Between Parkland and France: Vigilance, not Rallies, is the Key(And a bit of heroism)

Across America, and elsewhere in the world, people are naturally rallying against violence in the society, especially mass murders perpetrated by gunmen. The events were precipitated by by the Parkland school mass shooting in which 17 young, innocent and fantastic lives were lost and since then several measures have been put in place to prevent a future recurrence. The state of Florida has raise the age at which people are legally allowed to possess weapons and President Trump is seriously, for once, mulling the banning of bump stocks, devices that enable semi-automatic guns to be converted to far deadlier assault weapons.
Heinous gunmen like Nikolas Cruz are pretty on our minds now but to underscore the overall danger our societies increasingly face, terrorists struck again in France yesterday, a lone gunman wreaking havoc in the south of France. By the time the Islamist gunman, Redouane Lakdim, was shot dead in a supermarket, another three innocent souls had been lost. A police officer was to later die of injuries sustained in the whole sordid ordeal.
The focus is now on guns but, as the events in France have shown, eventually our attention will have to eventually settle on people, on ourselves. Controlling gun possession is not the ultimate solution, and in this, the National Rifle Association is right. France do not have a gun culture as we have in America but it did not prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons and killing people in scores. A determined mass murderer will always obtain his weapons. Imagine a boy who had just dropped his sister at school coming back home, delving into his cache of arms and then embarking on a shooting spree. It was an act a more vigilant mother could have stopped. Or a more observant sister or sibling. This may sound a bit awkward but the duty of protecting our own societies will ultimately have to fall on us. Perhaps those two fantastic individuals who tried to alert the police and the FBI about Nikolas Cruz realized this. But, in truth, if the security agencies are not being negligent as in the case of the Florida school shooting, several other factors exist that will make it difficult to stop a felon intent on terror. Redouane was well known to the authorities in France but the country, as in most advanced western societies, are hampered by the liberal values they hold. In essence, such countries are eventually victims of their own sophistication. The contest soon ensues between giving up these values and making the most of the security difficulties entailed in retaining them. It is the uncertainties that naturally crop up in the contest that terrorists ruthlessly exploit. Laws in France, Belgium and other western societies go to elaborate lengths to protect the basic rights of their citizens. It is easy for those not acquainted with such societies to think such standards, tenets that really form the foundations of  those countries, to be laced with too much saccharine. Why guarantee the rights of a potential terrorist when he in fact has sold the same rights to the Islamic State? But it is really a vital ingredient of their culture and security agents have to live with the hindrances they portend.
But even if the police are always alive to their duties and the laws could be tweaked to stymie the rights of a budding terrorist, the facts remain that western societies are always very large, very sophisticated. Security agents are always going to be stretched and real duties of protecting our societies from mass murderers and societies will have to fall on mothers, grandmothers, sisters, siblings, friends, acquaintances and so on.
And if we are lucky, on brave and intrepid folks who are the antithesis of Deputy Sheriff Scot Petersen, Resource Officer at the M.S. Douglas High School, who had all the reason on earth to intervene while the shooting was going on but did nothing and went home. Folks like the French police officer, Arnaud Beltrame, who was sorely responsible for limiting the damage the Islamist terrorist could have wreaked yesterday. He was more than just a hero. He was obviously that, by taking all the risks he took. But foremost, he was a thorough gentleman. By agreeing to swap himself for the woman held by the gunman, a lady in distress, he has observed all the rules of gentlemanly chivalry. President Emmanuel Macron could have added more when hailing him a hero.

Parkland, Florida Shooting: A Tale of Three Scotts.

The sheriff was in no position or place to shoot or be shot at. His deputy was in position and place to shoot or be shot at. Neither happened. It was Sheriff Scot Israel who alerted us of the 'sickening' inaction, read cowardice, of Deputy Scot Peterson. 'He should have gone in to confront the killer, kill him.'
Most of us were not in position or place to ascertain what really happened at M.S. Douglas High School that day and the only weapons were have now are our conjectures, heated conjectures. Deputy Scot could have been thinking about his own wife and kids(human from his own point of view, execrable from ours), based on training and experience, he could have weighed his pistol against the killer's AR-15 and shaken his head at the mismatch(valid from his own point of view, unacceptable from ours considering the fact there were barehanded heroes in the same saga who threw themselves in the path of bullets), or his courage could have simply failed him. President Trump's  preferred version of the theories. Made worse by the knowledge the guy was on 76k p.a. Life and death situations are often complex and those involved often have less than a tiny fraction of a second to decide whether to become heroes or zeros. Be as it may, the decision was his to make, the judgment will be ours. For ever. Life is like that.
But before we start tacking up Deputy Peterson on the high walls as the poster boy for cowardice, we should not be oblivious of the fact that when the police from Coral Springs arrived at the scene, there were three other officers from the same Broward County Sheriff Office crouching behind their cars with drawn pistols. Doing virtually nothing to intervene. If these accounts by the CNN are anything to go by, then we may equally do well by taking some time off slating Scot Peterson and dwell a bit on well-paid public officials who failed miserably in preventing a carnage that should not have been. For a start, Sheriff Israel should take a closer at his own men in Broward County and we should all help extend this examination. Police officers are paid well, the heroine who alerted them to the errant behavior of Nikolas Cruz probably spent her own money to make the call that they negligently ignored. Still the fantastic woman was undeterred and had to spend additional money, time and effort in approaching the FBI when she got no reply from the police.The FBI chaps,who are equally well-paid, unfortunately, as it turned out to be, had ears that were in the same mode as that of the police. In an earlier blog, we said that the key to preventing such mass murders in the future will be in folks like that woman. Mothers, grandmothers, relatives, neighbors, acquaintances who take a healthy interest in what those close to or near them are doing or thinking and will gladly do their duty to the society without asking to be paid a dime for their efforts.
Apropos of those not doing their job or trying to do it or doing it very poorly, Mr LaPierre of the National Rifle Association could have done far better by saying as little as possible. He should have realized that in times of grief like these, it is not the truth that matters but simply the saying of it and trying to play up to the Second Amendment was simply pathetic. Definitely, the purveyors of the 'right of citizens to bear arms and defend themselves' did not have AK-47s, or the new evil kid on the block, AR-15, in mind, assault weapons that are always in the offensive mode. If the NRA emerges from this outrage unscathed, it will be a mini miracle and Mr Lapierre isn't going to be the savior.
Which brings us to the third Scott, Rick Scott, Florida governor. Cruz might have bought his gun at the age of 18 but the Las Vegas shooter was well above 50 when he perpetrated his carnage. The issue now is not limiting the age at which people legitimately buy weapons but governor Scott is very right in proposing the outright ban of assault weapons like the AK-47 and the AR-15 and the so-called 'bumper stocks' that convert less intimidating guns into far deadlier weapons. Then he would have done his job of protecting his own citizens well if he can follow up his determination to seize weapons from those certified of developing mental illness or beginning to exhibit mind processes that drive hitherto safe individuals into the killer mode.
Provided such individuals cannot well hide their evil turns.