Among the never-ending parade of “thoughts and prayers” (and the new iteration, “horrified and heartbroken”) coming from lawmakers following the devastating mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Ted Cruz stepped up to offer one of the most absurd propositions I’ve ever heard.
During an appearance on Fox News, Cruz brought up legislation that he introduced back in 2013 to spend $300 million to “harden” schools. As he sees it, schools need things like bulletproof glass and armed police officers. Cruz also emphasized what he saw as an important feature: to only have one door leading in and out of schools.
Cruz: Have one door… and have that one door, armed police officers at that door. If that had happened.. when that psychopath had arrived, the armed police officers could’ve taken him out… pic.twitter.com/YnOCDs9GAZ
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 25, 2022
“Don’t have all of these unlocked back doors. Have one door into and out of the school. And have that one door, armed police officers at that door,” Cruz said, insisting that if that if his bill had passed, “when that psychopath arrived, the armed police officers could’ve taken him out, and we’d have 19 children and two teachers still alive.”
There’s just so much wrong here, starting, perhaps, with the fact that an armed school district police officer did reportedly confront the shooter outside of the school and was shot and incapacitated. There are also reports that police were on the scene for 40 minutes to an hour and not only refused to enter the school to stop the shooter while parents begged them to act, but were potentially responsible for keeping the shooter “contained” in the classroom where he murdered those 19 children and two teachers. But sure, let’s hire more armed officers to also do nothing and barricade dangerous people inside these single-entrance-and-exit schools.
“Contain him in a classroom” … with a room full of children he then killed????!!! https://t.co/7nU2sUOP4Z
— rabia O’chaudry (@rabiasquared) May 26, 2022
Moreover, having a single point of entry at schools that house hundreds or even thousands of students and staff is a safety nightmare, both in terms of shootings as well as pretty much any other emergency you can think of.
Okay so
— Daniel Kibblesmith (@kibblesmith) May 26, 2022
I’m not the fire marshal, but https://t.co/fkKHjmgdvy
Sometime tell this fucking idiot about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. https://t.co/j6dBqZbF8c
— Sarah Marrs (@Cinesnark) May 26, 2022
I don’t know how to convince a certain kind of gun-lusting person that a building having one door actually makes it *easier* for mass shooters to kill people.
— Charlotte Clymer 🏳️⚧️🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) May 26, 2022
It’s not a hypothetical. Creating a single point of entrance and exit makes it more likely that more people will die in a mass shooting. If you cut off chances to escape, that makes it deadlier.
— Eli Savit (@EliNSavit) May 26, 2022
And it ups the ability to inflict mass casualties at, say, dismissal. /3
ah yes so the next shooter can call in a bomb threat to a school and wait for the bottleneck of kids to come streaming out the only entrance https://t.co/wIYZ2GGCte
— Ham Elliot (@r0wdy_) May 26, 2022
Republicans—and specifically Ted Cruz—will really propose removing doors from schools before they’ll even consider enacting anything resembling sensible gun law reform.
door control. that’s what they for real came up with. door control
— andy™ (@andylevy) May 26, 2022
Oh my god they’re gonna go with the one door thing, aren’t they?
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) May 25, 2022
No other country in the world has massacres like this and the reason is simple— they all just have one door
— Jess Dweck (@TheDweck) May 26, 2022
(image: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
