Durango to Silverton - 2019

[butlersrangers]

We live in a beautiful Country.
(Pictures from three years ago, today. It feels like it was a different World)!

Covid, Biden, and Putin have been plagues.
Evil will not win!

[butlersrangers]

News Agencies and the 'Powers That Be' wonder why the response at Uvalde now seems so inept?

It is because, most of us want to function here.

[Doubly Reincarnated]

Once upon a time, I had a job as a college professor. One of my students got a summer job as a fireman on that run. It completely changed his life. He graduated, but for the last 40+ years has lived just to keep the old steam engines running.

[FredC]

News Agencies and the 'Powers That Be' wonder why the response at Uvalde now seems so inept?

It is because, most of us want to function here.

Not defending the powers that made the decisions, but Uvalde is a very small city. Training maybe woefully lacking for hostage situations.

There is the "golden hour" in which getting medical attention in trauma situations is critical, no clue why that was not a factor in the decision. On top of the fact the shooter was still killing. Seems like the school resource officer should have handed "incident command" off to more experienced hands when he had no training and stomach for the situation. Our fire department has not had any of the MIMSA or whatever that training is called. But the structure of command at an incident is fairly rigid. The resource officer could still have contributed invaluable insight into the school layout and on how strong the doors were, and such if he had handed off command.

A little trivia here. I grew up in a nearby town and Uvalde was one of the old football rivals. We played preseason games with them even though they had grown large enough they were not in the same classification. We always called the city Uvalde with the "a" pronounced the way it is in Al, Val, and Alex. In national news commentators are pronouncing it like the "a" in ball and all. First thought maybe I had it wrong all these years, then in the interview with locals I see we always had it correct and reporters did not do their homework.

Funny that Uvalde has already been mentioned here on the forum.
viewtopic.php?p=39567#p39567
Checked the milage to old San Antonio and it was way less than the 125 miles reported, but horses did not have odometers in those days. Also the ranger may not have started exactly where the Nueces river crosses present day Hiway 90.

[butlersrangers]

I am not being critical of the nice people of Uvalde. They, like most Americans are probably very kind, generous, helpful and trusting.

A lot of people probably tried to befriend and show kindness to this mass murderer, when he was just a troubled kid with a tough family situation. That's what people do in small communities and even large ones.

Too bad somebody propped-open a school door. There was probably even a good reason that it was done. Unfortunately, it gave the crazy villain an even easier path into the school.

For our everyday sanity, most of us have to function along the lines of 'Mayberry'. We don't think about the unthinkable.

When a strange car stops in front of my house, on a rural road. I go out to check on them. They are either lost, have car problems, or are experiencing an emergency.
I give them helpful directions, some gas or coolant, or call for emergency services.

I am disgusted with News People, Media Types, and Politicians, who are exploiting this tragedy for their own agendas and not really trying to solve problems.

(I could be wrong, but when they first showed grainy surveillance film of this individual skulking outside the school building, it looked like he was possibly wearing a white plastic 'Scream' or 'Skull' mask and white gloves).

I cannot believe that the graphic violence and Demonic fascination contained in many video games, on the internet & social media, in horror movies, and on television is not responsible for a lot of this perverted horrific behavior.

[FredC]

With you there, the idealistic Mayberry lifestyle and law enforcement would be not far off in Uvalde. Just heard the population is 15,000 there. Not sure why they went to next higher high school classification over my hometown. We did beat them a fair percentage of the time.

In my hometown there was a bully a few grades ahead of me. I guess he wanted to be able to beat up someone taller than him even though I was several years younger. He got into all kinds of trouble in school, he ended up being executed for murder and robbery. My mother thought his aunt was deficient in raising him. My mother later talked to the aunt and changed her opinion. The aunt jumped through all kinds of hoops trying to help the kid. Some people are just bad from early in their life.

About 20 years ago Japan had a spate of mal contents going into schools with knives and killing students. I have read no accounts of how they solved the problem, but I have heard of no more incidents recently. I doubt they spent a whole lot of time blaming knives and trying to outlaw them. Perhaps letting the victim's relatives spend some time beating the corpse with baseball bats then letting buzzards and coyotes dispose of the remains while being filmed. Might help the relatives and take the glamour out of it for wannabees.

[FredC]

training.fema.gov ---------------- National Incident Management System (NIMS)

Correct name for the incident management system.
We do not have a single member in our department that has had this training. We just show up and do something. Dewees is not even a wide spot in the road. There is a store, fire department, and a couple houses on one side of the road with 3000 acre farm on the other side of the road. Speed limit does not change for the "town", stays 60 MPH. We make Mayberry look like a metropolis.

It is easy to understand the laxness in small rural cities. If the school resource officer had any NIMS training he should have handed off command to the more experienced when they arrived. Hind sight should be 20/20, hopefully investigations are for learning instead of punishing the inexperienced.

[butlersrangers]

There are lots of broken hearts in (and about) Uvalde.

We need to help each other, learn from mistakes and solve problems.

We don't need more division and Scapegoats.

I worked with juvenile delinquents for 30 years. Occasionally, we had to deal with a 'stone cold' murderer (and identifiable sociopaths).
The system seemed designed to put these evil 'human bombs' back in circulation, when they became "adults".
Even if Waived into the Adult Justice System, they would be released someday.

Their Rights were better protected than those of their victims.

[kerry49]

It's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg down to Danville. A little train music for you BR.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4NZFoa4onB4

[Doubly Reincarnated]

Seems to me there are 3 or 4 separate problems that all rolled into the s-ball that hit Uvalde.

BR hit the nail on the head when he wrote that our system or systems turn those identified as some sort of stone cold killers or dangerous psychopaths (juveniles or not) loose to do it again. Trump probably torpedoed any hope of action when he made his speech at the NRA convention. Both our school systems and our law enforcement systems ID the bad ones, but nothing ever happens.

60 years ago, when I was a kid in the Navy, I traveled by bus across Luzon, in the Philippines. They had problems with armed people attacking schools. The rural & small town schools I saw looked like those in rural California, but each had a squad or 2 of National Guard on duty whenever the kids were there. One school had M-1919 Brownings on each corner of the roof, others just had a couple of piles of sandbags on either side of each door, prepared firing positions. When the kids went outside for recess at school playgrounds just like ours, the NG guys took up defensive positions around the playground. I was told the NG guys were local, maybe had relatives in the school, maybe went to the school when they were kids. Apparently our country has degenerated to an approximate threat level equal to Luzon circa 1961. Over-the-hill cops & schoolteachers with pocket pistols aren't the answer. But a squad or 2 of NG men & women at each school would put an end to it. We sent our NG troops to the sandbox for more than 20 years and didn't accomplish much. We don't need military vehicles, concertina wire or machine guns, just physically fit watchful NG with no political strings attached. If we did that, I'm pretty sure school shootings would stop.

Felons & other banned people with guns is another problem. Here in CA, the same convicted felons are arrested and have guns but are let go again, time after time. Revolving door. No does not mean NO!

IIRC, bump stocks went away when they were added to the 1934 list. Is it time to do that with AR and AK types?