American Cowardice
Scot Peterson stood by as a slaughter unfolded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College, Jamie Thompson wrote within the March 2024 problem. Does the blame lie with him, his coaching—or a society in denial about what it could take to cease mass shootings?
The American folks relate to weapons as addicts relate to medicine. Addicts change all the things of their life to accommodate their drug use. They filter their relationships, alter their schedule, and alter their residing scenario—all to facilitate their entry to the substance. They blame all the things and everybody for what goes mistaken, however by no means the drug.
And so it’s with weapons in the USA. Regulation-enforcement officers ought to alter their strategies due to shootings. Lecturers ought to carry weapons to guard themselves and their college students. Sixty-year-old males ought to be skilled to run into the road of fireplace. Youngsters ought to be taught when to duck and when to run. Everybody attending a public occasion ought to know the place the exits are. We’re keen to place all the things second to our want for weapons.
The U.S. has a gun dependancy. Till the American folks get up to the truth that our drug is killing us, till we cease enabling our dependancy, we are going to proceed to see tragedies like that at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College.
Victoria B. Damiani
Malvern, Pa.
As the daddy of a member of regulation enforcement, I’m keenly conscious of what number of native police departments are unprepared for an active-shooter scenario. That mentioned, there isn’t a excuse for Scot Peterson’s failure to reply at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College. It was his responsibility to do what he might to guard these college students, and he failed miserably. If his actions had saved even only one pupil, he would have carried out his duties as required by the oath he took as a sworn officer. Whereas a jury could have discovered him not responsible, I feel he deserves the title “Coward of Broward.” He’ll stay to get pleasure from his retirement pension, however his inaction despatched college students to their dying.
Gary Rog
Buffalo, N.Y.
We appear to stay in a society that has missed the truth that every of us is, by default, a “first responder” to any crime dedicated in opposition to us. One wonders how the result at Marjory Stoneman Douglas might need been completely different if at the very least three or 4 of the varsity workers who had an obligation to care for college kids had been armed.
Steve Pawluk
Wrightwood, Calif.
Jamie Thompson’s “American Cowardice” proves, I feel, that we are able to’t anticipate even skilled cops to hurry in and save folks from mass shootings. This being the case, can we as a rustic dispense with the fantasy that any random “good man with a gun” can someway defend us?
George Wiman
Regular, Sick.
Jamie Thompson is appropriate to think about the psyche of the general public servants we enlist to guard us. As a primary responder with 40 years of expertise working throughout numerous organizations, I’ve seen associates die or undergo grievous accidents whereas attempting to impact daring rescues: of juveniles who ventured too far out onto the fragile ice of a deep alpine lake; of comrades who fell right into a collapsed snow cavern.
Those that join high-risk duties accomplish that as a result of they really feel a name to serve. However making an attempt daring rescue operations is made simpler by the data that we’re effectively outfitted and commonly practice as a crew. We’ll retrieve a child from a burning constructing as a result of we’ve bought a respiration equipment, fire-resistant gear, a charged hose, and a trusted crew behind us. We’ll drop onto unstable snowpack in a raging blizzard as a result of we’re outfitted with state-of-the-art radios and avalanche airbags and probe poles, and we practice continually. We’ll crawl out onto the ice in a dry rescue swimsuit with a rope and board to snag a struggling hypothermic swimmer, realizing that the shore crew will haul us in.
We reply the decision as a result of we wish to be the one that goes in, but in addition as a result of we all know we are able to do it safely and efficiently. With out correct gear, related coaching, a certified crew, and confidence in your talents, you can’t go in.
Chris I. Lizza
Lee Vining, Calif.
Like many Individuals, I made a snap judgment in regards to the “Coward of Broward” when the mass taking pictures at Marjory Stoneman Douglas first made headlines. My judgment was twofold: First, Peterson was a coward, and second, the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation’s oft-repeated problem to proposed gun restrictions, “The one factor that stops a foul man with a gun is an effective man with a gun,” was not true. Studying Thompson’s story dispelled my first judgment. (As for the NRA’s mantra about good guys with weapons, I’d by no means believed that.)
As a father of three, I perceive the need on the a part of the victims’ mother and father responsible somebody for his or her kids’s deaths. But when these mother and father wish to discover the actual wrongdoer, they need to have a look at the Safety of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, handed in 2005. This regulation largely shields gun sellers and producers from authorized legal responsibility for crimes dedicated with weapons they produce or promote. That regulation and myriad others have made assault weapons just like the AR-15 ubiquitous; they’re accountable, I feel, for the bloodbath at Marjory Stoneman Douglas. As soon as residents can sue any gun producer and seller and presumably even put them out of enterprise, incidents of mass gun violence will decline sharply. Why can I sue my neighbor if I’m attacked by their unleashed canine and never the gun seller that places an AR-15 into the palms of a youngster who shoots up my kids’s faculty?
Michael Hugo
Mundelein, Sick.
I wish to thank Jamie Thompson for a deeply researched and reported article. That is such a troublesome subject to sort out—and it’s been troublesome for me to course of. I labored for the Broward County Sheriff’s Workplace for greater than 5 years. I knew and labored with a number of the folks on this article; I used to be even a faculty useful resource officer from 1989 to 1990. The taking pictures at Marjory Stoneman Douglas occurred not lengthy after I retired from the Fort Lauderdale Police Division.
After I labored with FLPD, after having left Broward County, I obtained coaching in active-shooter response quite a few occasions. (Michael DiMaggio, who, Thompson writes, believes he was the primary within the Broward County Sheriff’s Workplace to see the footage of Scot Peterson standing outdoors Constructing 12, was as soon as one among our trainers.) The division was exemplary in these days at offering coaching to its officers, and I imagine it nonetheless is. I recall specifically one lecture with an officer who had responded to a taking pictures incident that had left him disabled. He harassed that it was crucial to take motion instantly, whether or not you have been assured or not. I took this message to coronary heart; I imagine it helped me survive multiple essential incident.
Ultimately, although, I’ve at all times believed that none of us is aware of what we are going to do in any given scenario, and thus we should hold from judging others. As Stephen Willeford observes within the article, “How are you aware you’d be any higher at it than he was?” Police are requested to do an unbelievable vary of issues; any given particular person could excel at some duties, however most likely not all of them. We’re, like everybody else, solely human.
Barbara Barrett
Jasper, Fla.
Behind the Cowl
On this month’s cowl story, “The Nice Serengeti Land Seize,” Stephanie McCrummen investigates how the Maasai folks have been evicted from their ancestral lands. As an example her story, we requested the Nairobi-based photographer Nichole Sobecki to journey to Arusha, Tanzania, and {photograph} Maasai communities. Our cowl picture depicts a Maasai moran grazing his cattle and sheep, an embere spear and fimbo workers resting on his shoulder. As McCrummen writes, the confiscation of land, ostensibly within the identify of conservation, has left vanishingly few Maasai in a position to increase cattle, as had been their conventional lifestyle.
— Bifen Xu, Senior Photograph Editor
Correction: Within the April 2024 problem, the “Behind the Cowl” function misidentified {a photograph} of Leonard Nimoy.
This text seems within the Could 2024 print version with the headline “The Commons.”