Police arrest self-proclaimed girlfriend of Uvalde shooter for allegedly threatening victims' families, vowing more violence



A 19-year-old woman claiming to be the girlfriend of the gunman who murdered 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas last year has been charged for allegedly making interstate threats, which is a federal crime.

Victoria Gabriela Rodríguez-Morales, whose supposed boyfriend was ultimately put down by police, was arrested Wednesday in Puerto Rico after a grand jury issued a 13-count indictment.

"The U.S. Attorney's Office has no tolerance for illegal threats, especially threats that target people who are the victims of the horrific mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas," U.S. Attorney Stephen Muldrow of the District of Puerto Rico said in a statement. "We hope that this arrest brings a sense of peace to those who were targeted by the defendant."

According to an FBI affidavit obtained by Law & Crime, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service have been investigating a series of violent interstate threats "directed at public institutions, public officials, and private citizens in Uvalde, Texas, and other Texas areas, from operator(s) in Puerto Rico" for several months.

Rodríguez-Morales was identified as the prime suspect. She had already been under investigation for similar threats targeted at the victims' families since at least 2018 — four years prior to the May 24, 2022, mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.

The suspect previously resided with her mother in Uvalde, where she had run-ins with the law and "sent email threats to kill public officials, shoot schools, and kill teachers and students."'

KSAT-TV noted that court documents suggest the suspect was found to have above-average intelligence and a lack of remorse or guilt. She was also reportedly diagnosed with "opposition Defiant Disorder and Intermittent Explosive Disorder."

After a brief stint in a juvenile detention center, she relocated with her family to Puerto Rico around May 2020.

From 2020 up until this year, Rodríguez-Morales threatened the Uvalde Police, Uvalde High School, Morales Junior High School, the Texas Public Safety Department, the Uvalde Fire Department, and other institutions, by email, over social media, and using relatives' phones, according to the FBI affidavit.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Puerto Rico listed some of the many threats the suspect allegedly made, including

  • "They will shoot uvalde high school and morales jr high whenever I tell 'em So yeah the persecution is gonna start today";
  • "I will haunt everyone from class 2022 to 2023 Each and every single one of y'all will die";
  • "Each and every single one of y'all will die in the name of [the school shooter]";
  • "Your childrens hospital may blow in pieces If yall dont do as i say"; and
  • "We will shoot Uvalde Texas high school and Texas A&M college."

The FBI affidavit details various other ghoulish remarks, including, "Lovely they died I'm glad some of their blood runs in my hands Me and [the school shooter] wanted to do this together but he did not wait for me to come," and "more kids will die and teens so don't cry about this one cause there's worse coming."

According to officials, at least one of Rodríguez-Morales' alleged threats resulted in the temporary closure of a school in Texas.

The suspect also allegedly threatened Kimberly Mata-Rubio, the 34-year-old mother of Lexi, a 10-year-old girl slain in the Robb Elementary School shooting. "If Mata Rubio wins the elections I will kill her," Rodríguez-Morales is quoted as writing.

Mata-Rubio ran for mayor of Uvalde, losing in last month's election to former Mayor Cody Smith.

In a number of the threats issued after her alleged boyfriend was riddled with bullets, the suspect alluded to other people being willing to "start the plan we have." It's presently unclear whether she had been in contact and scheming with the mass shooter's cousin, Nathan Cruz, who was arrested by the San Antonio Police Department on Aug. 8.

The SAPD indicated authorities had been informed by a family member that Cruz was making threats and "upon further investigation, detectives were able to gather enough evidence to produce an arrest warrant for Terrorist Threat."

CNN reported that Cruz's mother allegedly overheard a phone conversation where he was attempting to illegally get his hands on a rifle similar to that used by his cousin in the 2022 mass shooting.

The FBI affidavit indicates that besides other evidence linking the suspect to the threats, she also uploaded photos and videos of herself to accounts associated with the messages.

The suspect faces five years for each of the 13 counts with which she has been charged. As of Thursday, she remained in custody at the Puerto Rico Metropolitan Detention Center.

"The subject in this case was hundreds of miles away from the place she intended to torment through threats of violence. Yet she was still identified, located and arrested," said Joseph González, special agent in charge of the FBI San Juan Field Office. "May this serve as public notice that this behavior will not be tolerated, in Puerto Rico or anywhere else in the nation."

A guardian of one of the Uvalde school shooting victims told KSAT, "I've had threats against my other kids and nothing happens to these people. So I'm glad that something is finally happening."

Guardian of Uvalde shooting victim, FBI respond to arrest of shooter's girlfriendyoutu.be

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Uvalde school district suspends entire police force after 'recent developments' in shooting response investigation



The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District has suspended the entire UCISD police force, the district announced Friday.

The decision came down following "recent developments" in the investigation into how police officers botched the response to the May 24 Robb Elementary School massacre that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

"The District remains committed to resolving issues with verifiable evidence. Decisions concerning the UCISD police department have been pending the results of the Texas Police Chiefs Association and JPPI investigation. Recent developments have uncovered additional concerns with department operations," UCISD said in a statement Friday.

The district also said Lt. Miguel Hernandez and Ken Mueller, director of student services, have been placed on administrative leave.

"The District will continue to engage with the Texas Police Chiefs Association who is conducting a Management and Organizational Review. The results of this review will guide the rebuilding of the department and the hiring of a new Chief of Police. We expect to have a report later this month. Also, as previously stated, JPPI is conducting an investigation into the UCISD police officers' response to the May 24, 2022 tragedy. Results of the investigation will inform future personnel decisions," the district said.

Victims' families, who have been holding a round-the-clock vigil outside the school district headquarters, expressed gratitude for the district's announcement, ABC News reported.

Earlier this week, the school district fired a recently hired school officer, Crimson Elizondo, after a CNN report identified her as one of the first responders under investigation for her actions, or lack of action, during the shooting. The school police chief, Pete Arredondo, was fired in August, and seven Texas Department of Public Safety officers are under investigation as well, including Elizondo.

The delayed police response to the May 24 shooting has drawn widespread criticism and intense scrutiny.

A special report by the Texas legislature found that "systemic failures and egregious poor decision making" led to several children being trapped in a classroom with the shooter, dying as they awaited rescue from nearly 400 law enforcement personnel who responded.

Despite the massive law enforcement presence, the shooter was not neutralized until 77 minutes after he entered the school building.

A $27 billion class action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of the victims and survivors of the Uvalde school shooting to hold Texas law enforcement accountable for the tragedy. The lawsuit also targets gun manufacturer Daniel Defense and Oasis Outback, the retailer where the shooter purchased his murder weapon.

Uvalde school principal placed on administrative leave as parents demand accountability



Robb Elementary School principal Mandy Gutierrez was placed on administrative leave Monday, her attorney said.

Gutierrez was suspended with pay after a special legislative investigation into the May 24 massacre of 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, found that she was aware of security problems at the school prior to the shooting but had failed to address them, ABC News reported.

Her attorney, Ricardo Cedillo, did not give a reason for her suspension in a "terse" statement to the Associated Press.

School district officials have also declined to comment on the suspension.

A report by the Texas state House found that among numerous "systemic failures," Robb Elementary School had a recurring problem with maintaining locks and doors. Amid questions regarding whether properly locked doors would have prevented the shooter from entering the building or classrooms, the report found there was a "culture of noncompliance" for locked doors "which turned out to be fatal."

The door the shooter used to get inside the building wasn't locked, and the door to one of the classrooms he entered was probably not locked, the report said. Gutierrez and at least two other school employees had known the lock wasn't working properly, but no work order was ever placed to fix it.

Gutierrez's suspension follows that of school district police chief Pete Arredondo, who was placed on unpaid administrative leave in June. The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District has recommended that Arredondo be fired.

Arredondo has been blamed for the failed police response to the shooting. He was incident commander while the gunman shot up a classroom but failed to follow standard police protocol, resulting in children and teachers dying while officers who were equipped to storm the classroom waited outside instead.

The district school board met Monday and approved a three-week postponement to the start of the 2022-2023 school year until Sept. 6 so that officials could improve school security and provide emotional and support services to students, ABC News reported.

Family members of the victims went to the school board meeting and complained that district officials are continuing to be unresponsive and have not held anyone accountable for their failures.

Brett Cross, whose daughter Uziyah Garcia was murdered in the massacre, told board members that only one of those present had reached out to his family, according to ABC News.

"You care more about your damn selves than you do for our children," Cross said, demanding that someone on the board take responsibility for the failures. "Why have y'all still not taken accountability for y'all's mess-ups? Can any one of y'all look me dead in the eyes and say, 'Look, we messed up?'"

Eventually, board member Luis Fernandez admitted that "everybody messed up."

'Systemic failures': New report finds nearly 400 law enforcement officers at Uvalde school shooting, blames all agencies for 'lackadaisical approach'



Nearly 400 law enforcement officers were at the Robb Elementary School during the Uvalde school shooting that resulted in the deaths of 19 students and two teachers, according to a new report.

An investigative committee from the Texas House of Representatives released a 77-page report regarding the police response to the Uvalde shooting on Sunday.

The report stated, "There is no one to whom we can attribute malice or ill motives. Instead, we found systemic failures and egregious poor decision making."

The report regarding the May 24 massacre found "an overall lackadaisical approach” by federal, state, and local authorities at the deadly crime scene.

The investigators said there were "shortcomings and failures of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and of various agencies and officers of law enforcement."

There were 376 law enforcement officers at Robb Elementary School during the shooting – including 149 from the United States Border Patrol, 14 from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and 91 from the Texas Department of Public Safety. There were also 25 responders from Uvalde Police Department, 16 from the Uvalde County Sheriff's Office, 16 from the San Antonio Police Department (SWAT), and five officers from the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police.

Despite the massive law enforcement presence, the mass shooter was not neutralized until 77 minutes after the gunman entered Robb Elementary School.

The committee's report noted, "The attacker fired most of his shots and likely murdered most of his innocent victims before any responder set foot in the building. Of the approximately 142 rounds the attacker fired inside the building, it is almost certain that he rapidly fired over 100 of those rounds before any officer entered."

The investigation also found that law enforcement disregarded their own active shooter training protocols.

"They failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety," the report said.

The committee also faulted better-trained law enforcement agencies for not taking leadership away Pete Arredondo – the former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police chief.

"In this crisis, no responder seized the initiative to establish an incident command post," the committee report said. "Despite an obvious atmosphere of chaos, the ranking officers of other responding agencies did not approach the Uvalde CISD chief of police or anyone else perceived to be in command to point out the lack of and need for a command post, or to offer that specific assistance."

The committee also discovered that school staff broke safeguards, such as leaving doors unlocked and propping them open with wedges or rocks.

(WARNING: Graphic content)

Exclusive Uvalde video shows school shooting, police in hallway after shooter entered classroom www.youtube.com

Brave citizen speaks out as Uvalde mayor attacks press for leaking video of police response: 'Are they chickens**t?'



Uvalde, Texas, Mayor Don McLaughlin blasted the press on Tuesday for leaking surveillance footage that lays bare the horrendous police response to the Uvalde gunman.

The video, published by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV, shows police responded to the school just minutes after the rampage began. However, for nearly 1.5 hours, police loitered outside the classroom where the killer had barricaded himself and refused to engage him, which could have potentially saved more lives.

The shocking video even shows some officers engaging in casual activities like checking cellphones and using a hand sanitizer dispenser in the hallway.

What did McLaughlin say?

Speaking at an Uvalde City Council meeting, McLaughlin condemned the press for publishing the video before victims' families had the opportunity to see it for themselves.

"I want to go on the record: The way that video was released today was one of the most chicken things I've ever seen," McLaughlin said.

According to the mayor, officials had planned to meet with victims' families on Sunday, where they would be offered a report on the police response and given the opportunity to review an edited version of the video. The version leaked to the press included footage of the killer as he shot into the classroom and audio of gunshots.

"There was no reason for those families to have to see that. They were going to see the video, but they didn’t need to see the gunman coming in and hear the gunshots," McLaughlin said. "They don’t need to relive that. They’ve been through enough."

\u201cUvalde Mayor calls media "chicken" for releasing video from school at City Council meeting. Another member of the council follows up with calling it "chickenshit." \nResident followed up, asking he they thought that cops were "chicken?"\nH/T @ahylton26\u201d
— Zach D Roberts - Photojournalist for hire (@Zach D Roberts - Photojournalist for hire) 1657673182

Uvalde Councilman Ernest King later chimed in, "The mayor said 'chicken' — it was chickens**t to release that video the way you did."

"Yeah," McLaughlin agreed.

What did the citizen say?

As King continued to blast the media, claiming the outlets published the video for money and attention, an audience member interrupted to ask about the police response.

"What about the cops? Are they chickens**t?" the citizen interjected.

Then, directing his inquiry toward McLaughlin, the man, whom the mayor identified as "Adam," said, "You still think [the cops] did a good job?"

"Adam, I'm not going to get into an argument with you on that," McLaughlin responded before defending some of the officers.

"You should ask everybody what they think —" the man was responding when McLaughlin interrupted.

"I know what everybody thinks, and we need to let the investigation come through," McLaughlin said.

Another man in the audience then pointed out the irony of the council blasting the media. "You should attack those cops who did nothing," that person said.

McLaughlin then accused the man whom he identified as "Adam" of "missing the point" because "you only hear what you want to hear." The mayor then promised accounability for all law enforcement involved.

Uvalde school district puts police chief Pete Arredondo on administrative leave after scathing DPS assessment



The superintendent for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District announced on Wednesday that school police chief Pete Arredondo was placed on administrative leave.

Arredondo has been at the center of the firestorm over the failed police response to the massacre at the Robb Elementary School on May 24. Nineteen children and 2 teachers were shot to death, some of which were killed while police waited outside of the schoolroom where the gunman had barricaded himself.

Superintendent Dr. Hal Harrell said that the leave would take effect immediately.

"From the beginning of this horrible event, I shared that the district would wait until the investigation was complete before making personnel decisions," Harrell said in the statement.

"Today, I am still without details of the investigations being conducted by various agencies," he added. "Because of the lack of clarity that remains and the unknown timing of when I will receive the results of the investigations, I have made the decision to place Chief Arredondo on administrative leave effective on this date."

Arredondo was incident commander at the shooting, but he later claimed that he didn't know he was in charge because he had intentionally dropped off his radios when he entered the school.

He also said that he didn't hear about reports that school children were making emergency calls to 911 from inside the room while the gunman continued to murder them.

On Tuesday, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw called the police response an "abject failure" and said that police could have neutralized the attacker within three minutes of his arriving at the school and saved many lives.

"The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111, and 112, was the on-scene commander, who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children," said McCraw.

Investigators say Arredondo entered the school only 3 minutes after the shooter did, but that police waited for an hour and 14 minutes to finally breach the school room and take him down.

Here's more about the new development:

Uvalde Mayor Pushes Back At School And Police Department Critiquewww.youtube.com

20 senators announce framework of bipartisan deal for new gun control measures



A bipartisan group of 20 senators – including 10 Republicans – announced framework for a deal to implement new gun control measures. The gun legislation was quickly put together in the wake of the Uvalde shooting – which ended in 19 students and two teachers being shot dead at the Robb Elementary School in Texas.

“Today, we are announcing a commonsense, bipartisan proposal to protect America’s children, keep our schools safe and reduce the threat of violence across our country,” the group of senators said in a statement. “Families are scared, and it is our duty to come together and get something done that will help restore their sense of safety and security in their communities.”

"Our plan increases needed mental health resources, improves school safety and support for students, and helps ensure dangerous criminals and those who are adjudicated as mentally ill can’t purchase weapons," the joint statement read.

"Most importantly, our plan saves lives while also protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans," the senators stated. "We look forward to earning broad, bipartisan support and passing our commonsense proposal into law."

The framework of the gun control package would expand background checks for firearm purchasers under the age of 21 to have their juvenile records and mental health records reviewed.

The deal would include a provision to close the so-called "boyfriend loophole." Convicted domestic violence abusers would be included in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

The legislation would offer incentives for states to implement "red flag" laws to enable police or family members to prevent someone who is deemed a risk to themselves or others from having guns.

The agreement would implement harsher penalties on "straw purchasing" of guns, and those who traffic firearms.

The framework includes funding for school safety measures and mental health resources.

The final bill hasn't been written yet, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he was "pleased" that "Congress is on the path to take meaningful action to address gun violence" for "the first time in nearly 30 years." He vowed to put the bill on the floor "swiftly."

"After an unrelenting wave of gun-related suicides and homicides, including mass shootings, the Senate is poised to act on commonsense reforms to protect Americans where they live, where they shop, and where they learn," Schumer said. "We must move swiftly to advance this legislation because if a single life can be saved it is worth the effort."

Shortly after the deal was announced, President Joe Biden issued a statement proclaiming that he would sign the legislation immediately.

"Obviously, it does not do everything that I think is needed, but it reflects important steps in the right direction, and would be the most significant gun safety legislation to pass Congress in decades," President Biden said. "With bipartisan support, there are no excuses for delay, and no reason why it should not quickly move through the Senate and the House."

"Each day that passes, more children are killed in this country: the sooner it comes to my desk, the sooner I can sign it, and the sooner we can use these measures to save lives," Biden concluded.

With the Senate deadlocked at 50-50, the bill has a good chance of passing with the support of the 10 GOP senators.

The Democratic senators who signed the proposal:

  • Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut
  • Cory Booker of New Jersey
  • Chris Coons of Delaware
  • Martin Heinrich of New Mexico
  • Mark Kelly of Arizona
  • Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats;
  • Joe Manchin of West Virginia
  • Chris Murphy of Connecticut
  • Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona
  • Debbie Stabenow of Michigan

The Republican senators who endorsed the framework:

  • Roy Blunt of Missouri
  • Richard Burr of North Carolina
  • John Cornyn of Texas
  • Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
  • Susan Collins of Maine
  • Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
  • Rob Portman of Ohio
  • Mitt Romney of Utah
  • Thom Tillis of North Carolina
  • Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

'We're not going back!': Uvalde superintendent says students will never return to Robb Elementary School; school board declines to punish police chief



The Uvalde school board held a special meeting on Friday where the decision was made for students and staff to never return to the Robb Elementary School. The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District board also took no action against the police chief who failed to confront the school shooter.

"We're not going back to that campus," said Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell at the meeting after a tearful parent said her second-grade daughter was traumatized and "deathly afraid" of going back to the school.

"We have plans for it to become something other than a school site," Harrell added.

During the special meeting of the board of trustees, Harrell said he expects to have a new location for the school in the "very near future."

Also at the meeting, the board decided to not take any disciplinary action against the school district's police chief.

Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo failed to confront the shooter in the barricaded classroom.

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw declared that as many as 19 police officers had gathered outside the classroom with the gunman, but did not engage the shooter until approximately 75 minutes after the lethal attack began.

McCraw criticized Arredondo's decision to not engage the shooter, "From the benefit of hindsight, where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period.”

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the decision not to engage the gunman sooner "may have" cost lives.

Arredondo said he didn't send his officers into the classroom because he believed the situation no longer involved an "active shooter."

However, multiple calls to 911 were made within the school – some were from students inside the classroom with the mass killer. Minutes before the shooter was killed, a girl in the school pleaded to a 911 dispatcher, "Please send the police now."

Two law enforcement sources informed the American-Statesman that Arredondo arrived at the shooting without his police radio and other critical equipment that may have impaired the police response to the rampage.

The gunman was finally shot and killed by Federal Border Patrol officers – who defied local law enforcement's order to stand down after waiting for 30 minutes, according to NBC News.

The 18-year-old killer murdered 19 students and two teachers.

The Texas Tribune noted that Arredondo failed to practice recommended active shooter tactics:

In modern active shooter tactics, police are trained to immediately take down gunmen instead of waiting for backup or additional resources in order to save as many lives as possible. Instead, law enforcement at the scene of the Uvalde shooting requested “specialty equipment” and body armor and organized a tactical team to reenter the school, taking over an hour to take out the gunman despite having arrived at the scene within minutes after the shooter entered the school.

"According to the meeting agenda, Arredondo could have been suspended or terminated," the Epoch Times reported.

During the meeting, Harrell was asked about the investigations into the failure of stopping the gunman in a timely manner – one by Uvalde County’s district attorney and one by the federal Department of Justice.

"I know that people ask about the investigation. I know that investigation’s ongoing. I know the DOJ is reviewing that investigation," Harrell said. "I want answers just like everybody but I don't have answers. They've not given me answers. So I don’t have anything to provide you in that realm. I don't. I wish I did have answers."

Arredondo did not attend the school board meeting, and has kept a low profile since the mass shooting on May 24.

Ohio's Republican governor will sign a bill allowing school employees to carry guns



Public schools in the state of Ohio will be able to begin arming employees as soon as this upcoming fall under legislation recently passed by the state legislature that will soon be signed by the state’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine.

The Associated Press reported that Ohio Democrats opposed the legislation despite it being optional for schools. Ohio Democrats argued that passing and signing the bill into law sends the wrong message in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas massacre in which a lone gunman killed 19 school children and two teachers.

Despite Democratic opposition, the Republican majority in the state’s legislature insisted that the measure could prevent future tragedies like the one in Uvalde. State lawmakers subsequently fast-tracked the legislation to counter the impact of a court ruling that said, under current state law, armed school workers would need hundreds of hours of training to be permitted to carry a firearm while on the clock.

The Statehouse News Bureau, a regional Ohio-based media outlet, reported that the new legislation reduces the amount of training for school personnel to 24 hours from 700.

Gov. DeWine insisted that the bill will, in fact, protect children by ensuring that the firearm training that school employees will now receive will be specific to respective schools and school systems and will include “significant” scenario-based training.

DeWine said, “Ultimately, each school will make its own decision. So we’re not telling any school district – we have over 600 school districts in the state – the school board of that school will decide whether they want to arm teachers or not.”

He continued, “We will also be giving schools the choice of providing additional training, that we will stake out [and] provide for if they decide that they want more than 24 hours for a teacher.”

Reportedly, major law enforcement groups, gun control advocates, and the state’s teachers’ unions oppose the legislation and requested that DeWine veto it. It is not clear whether they provided alternative policy proposals.

Notably, local police departments and certain school districts within the state expressed support for the legislation.

In the latest version of the legislation, school employees who carry guns will need eight hours of requalification training annually in order to recertify their ability to carry while on school grounds.

DeWine is expected to sign the bill into law later this month. He also recently announced that the state’s construction budget will provide $100 million for school security upgrades and $5 million for security upgrades at colleges across the state.

Horowitz: There is no good federal response to school shootings



They are not coming for your guns; they are coming for your bodies.

Unlike most other policy issues, Republicans tend to be united about guns and rarely submit to pressure – even when induced by a tragedy like Uvalde – to promote broad gun control measures. However, there is a greater political threat to which they might succumb, one that not only criminalizes guns but criminalizes our existence. Beware of the clamor to “do something” on mental illness tied to red-flag laws, for nothing good will come of it.

On the surface, focusing on mental illness and flagging those who seem to fit the profile of the Parkland or Uvalde shooters seems to be an attractive alternative to gun control. Which is why Republican senators are flocking to it in droves. After all, we are all frustrated about the fact that nearly every one of these shooters was known to members of the community (and even law enforcement) as a potential threat, and nothing was done to intervene. However, any effort to give more authority to the legal system, particularly the federal government, will not result in stopping a single one of these shooters and will instead be used against people like us.

Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Pat Toomey (R-Penn.), and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) are all joining with Democrats to work out a federal response to mental health and red-flag laws. From the get-go, conservatives should draw the line at federal legislation. This is the sort of issue that needs to be dealt with at the county and school district levels and must be focused on fostering concealed carry and better security at the schools. Any federal intervention will lead to tyranny with numerous strings attached to funding programs they funnel through the states. In fact, the only federal legislation that is appropriate is the repeal of the Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990.

Let’s not forget that in the country we live in today, our government considers conservatives to be the biggest red-flag threats to society. In February, the DHS posted a National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin identifying ordinary people who hold different views from the elites on COVID policies and election security as the number-one terrorism threat. Under “Key factors contributing to the current heightened threat environment,” the very first factor listed is “The proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.”

Then there is the Garland memo on school boards. Last year, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he is directing the FBI and federal prosecutors to meet with state and local law enforcement on how to combat what he referred to as "threats of violence" against school board officials by protesters of critical race theory.

"The Justice Department will also create specialized training and guidance for local school boards and school administrators," said Garland in a DOJ press release. "This training will help school board members and other potential victims understand the type of behavior that constitutes threats, how to report threatening conduct to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, and how to capture and preserve evidence of threatening conduct to aid in the investigation and prosecution of these crimes."

Does anyone think that a federal program to “deal with” mental illness and red flags would not be turned against us? Consider the number of conservative veterans they can easily suggest suffer from PTSD and use these new programs and policies to flag their public statements as looming threats. They can use their political statements as pretext to not only confiscate their guns but even to commit them to mental institutions.

Remember, we already have laws on the books in the states to commit people to mental institutions by force. In fact, it’s the left that has long opposed, and successfully stopped, the states from locking up the criminally insane, especially among the violent homeless criminals we see in cities like New York. So why would they be so eager to pass new red-flag laws rather than using the ones on the books? It’s all about due process or the lack thereof.

As Rep. Thomas Massie, chair of the Second Amendment Caucus, warned last week, unlike existing laws, which require a formal hearing and counsel for the accused, red-flag laws being proposed could strip people of their rights based on a written complaint from a neighbor alone. We have already witnessed so many doctors who prescribed ivermectin who had their licenses threatened based on complaints – not from patients, but from political enemies. We live in such a terribly divided country that leftists will use these laws against conservatives who absolutely don’t fit the profile of the Uvalde shooter.

Sensing conservative opposition to red-flag laws, Sen. Lindsey Graham claims that he opposes a federal law, but at the same time he is now pushing for a federal grant program to help fund state red-flag laws. But we all know how that ends. Just like with the endless COVID funding, where states were beholden to the CDC’s policies, so to the states will follow the feds’ lead on who is and isn’t a mental health threat and the process through which to determine it.

Now consider which agency would likely be involved in spearheading such a program. Well, none other than the FBI, of course. This same Lindsey Graham recently suggested he agrees to FBI Director Christopher Wray’s request for record funding for the organization. As Julie Kelly warns, “If he gets his way, Wray will control a $10.7 billion budget next year—a $1.4 billion increase over 2020—and nearly 37,000 employees.” She reminds us that “for nearly a year and a half, armed FBI agents across the country have raided, interrogated, and arrested more than 800 Americans on mostly nonviolent offenses related to January 6, 2021, a four-hour protest that Wray considers an ‘act of domestic terror.’”

If you think that pumping more money into an FBI red-flag program will be used to thwart the next shooter rather than being used against us, you must be on a ventilator.

The real answer is to terminate gun-free zones. That is the real political battle that will have an immediate impact on saving lives. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who led the investigation into the 2018 Parkland shooting, actually changed his position in favor of arming school officials and teachers. “People need to keep an open mind to it, as the reality is that if someone else in that school had a gun, it could have saved kids’ lives.”

We need to neutralize threats, not allow a very flawed and capricious government to arbitrarily determine who is a threat based on proceedings outside due process. If COVID didn’t teach us that allowing government to determine who is a threat to others is extremely dangerous, then we deserve the trap in which we they will ensnare us.