All the patients had “large destructive wounds,” said Dr. Lillian Liao, a pediatric trauma surgeon in San Antonio.
And these were the children who have so far survived the shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Here are the children and teachers who did not survive.
“When a high-velocity firearm enters a body, it basically creates a wave and a blast,” Dr. Lillian Liao, a pediatric trauma surgeon at University Hospital in San Antonio — treating four patients from the Uvalde shooting — told “Nightline.” “So it looks like a body part got blown up … A handgun may create one small hole, whereas a high-velocity firearm will create a giant hole in the body that is with missing tissue.”
When I look at the pictures of these children and teachers, it takes me to my own grandchildren who are in elementary school. It fills me with sorrow.
I have read and listened to a lot about gun control/gun safety. I’ve not yet heard a reason I can agree with for people outside the military to have assault weapons and high capacity magazines of ammunition. Certainly they aren’t necessary for hunting. Target shooting? Why? In preparation for what?
A suggested remedy for reducing school shootings is to arm the teachers. If the teacher is going to be able to compete with a person with an assault rifle, then the teacher needs an assault rifle. But maybe a handgun would be enough of a deterrent. How would this would work on a practical level. Let’s say the teacher has a handgun. Is the gun going to be locked in a safe container? Will it be loaded? Will the teacher keep it in his/her desk? Wear it under a jacket? On her hip? Let’s say in the Uvalde case, these two teachers had been armed. The young man walked in with an assault rifle. I can’t imagine the teacher could have pulled her gun…even off her hip, let alone out of her desk or a locked box…in time to shoot the intruder. She would be dead or wounded nearly instantly.
Let’s say it isn’t a case of an intruder intent on mass shooting. Let’s say an angry student sneaks a gun into school because a particular teacher insulted him (I say him, because it seems to be mostly – only? – boys who do this). I doubt the teacher could get to a gun before being shot.
And then there is the economics of this idea. Schools can’t even afford a nurse, or a counselor, or a security officer, or a librarian, or enough textbooks, or enough supplies. Who is going to pay for the guns and the training? And who is going to teach the classes while the teacher is being trained in rapid response to a shooting situation?
Finally, part of this idea is that good people with guns will deter bad people with guns. In Uvalde there were numerous police officers heavily armed right outside the school. The result is 19 dead children, two dead teachers, and a few “survivors” with “giant holes in the body that is….missing tissue”.
Darrell Parsons
Talbot County
Talbot County
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