We weren't there. Was he supposed to run in blind and get killed like a hero? Would that have been prudent with a handgun against a rifle and possible armor? Does the SWAT team jump out and run in unprepared when they arrive or do they assess the situation?
I am not ready to call him a coward as I am sure I don't know the whole story. I do know that if I was at a mall as an armed civilian and a shooting incident happened, my number one job is to go home to my family, not be a hero.
His job was to protect the kids; it's why he was there. If going home to his family was more important than that he shouldn't have been there.
We are told that civilians are not competent to defend ourselves but police are, and because we have police to protect us we don't need to bear arms. But when the time came for this one to do his duty in protecting the kids, he decided to stay out of it. So all he did was provide a false sense of security, and that false sense of security is used as one of the reasons given that civilians should not be allowed to bear arms in certain places. And because of that, the death toll was much higher than it otherwise might have been.
What really makes me mad about the whole thing is that his boss blamed the NRA for this mass murder, when his own deputy failed to do his duty, choosing to stand outside while the kids he was there to protect were killed. His department failed, and because of that failure kids died, and he has the gaul to blame those of us who are trying to allow civilians to hold onto our right to keep and bear arms. His department's failure showed just how important it is that civilians bear arms, but he tried to pass the blame for his failure onto us. That piece of trash is one sorry excuse for a human being, and he is the face of gun control, coming after our right to bear arms like some heroic crusader, when his own hands are soaked with the blood of the victims of this crime.
Remember awhile back when a liberal bigot attacked a group of senators on a baseball field with an SKS? Two police officers armed with handguns advanced on him, across an open field, and took him down. Other mass killers have been stopped by people with handguns. Inside a school it is likely that an encounter would take place within pistol range; the rifle is better but the pistol is good enough.
But if you can so easily say that a pistol isn't good enough, why was the guy who was there for the purpose of protecting the kids not armed with a rifle? This is not the first time one of these mass shootings has happened.
Think about the coach who gave his life using his body as a human shield to protect kids. I've been told that he had a concealed carry permit. Do you think things might have turned out differently if he had been allowed to bear arms? I do. But we are told he was not competent to do so because he was not a "trained police officer," and he didn't need to anyway, because our big brother in government had assigned a trained police officer to protect the school. [For those who like to nitpick, I'm using the term "police officer" in a broad sense here, to refer to any LEO; I know the guy was a sheriff's deputy, not technically a policeman.]
Most of these mass shootings end when the police or someone else with a gun arrive; either they kill the shooter or he sees an armed response coming and he kills himself. It is almost always an armed response that stops the bad guy. And this officer was there to provide that armed response. But somehow this case was different? The guy there to provide an armed response was not supposed to do it? Going home to his family was more important than the kids he was there to protect going home to their families?
It should be noted that the first coward was joined by two or three more cowards (I've seen both numbers), and all of them waited outside, cowering in fear as they listened to kids inside being killed. And all part of the same department run by a hard core anti-gun bigot. Maybe it was department policy to put the lives of department members above the lives of those they pretend to be there to protect. But let's all turn in our guns, and wait for them to come and protect us.
If you are at a mall and there is an active shooter, protecting your own family and yourself might be your first priority; that's your choice. I might do the same thing, who knows; I might even end up curled up on the ground sucking my thumb, paralyzed in fear. But you and I are not assigned to be the protectors of the people in the mall. And no one is being told that they have no reason to bear arms because you and I are there to protect them.
This deputy was paid over $75,000 a year to be there to protect the kids (probably more like $100,000 or more if you include benefits). He did other things too but being there in the case of an active shooter was his main job. The people in that community had been led to believe that they were paying for someone to protect their kids. And they had every right to expect that man to do the job he was there to do.
President Trump called that deputy a coward, and I think he was fully justified in doing so. The man has no honor, and should be treated accordingly. All those who are paid to be our protectors should see how they will be treated if they fail to do their duty out of cowardice. If they think going home to their family is more important than doing their duty then someone else should be in their place, and they should be cooking hamburgers or something.
