The school shooting in Parkland, Fla., had many victims. Seventeen killed. At least 15 wounded. Scores of family members and friends whose grief is inconsolable. And a nation of schoolchildren who have good reason to believe that their schools are no longer safe. Many of these victims will never be whole again.
But here's what I suspect will be an unpopular acknowledgement of one more victim of this tragic affair: Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson.
Peterson was one of the first responders to the shooting. Allegedly he took up a tactical position outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School while shooter Nikolas Cruz killed victim after victim inside.
Peterson contends that he was confused about the source of the gunfire and by a false report of a casualty on the football field. He says that he was following protocol. This explanation is at least plausible.
But critics, eager to assign blame, found an attractive target in Peterson. He was widely vilified. President Trump called him "not good" and a "coward," whose actions were "disgusting" and a "disgrace."
And, indeed, he may have simply lost his nerve.
When I first heard about Peterson, I thought of a passage from historian Samuel Eliot Morison's "The Two-Ocean War," the story of a senior American naval commander who, in the face of a naval engagement in World War II, was unable to find the courage to alter his warship's course to confront the enemy. Instead he steamed away from the battle.
The captain then retired to his cabin and killed himself with a handgun.
This is the sort of haunting, life-destroying guilt that Peterson faces. Sometimes people simply freeze in the face of danger. No one really knows how he or she will react.
But if Peterson failed to do his duty, so have many others, including our culture as a whole, which continues to ask first responders to engage shooters by whom they are completely outgunned.
Peterson was armed with a pistol, which is no match for a semiautomatic AR-15 with a high-capacity magazine. A fully automatic assault rifle (which produces a stream of bullets until the trigger is released) can deliver more firepower, but the semiautomatic (one bullet fired per trigger pull) is an extremely destructive combat weapon.
In fact, the New York Times noted recently that for decades American troops have been trained to operate their assault weapons in semiautomatic mode rather than automatic mode.
Analysis of the Florida shooting indicates that Nikolas Cruz discharged his semiautomatic weapon at a rate of one-and-a-half rounds per second, several times faster than American infantrymen are trained to fire. And the AR-15's standard magazine holds up to 30 rounds.
In short, we're asking a lot of Peterson to take on this kind of firepower with a standard service pistol. And he couldn't have known how many shooters were involved. Would you have the courage to enter the building?
President Trump, better known for his self-aggrandizing imagination than his empathy, was confident: "I really believe I'd run in there even if I didn't have a weapon."
But like the students at Parkland, I call BS. Trump has no idea what he would do in the same circumstance, nor do any of us. In fact, Trump's history suggests that he's more of a bluffer than a fighter, more inclined to criticize people who have demonstrated their courage, such as Sen. John McCain and former Secretary of State John Kerry, than to perform acts of bravery himself.
If Trump wants to show courage, he should take on the National Rifle Association and support a ban on high-powered, military-style weapons with high-capacity magazines, both automatic and semiautomatic. Until our political leaders can muster this sort of courage, we will continue to have school shootings.
And we'll continue to ask first responders _ and armed teachers _ to face up to firepower that they can't match.
So Scot Peterson is one more victim of guns in our country. He will have to live with his failure to act. The rest of us have to live with our failure to act, as well.
