Texas Chainsaw Massacre
In 1974, almost fifty years ago, Leatherface burst onto the scene of the national pop consciousness as a cannibalistic mass murderer. Our culture loves a horror movie for reasons I can’t relate to (I’m too much of a scaredy-cat to enjoy any form of horror movie) and this particular horror franchise has spawned nine sequels, a video game and even comic books that have made somebody a lot of money off the fictional misery of rural Texan victims. This week, we are living the reality of a different kind of Texas massacre which should be just generically renamed as an American massacre. The Uvalde mass shooting tragedy just barely makes the top ten most fatal mass shootings, the other nine having racked up 282 killings and over 1,000 other casualties and here’s the thing, all but two have occurred over the past twenty years, which is directly linked to the ten year assault rifle ban expired in 2004. As of 2020, more young people die from guns like assault rifles than die in traffic accidents. That is an amazing statistic that should concern each and every American whether they are liberals or conservatives. It’s one thing to go to a horror movie on Saturday night and thrill to being chased by a guy with a chainsaw versus going to school on Monday morning wondering if you will be chased by an active shooter with an AR-15 that he bought legally with over 1,000 rounds of deadly ammunition in the last few days.
Everybody is talking about and writing about gun control this week as the press teases the truth out of the Texas law enforcement blue wall. When I first saw this challenge unfolding with the police being asked to account for their timeline and reconcile what they said after the incident to the new facts coming out, I was more sympathetic to the position of the police. It struck me that this was a revisionist second-guessing of what warriors are forced to do in combat when making quick and effective decisions involved inevitable triage of situations. But then it was Kim who pointed out to me just how badly the police in Uvalde and all the way up to Governor Greg Abbott, misrepresented their actions and their timing during the crisis. By now we all know that somewhere between 50 minutes and 90 minutes passed with children’s lives at high risk while law enforcement decided how best to act. And worst of all, they made and have even now been forced to admit that they made the wrong call and cost young lives by virtue of that failing. That is a difficult reality with which everyone must grapple. It is hardest for parents and loved ones who now realize that had things been done better, their beloved child might be alive today. Death is a very final outcome. But the death of a young child is a horrendously final tragedy of a life ended far, far too soon with hopes and dreams hanging over their memories like a shroud.
Beyond parents, this tragic outcome in Uvalde is also very hard on law enforcement. Any police officer who was at the Robb Elementary School during the incident cannot feel terribly proud of their response to the emergency given what we all know about the delays and wrong-footed reactions of the police command responsible for the resolution of the incident. Even the officer that eventually shot and killed the perpetrator must be wondering if he could have done so sooner. So, I wondered if it was so very important that we (the press and the public) drag the law enforcement community through this process. Clearly the families of victims deserve the truth and perhaps even deserve the ability to blame someone if there was ineffective protection given to their children. But beyond that, it suddenly dawned on me (I’m sure others were way ahead of me on this) that for those of us (the majority of Americans, I am told) who want aggressive gun control legislation, this might finally be a meaningful departure from the same-old, same-old that has followed every other gun tragedy.
As I and many others, I suspect, see this incident, it is a classic example that perhaps the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to unleash on him one or more good guys with guns. Ted Cruz just made that exact same classic Republican trope today at the NRA Annual Convention being held this weekend in Houston. But these new examples of police misrepresentation and ineffectiveness, may finally give the forces of good an opportunity to get beyond the normal cycle of grieving and platitudes followed by convenient sidestepping and ignoring that have been driven by the NRA and the politics of the Right. The reasoning goes something like this: In a state that prizes their right to arm themselves in whatever way they want from age eighteen on and claims that it has a strong crime prevention and fully-funded police protection program, this tragedy shows clearly that this all failed miserably to protect twenty-one innocent victims. While Governor Greg Abbott is making the argument that Texas history has always allowed eighteen year olds to legally buy guns, others are saying enough is enough and that this time things have to change. Despite the obviously strong case to be made for hopelessness and suggestion that nothing will change, there is a new toehold for the anti-gun crowd. If a tactically drilled and trained law enforcement cadre in a small rural community cannot get it right and protect children against someone who had almost no training or experience, what hope is there? If a kid with an AR-15 and some body armor can cow nineteen trained and fully-armed police until several more dozen border patrol tactical reinforcements can arrive, it tells us that more training and more good guys with guns may not be the answer. But what it should also tell us with great clarity is that we really do have no recourse but to eliminate or severely restrict gun ownership or at least assault rifle ownership.
Put into that context, I am all in favor of browbeating the police officers on the spot for every wrong decision and every delayed second for which they are responsible. It is a shame that the police have to bear this burden, but this is a case where the greater good takes precedence over the honoring of the service provided by the police involved for the sake of their community. Maybe this Texas Chainsaw Massacre will finally get us all to a better place in terms of the safety of our children and citizenry in general.