#Texas school shooting

[filosofablogger]

Wear Orange Day -- A Day Late!

Although I initially wrote this post in 2021, this is the 2nd year in a row that I nearly forgot until reminded by our friend Larry over at Just Drive, Will You who posted yesterday, on the actual day, reminding me — and now I’m a day late!  But, better late than never, right?   Today, I think this post, this National Day, is more relevant than ever, given that gun violence, and especially mass…

[dogtreatsmart]

DogNews@DogTreatSmart

‘They make you feel happy’: How therapy dogs are helping a Uvalde Catholic school

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[hannahvag]

Join me on Zangi

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[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Several Uvalde families are suing Daniel Defense, the gun company whose AR-15 style rifle an 18-year-old gunman used to kill 19 children and two teachers and injure several others at Robb Elementary two years ago, lawyers said.

The family members of victims Friday also filed a separate lawsuit against California-based companies Meta — the parent company of Instagram and Facebook — and Activision, whose best-selling video game Call of Duty features Daniel Defense guns.

The lawsuits together will argue that the three companies marketed semi-automatic weapons to the Uvalde gunman before he was 18, accusing them of negligence and wrongful death. The shooter purchased firearms shortly after he turned 18 years old and then used one of those guns to carry out the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.

In Texas, 18-year-olds can legally purchase long guns such as rifles.

Josh Koskoff, an attorney representing the Uvalde families, says there was a direct line between the companies' conduct and the Uvalde shooting.

“Just 23 minutes after midnight on his 18th birthday, the Uvalde shooter bought an AR-15 made by a company with a market share of less than one percent,” Koskoff said in a statement. “Why? Because, well before he was old enough to purchase it, he was targeted and cultivated online by Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense. This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it.”

The lawsuits come on the two-year anniversary of the shooting.

Attorneys argue that Daniel Defense intentionally markets its weapons to adolescents and uses platforms including Instagram and first-person shooter games like Call of Duty to promote criminal use of their weapons.

They add that Instagram provides an unsupervised channel to speak directly to adolescent boys because of what attorneys say are flimsy and easily circumvented rules meant to prohibit firearm advertising to children.

The lawsuit against Daniel Defense is expected to be filed in Texas’ 38th District Court in Uvalde County on behalf of 31 family members of the victims. It accuses Daniel Defense of courting the shooter with marketing that lures adolescents into forming an attachment with its brand of AR-15s, particularly its flagship DDM4v7.

The lawsuit against Activision and Meta was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of approximately 45 family members of the deceased and injured victims. It accuses the gaming company of desensitizing young men to acts of mass violence and grooming them to seek out weapons like those featured in Call of Duty. An Activision spokesperson did not respond to questions about the allegations in the lawsuit but issued a statement expressing their condolences to the victims’ families.

“The Uvalde shooting was horrendous and heartbreaking in every way, and we express our deepest sympathies to the families and communities who remain impacted by this senseless act of violence,” the spokesperson said. “Millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrific acts.”

However, the Entertainment Software Association, which represents top publishers in the gaming industry, denounced efforts to blame video games for real-life acts of violence.

“We are saddened and outraged by senseless acts of violence,” said an association spokesperson. “At the same time, we discourage baseless accusations linking these tragedies to video gameplay, which detract from efforts to focus on the root issues in question and safeguard against future tragedies. Many other countries have similar rates of video gameplay to the United States, yet do not see similar rates of gun violence.”

Representatives for Daniel Defense and Meta did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

While Instagram prohibits the marketing of firearms on its platform, the lawsuit claims Instagram fails to enforce firearm guidelines while rigorously enforcing other types of content guidelines.

The Uvalde families’ legal action appears to follow a similar playbook that Koskoff, a Connecticut attorney, successfully employed in his home state, where he helped victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting win a $73 million settlement in a lawsuit against the maker of the AR-15 style rifle used in that school shooting.

That settlement was widely considered a setback for the firearms industry, which has broad legal immunity from civil complaints. A 2005 law enacted by Congress shields gun companies from liability for crimes committed using their weapons. Koskoff’s team worked around that by successfully arguing that the gun company could be sued under a consumer protection state law, through an exception to the federal law.

Over the course of the Connecticut case, documents came out through the discovery process showing that gun company Remington has a licensing agreement with Activision. It is not clear if such an agreement exists between Daniel Defense and Activision.

A 2019 Instagram post from Daniel Defense says “Call of Duty Modern Warfare launched today” and shows a photo of the type of rifle used in the Uvalde shooting.

Other Instagram posts from Daniel Defense show videos of young men actively firing the company’s rifle. A 2020 Instagram post shows an image of someone taking a gun out of the trunk of their car and the words “refuse to be a victim.”

“Gun companies like Daniel Defense don’t act alone,” Koskoff said. “AR-15s were available when many of us were growing up, but we didn’t have mass shootings by kids. What has changed is that companies like Instagram and Activision do more than just allow gun companies to reach consumers–they underwrite and mainstream violence to struggling adolescents.”

This is not the first lawsuit families have filed against Daniel Defense. Uvalde victims’ families previously filed two lawsuits against the Georgia-based gun manufacturer, alleging that the company intentionally marketed its AR-15 rifles to young males in ways that “encourage the illegal and dangerous misuse” of its weapons.

Daniel Defense has sought to dismiss those lawsuits, which were filed in federal court and remain ongoing.

In the two years since the Robb Elementary School shooting, state and local law enforcement officers have been heavily criticized for their response to the massacre. Hundreds of law enforcement officers descended upon the school and waited for more than an hour to confront the gunman, who shot indiscriminately inside two fourth grade classrooms.

The botched response was the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice report and a scathing Texas House Committee investigation. A grand jury convened by Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell could determine whether any federal, state and local officers are criminally charged.

On Wednesday, Uvalde families — represented by Koskoff — filed a lawsuit against 92 Texas Department of Public Safety Officers. They also announced a $2 million settlement with the city of Uvalde. During a press briefing on the day of that announcement, Koskoff foreshadowed that additional lawsuits would be filed on behalf of Uvalde families, including some lawsuits focusing on the time period before the shooting.

“There has been, appropriately, so much of a focus on law enforcement,” Koskoff told reporters earlier this week. “And, I think it’s appropriate to remember that they are at the end of the road.”

Koskoff noted that the 610-page DOJ report included “not a single page on why the shooting happened in the first place.”

The number of semi-automatic rifles, which include AR-15s, produced or imported in the U.S. have increased significantly since the 1990s. AR-15-style rifles weren’t used in mass shootings until 2007, according to a database kept by Mother Jones. In 2022, gunmen used an AR-15 rifle in 67% of the 12 massacres that year.

The AR-15 was designed in the late 1950s as a military-style rifle.

Officers who responded to the Robb Elementary School shooting feared the rifle and decided to not immediately confront the gunman, a Texas Tribune investigation found. Officers instead waited for a Border Patrol SWAT team based 60 miles away to arrive.

Uvalde families pushed the state Legislature to pass a bill to raise the minimum age for buying certain semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. That bill failed to pass in the Republican-controlled Legislature that has spent years loosening gun laws, making it easier for Texans to get guns in a state whose residents have a strong fealty to the Second Amendment.

[high-quality-tiktoks]

🧒🏻🩸⁉️

[tomorrowusa]

This is the Texas of Greg Abbott and Ted "Cancún" Cruz where kids get less consideration than guns.

If police had been told that the school library contained books about slavery or LGBTQ+ acceptance at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde they would have barged in with guns blazing instead of spending over an hour playing with themselves outside the school while kids were being murdered by yet another gun nut.

The long-awaited report detailed systemic failures by both state and local law enforcement surrounding the massacre, one of the worst school shootings in US history, including the events that contributed to the 77-minute delay between the arrival of first responders and when the shooter was killed. “The victims and survivors should’ve never been trapped with that shooter for more than an hour as they waited for their rescue,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a Thursday press conference discussing the contents of the report. “The families of the victims deserved more than incomplete, inaccurate, and conflicting communications from officials of their loved ones.” [ ... ] The report, based on a review of more than 14,000 pieces of data and more than 260 interviews, also directly called out Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department officials, including former police chief Pete Arredondo for instructing officers not to enter some classrooms until keys had been secured. While the police response to the shooting has been heavily criticized, it’s important to note that the Texas GOP has been blocking gun safety legislation that could’ve potentially stopped this shooting from occurring.

Among Texas Republicans, the right to conduct school shootings is revered and is enshrined in the sacred 2nd Amendment. Police in Texas have to be careful not to offend the gun-worshiping GOP establishment.

The Department of Justice report can be read in its entirety below.

Critical Incident Review Active Shooter at Robb Elementary School

We already know what a horrible tragedy this was. Reading about the lack of professionalism, gross incompetence, and outright cowardice of Texas law enforcement will make your blood boil.

Republican governors like Greg Abbott want to force women to have babies by denying them reproductive freedom. But once those kids are born they are of little interest to Republicans.

[trench]

Uvalde cops cowered from AR-15, while shooter wrote 'LOL' in blood

It’s almost been a year since the tragic school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Uvalde was not only the deadliest shooting in Texas history, but the third deadliest in US history, only behind Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook. One of the reasons the Uvalde shooting was so deadly was because the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police (UCISD PD) gave the shooter,…

[despertara]

Irene bro if you see this I want you to know I've been podcasting (talking loudly and emphatically to myself) abt that Grammy Gun post for Hours. I started ranting in the rb tags and then I got so mad I started a spreadsheet on my phone Yes I have the Excel app. No I did not finish my tags

[cyarskaren52]

Those many officers just stood there, in the hallway, one or two smiled, one sanitized his hands from wall dispenser, all while hearing the children's screams as they were being murdered. They were cowards. 💔

Nwa and rage against the machine were right about the police in America

Anyone who listens to these songs would understand the previous statement

[strawlessandbraless]

Another Day, Another Mass Shooting in Texas

There have been more mass shootings than days in this year, that’s 192 mass shootings at the time of post. Enough is enough

See full thread with all links on Twitter

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

As a teacher we go through this training every year. As an adult it is quite harrowing to have to learn how to do tourniquets, seal chest wounds, pack gunshot wounds, and watch videos about all these things, and the scenarios that could happen.

This bill wants that same training for kids starting at age 8.

Let me say that again. This bill wants kids as young as age 8 to be responsible for their own trauma response care in the event of a school shooting.

What

The.

Fuck.

[ignorantsanonymous]

The Tragedy Prayer

"Let us offer up a prayer to those who have perished in this nightmarish act of cruelty today.

And I remind you all, once again, that we pray not to God, but to ourselves; to sharpen our minds and to focus our wills.

Our Power, which burns within Us, exquisite be Our Might.

Our Kingdom come, Our Will be done, on Earth as it is within Us.

Give Us this day our fondest wish, and improve ever upon Us, as we strive ever to improve Ourselves.

And lead Us not into corruption or malaise, but give Us strength to persist in the face of adversity.

Lives have been taken needlessly from Us by a loathsome lost soul on a mission of evil.

May the sickness of this rotten death-urge vacate Our collective Being.

May the exploiters of tragedy find that their words turn to shit in their mouths.

May the deniers of tragedy find that they are denied mercy until they repent.

May the cruelty of this world be alleviated by the love and fellowship and brotherhood and sisterhood and siblinghood that We may find in Ourselves.

To love One Another and to serve One Another and to serve those that love Us.

And may Those whose souls are on this day scorched with pain and anguish find Their way to the balm of kindness.

Let Those who have been so darkly touched by the worst of humanity see now the best of it.

And may Our differences be cast aside, and all the bullshit cut through, until all that is left is the truth.

Let it be so."

-TJ Kirk (May 2022)

[lenbryant]

A Texas solution to school pew pew.

[vanyafresita]

actually, you know what ? im glad my ex gf ghosted me, i dodged a bullet it seems