The deaths of 19 students and two teachers in a mass shooting at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary showed Texas that it wasn’t doing enough to keep kids safe in school. Almost three years later, it still isn’t.
This session, state lawmakers are considering House Bill 33, or “the Uvalde Strong Act.”
We don’t doubt that state Rep. Don McLaughlin, a former Uvalde mayor and the bill’s author, has good intentions. His bill would strengthen law enforcement preparedness for responding to school shootings and shore up security standards.
The proposal garnered bipartisan support, passing through the House unanimously. But in the end, it’s another Band-Aid solution.
The Uvalde gunman carried an AR-15-style rifle he bought on his 18th birthday, days before the shooting. The easy availability of such weapons is one of the key problems lawmakers refuse to address.
Another failure that deepened the tragedy in Uvalde is that nearly 400 officers waited for more than an hour outside the classroom where the gunman holed up with teachers and students. A Department of Justice report showed that the officers responding had no clear leadership and that they were confused, ill-trained and in some cases acted with complacency and cowardice.
That sweeping failure of law enforcement is something the bill does at least attempt to address. For example, it would require advanced training for command officers and would require the creation of a school shooting response training program for law enforcement and emergency medical services.
There is nothing wrong with any of that, but it can’t fix the incompetence and cowardice that were also ingredients in the Uvalde massacre. The Columbine High School shooting of 1999 led to a well-established protocol of law enforcement across the country that an officer or officers must confront an active shooter immediately.
House Bill 33 focuses heavily on preparedness. It would require school districts to conduct additional security reviews whenever it builds, buys or renovates a campus. The bill would also require all school districts and law enforcement agencies to have at least one breaching tool and a ballistic shield.
As we’ve said before, hardening schools has become necessary. We wish Texas lawmakers were just as preoccupied with stopping guns from reaching the wrong hands.
The Uvalde victims’ families waited too long for official answers about the law enforcement response. McLaughlin’s bill would also add requirements that agencies responding to school shootings produce a preliminary report within 45 days of the incidents and final report within 90. Getting at least some answers to families sooner through these new reporting requirements is a good thing.
But the most fundamental issues remain: a culture of violence and easy access to powerful guns. We have become a state that prepares for school shootings and plans for what should happen in their aftermath instead of doing everything we can to prevent the shootings in the first place.