"A good guy with a gun" acquitted in Parkland school massacre
America will need a better strategy to stop school shootings
A Florida jury acquitted Scot Peterson, 60, of seven counts of neglect of a child, three counts of culpable negligence, and one count of perjury. The former Broward County Sheriff’s deputy, who was working as a school resource officer, had been charged after he did nothing on February 14th, 2018, when a gunman killed 17 and wounded 17, at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL.
The school had hired Peterson, and local taxpayers had paid him, to protect the community’s children. Unlike an armed teacher or a janitor with a gun, Peterson had law enforcement training and spent a career as a cop. And yet when the killer gunned down the innocents inside the school, Peterson cowered outside for 45 minutes doing bupkis. And now he walks free to live out his days on a $104,000 annual pension.
Peterson’s apologists have excused his behavior by saying he did not know where the shots were coming from. And that he was confused by noises coming from the sports fields. Brandon Huff, a senior at the school, gainsaid that nonsense by reporting that Peterson was standing outside behind a stairwell wall, gun drawn, “just pointing it at the building” as shots erupted from inside the school. And “He’s wearing a bulletproof vest … while school security guards, coaches pretty much, were running in shielding kids.”
Understandably relieved to escape without consequences for his cowardice, Peterson exhibited a stunning lack of empathy by telling reporters on the courthouse stairs, “I’ve got my life back.” That’s nice. Seventeen families wish they could say the same for their loved ones. But that nuance is lost on Peterson.
Peterson’s story reiterates one obvious truth. The conservative solution to gun violence is bullshit.
After a 2012 school massacre in Sandy Hook, CT, left 27 dead, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” After another school massacre, Ted Cruz concurred, “We know from past experience the most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus.”
Peterson’s inaction proves LaPierre and Cruz’s celebration of armed citizens preventing crime is a crock of expedient wishful thinking. No one should think these two gun lovers are motivated by doing the right thing. LaPierre is desperate to keep the NRA’s cash flow robust. And Cruz will say anything to keep getting elected. Meanwhile, their philosophy has doomed more school children and thousands of other Americans to senseless deaths at the point of a gun.
Cruz is just plain lying. He made his asinine claim after a school shooting in Uvalde left 21 massacred. And in that case, it was not one useless guy with a gun. Nearly 400 armed cops dithered, doing nothing but cowering and pointing fingers.
The gun nut lobby can get away with spouting unmitigated nonsense because its audience is eager to consume it. So Wayne LaPierre will keep enjoying his champagne lifestyle — and Ted Cruz will continue to pollute American politics with mephitic mendacity — while Americans die.
Jesus weeps.