The Coward? of Broward County.

[fishinwrench]

3 hours ago, Terrierman said:

There is no way you would stand outside and let that go on for another ten minutes if you were able to give it a try regardless of personal danger.

100% agree.   If you cared at all....then adrenaline would have taken over and you'd have done.... something.  

The captain goes down with his ship, and that school and those kids were his ship.  He jumped in the first lifeboat he came to.

[ness]

9 hours ago, Terrierman said:

There is no way you would stand outside and let that go on for another ten minutes if you were able to give it a try regardless of personal danger.

Yeah, if only we’d have been there!

[Al Agnew]

Pretty tough to call either way.  Yep, we'd like to think that everybody in such a position should be as heroic as possible in "doing their job".  We'd also like to think we'd do it and either save the day or die trying.  But you'll never know until you're in a situation like that.  While I don't know and don't care about how many foot-pounds of energy are generated by one firearm or another, I do know that there's no way I would go into a confrontation with a guy armed with a semi-auto rifle while I'm armed with ANY handgun, and have a good chance of surviving, let alone accomplishing anything.  I know how inaccurate most people are with a handgun in the real world.  Chances are that at best, I'd get one shot...if I was able to get within handgun range without the shooter detecting me, and of course assuming there were no kids either between me and him, or behind him.  I doubt if I'd be able to make the shot.  So chances are I'd be throwing my life away and accomplishing nothing.

But give me a rifle and I hope I wouldn't hesitate.  But still...the gunman would have a tremendous advantage, because he doesn't care who is in the line of fire, while I would have to make darned sure no kids were in my line of fire.

Shotgun in this situation is probably a worse choice, because the range is a lot less and there is more chance of kids catching pellets.  But if I had one, I think I'd rather have #4 shot, not buckshot.

[jdmidwest]

Or you could just stand behind Trump as he rushes in.  

[JestersHK]

Such a sad situation... First off I support and respect our Police Officers for what they have to deal with.  They truly have a thankless job, and not sure how some of them deal with the scurge of the earth day in and day out.  Most of my closest friends and family are all first responders, and they definitely don't do it for the glory or the salary.  

With that being said not sure which way the chips should fall on this one.  On one hand I agree a handgun vs a rifle you're facing some horrendous odds.  He'd likely end up the 18th victim, but would be hailed a hero.  Instead he chose to likely follow some protocol put in place, or maybe felt the odds were too stacked on him not going home that night that he froze up.  Who knows, but its not my job to armchair quarterback him to death or call him a coward.  As others have stated you never know how you'll react until you've been there.  

The other side of it was that it was his job to defend those kids.  He was armed and trained, and possibly could have done more?  I know even my LEO buddy who is a park ranger has both a shotgun AND an AR in his truck.  Not sure what they had at their disposal down there though.  We also don't have all the details, but it sounds like there were multiple LEO's on site and they waited for SWAT / Backup.  All while more kids were killed.  At some point you'd think at least one of them would make a run on the killer.  Maybe thats wishful thinking on my part having kids in 2 different public schools and my sister as a teacher...