave of active shooter training that swept the USA, some years ago, but, one day, or a few days, of that highly-intensive training is not the same thing as truly indoctrinating each and every LEO’s mind.
The Uvalde perpetrator reportedly entered a classroom, early in the incident, and barricaded within it. I wonder how many responding LEOs were ready to start breaching that barricade? By the time I retired, almost none of my colleagues were still carrying shotguns; an AR/M4 is sexy, but 5.56/.223 55-grains JSPs do not breach very well.
Reportedly, the SRO/security person who “engaged with” the perpetrator was not carrying a firearm. It will be interesting to see the official write-up on that particular aspect.
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
My use of “a lot” is poor choice on my part. Parkland is what I was thinking of, also the pulse nightclub shooting where I have heard that Fire/EMS staged for far too long.
My wife and I regularly shoot USPSA matches with a number of CBP guys. To the person, they are great guys, excellent shooters, and the sort of persons that run to not away from the sound of gunfire. Given that these BORTAC guys in Texas lived in this community, it probably made them especially motivated.
A friend, who is very knowledgeable but not informed about exactly what happened, bet a PF dollar or two that when the facts come out, it will turn out that the killer got in the classroom and did the killing almost immediately. That could explain the ninety minutes, if they were containing him to prevent further violence. I have a very hard time believing BORTAC was standing by, listening to people being killed and not doing something about it.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Your garden variety patrol officer *typically* has little to no training on mechanical breaching, let alone how to defeat a solid/metal exterior (outward opening) door, usually found in modern K-12 schools. Most do not have sufficient dynamic entry/hostage rescue tactics or training. In an age where the mantra is "de-militarizing" and "de-funding", one can only point to incidents like this (assuming that there is any merit to the extended 40 minute timeline to breach/neutralization being passed around) that suggest police departments and officers need increased funding for training/equipment to deal with this scenario. In a perfect world, perhaps...
Keep playing the defense card. Legitimate self-defense. Also defense against inner and outer enemies of the constitution (tyrants).
In Germany where I live, only sport shooting and hunting - both in a legally precisely defined way - are legally acknowledged reasons for getting a gun license. But these are very weak reasons compared to shot children. So our gun rights are in great danger. Have stronger reasons in order to keep your rights.
Unfortunately self-defense is no reason for getting a gun license in Germany! At least not for the Average Joe, only for some guys who are "more equal" than others, i.e. mainly politicians. But in Austria home-defense is a reason to get a pistol license, although they are not allowed to carry in public. The Czechs are allowed to carry. As far as I know, they have the best gun rights in the EU because they still vividly remember, how bad tyrants and communism suck. I noticed them defending their gun rights even on sucking EU level.
Furthermore, maintain a strong lobby (NRA). We don't have a strong gun lobby and so our gun rights suck. But we have a strong car lobby and so we are allowed to go >250 mph on the Autobahn.
Last edited by P30; 05-26-2022 at 12:46 PM.
IIRC, Pulse nightclub was an example of almost all the killing done early and the shooter holed up in a strong defensive position. There was thinking that there were survivors holed up as well. A gloriously brave assault by dribbling in small clumps of patrol officers without proper arms, armor, and a plan would have been simple suicide.
And that, I think, is the challenge both on an individual level and for command/leadership. When we take a job in LE, fire, or rescue we sign up to sometimes take great risk, including the risk of our life. If we don't truly believe we can take that risk in spite of our fear, we shouldn't accept the badge. But we are not signing up to take suicidal actions while hoping we get lucky and pull it off. The trick is to recognize the difference. Making that call under time pressure while hearing the shots and the screams and experiencing an epic adrenaline dump would be the challenge of a lifetime.
"I might get shot" probably isn't enough reason to wait. "I'll probably get shot but I can save lives if I succeed" demands a higher level of courage and preparation and is probably a go. "I'm going to get shot while not accomplishing anything" is a no go.
This probably didn't come out the way I hoped so I apologize if its just babbling. This is a discussion that can take a few hours and several cups of coffee or a few beers to get right, and even then we wouldn't all agree.
The author of that article, Jennifer Sensiba, and most of the mouth-breather idiots in the comment section should have their keyboards taken away. The LEO's on scene could not physically get to the shooter. The WSJ article had better information than most of what I've seen posted online and in this very thread. Trust me when I tell you they were trying desperately to get inside and send the monster to his place in hell.
How about instead of sounding like the members at ARFcom or Glocktalk, people who don't know anything about what happened stop commenting in this thread? Let's get that signal to noise ratio back where it used to be. Otherwise pray for the people affected and go hug your kids.
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