RUSH: “Former Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson faces 11 charges, including child neglect, culpable negligence and perjury, said Michael Satz, the state attorney for Broward County.” Here in Florida we call DA’s “state attorneys,” and they are by county, like they are elsewhere. “The charges, which legal experts say could be difficult to prove, carry a maximum potential sentence of 96½ years in prison.”
You remember this guy, right? The Marjory Stoneman Douglas school, which is the school that gave us the kid… What’s his name? Harvard’s accepted him. He’s a big-time lib, led rallies. I can’t remember. (interruption) Camera Hogg. David Camera Hogg. That’s right. This is that school, and remember this guy and another sheriff’s deputy, they had guns, and they didn’t go in. And they said, “Well, our duty was to set up a perimeter.” So there were shots being fired inside, but they didn’t go in, and now they’re being charged with “child neglect, culpable negligence and perjury,” for making up the excuse about why they didn’t go in.
I was watching the CNN legal analyst discuss this today, and of course everybody at CNN hates guns. Everybody at CNN is pro-getting rid of the Second Amendment. There’s not a single exception unless they go get a guest. But this wasn’t a guest. This was their standby, bald-headed legal analyst guy, and he’s trying to act outraged. (impression) “These guys, they had guns! They were outside, and they didn’t go in. When you’re outside a school and there are shots being fired inside, then you go in!
“You’ve got the gun. They didn’t go in. They’re…” All that’s exactly right, but I couldn’t believe I was hearing this on CNN. They should be supporting the sheriffs for not using their guns to stop this, because in the leftists’ view, that only exacerbates the problems because it adds more guns to the scenario. So this guy Peterson, Scot Peterson, the sheriff’s deputy, “who was on duty during the February 14, 2018, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, faced widespread condemnation for failing to confront the gunman.
“According to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation, Mr. Peterson failed to investigate the source of gunshots, retreated while victims were being shot, and directed other law enforcement who arrived at the scene to remain 500 feet away from the building where the massacre was unfolding.” He said: Well, I had to set up a perimeter. “Mr. Peterson previously has said he didn’t know gunshots were coming from inside the building and properly took position for what he thought were shots being fired outside.”
That’s the perjury charge.
“A transcript of his radio communication that day showed he said ‘possible shots fired’ and cited the building where the shooting occurred. An arrest warrant affidavit said Mr. Peterson had attended several active-shooter trainings, and Broward Sheriff’s Office course material called for acting quickly to confront a shooter. ‘All the facts related to Mr. Peterson’s failure to act during the … massacre clearly warranted both termination of employment and criminal charges,’ Sheriff Tony said. ‘It’s never too late for accountability and justice.'”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
Daphne, Alabama, next. This is Micah. Great to have you. Hi.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. In your comment earlier regarding the Broward deputy and the Parkland shooting, you said you were surprised CNN was ripping this deputy. In my estimation, that falls in line with their view of guns and “proper authorities” who are allowed to have guns and the normal people who they don’t want to have them. They’re forced to wreck this guy publicly because he is someone they deem to be a proper authority. And when he fails to act, it wrecks that mantra of, “The proper authorities have guns and they’ll come save you and they’ll take care of all of us.” When this guy failed to act, it trashes that argument.
RUSH: What argument is being trashed? How does this advance their anti-gun movement by trashing the sheriff for not going in and firing?
CALLER: Because the left — group CNN with the left — prefers that normal citizens don’t have guns.
RUSH: Correct.
CALLER: I think if they had their way, they would strip everyone of the right to keep and bear arms.
RUSH: No question about that. No question about that.
CALLER: And to bolster that argument, they say, “Look, the police, the military, they have the guns; they’ll protect you,” and in this case, here is a proper authority — a deputy sheriff — armed on the premises while a shooting is occurring, and he fails to act and people end up dead.
RUSH: So then how does that advance the get-rid-of-everybody’s-gun argument?
CALLER: It doesn’t. So they are forced to trash this guy because he failed to act. You had just made the comment that you were surprised by CNN doing that, and it just seems like they probably don’t want to trash this guy, but they feel like they have to because it wrecks their argument.
RUSH: The reason why it’s surprise… ‘Cause I can think, if I’m anti-gun, if I’m anti-gun, and you’ve got a law-enforcement officer and there’s a shooting inside… We now know what happened, and if there’s a sheriff’s deputy outside that’s armed that could have gone in there and tried to stop it and didn’t, I can think of a much better argument to get rid of guns using this instance rather than trashing the sheriff’s deputy for not doing anything. They don’t want anybody using guns, and they ended up advocating this guy use the gun.
They wanted him to use the gun. This lawyer on CNN was acting ticked off he didn’t use the gun. The guy was making the case that the gun would have stopped the episode! When’s the last time you heard the left agree to that premise? They would normally think the sheriff’s deputy going in there with his gun would add another gun to the situation, “which cannot possibly be good,” in their life, in their worldview. The fact the guy didn’t… I was just shocked because they don’t want the usage of guns celebrated at all, even by law enforcement.
Remember, they hate the cops! These are people that join up with Black Lives Matter who think the cops are murderers and so forth. So here’s a guy that didn’t do anything. He should be a hero to them, is the way I look at this. Instead, this lawyer started trashing him. You’re right when you say that the left… If your point is that the left acknowledges law enforcement should have guns, and if the left acknowledges that their having guns and using them keep us safe, well, yeah. Then it would makes sense to trash the guy.
But that’s not how they look at. They don’t think guns make anybody safer. They want everybody in the world to have to get rid of guns. Look, even law enforcement on school grounds in many states, counties, are not allowed to be armed. In gun-free zones, even the law enforcement people are not allowed to have ’em. That’s the left’s preferred scenario: “Nobody but the government will have guns.” And this sheriff’s deputy, if the left wants to be consistent, could have categorized him as a hero. “He knew that he would only be exacerbating the situation if he had gone in there!
“Who knows how many innocents would have died with another gun introduced.” We’re talking about the left here. They’re not rational. I understand your point because you’re looking at the left acknowledging that arming law enforcement is all we need. “We don’t need citizens with guns because the cops have ’em.” That’s fine. We’ll acknowledge that. But they… Do you know that British cops are not armed? British cops have batons and billy clubs. They are not armed in many cases.
Only a few, depending on the job. But the beat cop in the U.K….Well, now, if that’s changed in the last five years, I’m not aware of it. Anyway, good call. It’s a good think piece on it. My surprise was looking at CNN and a guest angry a gun wasn’t used. I’m just not used to that. You don’t see CNN advocating for gun usage, and you don’t see support for punishing people for not pulling the trigger! (laughing) That’s heroic! If you’re a leftist, somebody having gun not pulling the trigger?
Look at Obama’s rules of engagement in the military! You can’t fired on ’til you’re fired on five times. You can’t fire unless you can see who you’re shooting at. You can’t fire if there’s any possibility that you’re shooting at people in a school. Even in war, the left rewards people who get shot rather than fire their own gun in the military! So knowing all that, seeing some lawyer on CNN act mad that a gun wasn’t used by law enforcement was just a shock to my system.