Tuesday's shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that claimed the lives of at least 19 students and two teachers has shocked the nation. But as mass shootings pile up across the country, some wonder if politicians are playing virtue signaling games instead of doing anything meaningful to stop the carnage.
Newell Normand with WWL News Radio shared his thoughts on the shooting and the "compelling message" that he felt President Joe Biden gave Tuesday night before he changed tone.
Normand said that Biden talking about losing a child was eye-opening as was his description of feeling hollow without them in your life anymore. Normand shared that he doesn't know this feeling, having never lost a child, and he never wants to.
"I've heard people try to describe it, and it's really not something anyone wants," Normand said.
But where Normand feels the president should not have gone was moving his sights to gun lobbyists.
"We took this tragic event yesterday and politicized it and pivoted right away, not yet having all of the information available to us about this particular shooting incident, and made it political," Normand said.
Normand said that while families in Texas woke up this morning still trying to come to grips with their loss, senators like Chuck Schumer were taking the chance to get their political agenda done.
But Normand, the former sheriff of Jefferson Parish, said he thinks that the legislation being discussed won't be enough because it doesn't look at the bigger picture of overall safety.
"In most cases, when we do get an opportunity to talk to folks, we gather and garner some troubling information about the psyche of the individual and what they were trying to accomplish," Normand said. "But each one of these cases provide a plethora of red flags, and each one of these cases challenge whatever remediation protocols that have been put in place or lack thereof."
When looking at ways to stop these shootings, Normand says we need to be cautious not to lump every tragedy together, thinking one piece of legislation will fix the issue.
Normand agreed that we would not be able to eliminate every tragedy from happening, despite comments from some talking heads that would lead you to believe that legislation could fix this.
"Any time that you begin to hear someone speak in absolutes, turn them off," Normand said. "We're in the gray more often than not. There are no absolutes, and if they talk in absolutes, they're lying to you."
Normand said that when talking about gun violence, he often discusses New York City and Chicago because they have some of the strictest gun laws yet continue to see high rates of gun violence.
"We need to look at ourselves critically in the mirror and understand exactly where we are failing," Normand said, adding that there needs to be accountability and an elimination of loopholes in our system.
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