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In the entire horrible history of modern mass shootings, have government failures ever been so comprehensive and so heartbreaking as those that led up to school massacre in Parkland, Fla.? The FBI received a precise tip and failed to act. Local law enforcement was called to the shooter’s home dozens of times. Local law enforcement received a precise tip and failed to act. Many mass shooters wave red flags. The Parkland shooter did everything but call police and tell them the date and time of his attack. It would have been difficult for him to make his intentions more clear.Then, yesterday, the story got even more heartbreaking. When the news of the attack first broke, millions of Americans wondered if there was security on campus, and if so, what security did as the attack unfolded. Well, it turns out that there was a law-enforcement officer on campus. He “responded†to the shooting, and did nothing. At the critical moment, he stayed outside. . . .. . . An armed and trained officer hovered outside. Waiting. While children died. There is no excuse.But don’t tell that to Twitter. For some folks there is one narrative — and one narrative alone — that should dominate public discourse: Ban assault weapons. So the unjustifiable had to be justified. It was a suicide mission, they said. How could a cop with a handgun take on a killer with an AR-15? This proves that a good guy with a gun can’t stop a bad guy with an “assault rifle.†Besides, who are you to judge? If you’ve never been in combat, you don’t know what that fear is like . . .. . . [W]e can understand his failure even if we cannot justify that failure. To fail to understand is to fail to grapple with fallen humanity. To justify it is to surrender to that fallen nature and normalize cowardice . . . It is entirely acceptable for law-abiding gun-owning Americans to demand that the government do its job before considering sweeping new restrictions that will primarily impact people who’ve done nothing wrong. Part of law enforcement’s job is to follow up on specific tips and warnings. Part of its job is to ask specific men and women in uniform to lay down their lives to protect the public.Yes, men may be cowards. No, none of us know how we would respond to a crisis until we face that ultimate test. But none of the events in Parkland have taught me to trust others to protect my family. And certainly none of the events in Parkland have built my trust in government. I may not be a hero when the chips are down, but if I have a weapon in that fateful moment, at least I have the chance.
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Topic: Excusing Cowardice Is Not the Path to Gun Control (Read 366 times)
