Last week, 19 children and 2 adults were murdered in a school shooting at Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas. It is the latest in a seemingly never-ending series of tragedies resulting from our horrible American obsession with firearms.

In this particular case, there also appears to have been a shameful dereliction of duty on the part of law enforcement. They waited approximately an hour to engage the shooter, and it seems certain that this delay resulted in more children dying.

When questioned about this, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Chris Olivarez had this to say:

“At that point, if they proceeded any further not knowing where the suspect was at, they could’ve been shot, they could’ve been killed, and that gunman would have had an opportunity to kill other people inside that school,” Olivarez said.

That blue line is so thin you can’t even see it.

I’ve been hung up about this since last week, and I absolutely can’t get over it. I strongly believe that we shouldn’t have warrior cops in America. At present, however, the reality is that we do. And if we’re going to have warrior cops, they damned sure need to be ready and willing to act.