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Notes -
Even given SCOTUS precedent in Castle Rock, "This decision affirmed the controversial principle that state and local government officials have no affirmative duty to protect the public from harm it did not create" (WP), I think there are legal workarounds. My parsing of that sentence is that they have no implied legal duty. You could just add a law to the books that a police officer who fails to stop a victim from getting hurt because he deviates from standard police protocol without sufficient excuse will get punished. We do punish air traffic controllers who fail to prevent planes from colliding (even if they did not set the planes on a collision path), or teachers who fail to report sexual abuse of kids.
Even if the ruling applied more broadly, e.g. that no official could ever be held responsible for stopping a harm they did not create, and any law to such an effect was void (which would severely limit what tasks we could trust officials with, e.g. an EPA chemist might decide to just affirm that all measurements are below thresholds instead of actually running his measurements -- he did not create the harm, after all), I think there would be some workarounds.
A city could only hire cops who are also willing to work as civilian guards concurrently, and give them the obligation to protect people in their capacity as civilian contractors. Or you could try some legal trickery to make them national guards and place them under the UCMJ (or state level equivalent), then issue them a general order to follow standard procedures to keep civilians safe. § 892 is very broad in what punishments you can get, after all.
But also, the fact that there is no affirmative duty for cops to protect you is not in itself very relevant. The relevant question is, when you call 911 to report an intruder in your home, what is the probability that the cops will respond "not now, baseball is on"? Them getting in trouble over failing to act will not resurrect you.
If the probability of a grossly unprofessional response is high, then that is indeed a reason to rely more on self-defense. Just the fact that it would be legal (but still involve professional repercussions, the Uvalde officers will probably not find a PD willing to employ them again) is not particularly relevant.
For example, I do not know if an EMT who decided they can make a quick detour to McDonald's while responding to a medical emergency would face criminal charges. Knowing the answer to that question is not very relevant to the amount of first aid I would want to learn. OTOH, if I knew that ambulances were notoriously unreliable, that would certainly motivate me to learn more first aid and keep more supplies ready.
In the end, it is a numbers game. You have to weigh the probability that you will use a handgun to defend yourself (which is certainly related to the competence of your local PD) against the probability that it is used to kill an innocent, either because your toddler finds it, a tinder date who is a lot crazier than you thought finds it, you use it recklessly while dead drunk, etc. Looking at statistics, gun deaths from accidents and civilian self-defense are actually quite rare, and the likeliest use a non-criminal will find for a gun is suicide. (Which might be an argument for or against gun ownership depending on your other beliefs.)
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