Uvalde police, school resource officers, and other law enforcement officials waited more than an hour after the shooting began to breach the door and kill the teenage gunman, giving him time to kill 19 students and two teachers in a fourth-grade classroom.
Though the investigation is ongoing, leaving Uvalde residents anxious to understand what happened that day, Randy Sutton of The Wounded Blue says other police departments took notice and have stepped up their training.
"Police officers across this country have been retrained and constantly continue their training in active shooter response," he tells AFN. "We've seen a number of them since Uvalde that have been textbook responses."
He thinks the recent shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, where the gunman was down 14 minutes after the first 911 call was made, is an example of that.
"What happened in Nashville is the norm," says Sutton. "What happened in Uvalde is the exception."
While no one can know exactly why these tragedies are so common in the U.S., he believes woke politics, which create and feed victimhood and anger, certainly play a role.
"We're living in an incredibly turbulent time, one that almost defies explanation," Sutton observes. "We are making heroes of criminals, and we are vilifying those who fight the criminality."
When this sort of tragedy strikes, calls for assault weapons bans and other gun control measures are energized. But he likens that to chasing after ghosts.
"I honestly don't think that gun control is the answer to the active shooter situations," the retired officer tells AFN. "There's millions upon millions of weapons that are already out there, and you can't put the genie back in the bottle."
At least in Texas, voters seem to agree. Governor Greg Abbott (R), who has waved off calls for tougher gun laws in the state, easily won a third term to office following the shooting last year.
