Sheriff Scott Israel shoves aside NRA as scapegoat for Parkland massacre

Leftists love scapegoats when they get to choose them. But their narrative on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass slaughter is crashing and burning. The statist gun-grabbers thought they had another golden opportunity when 17 people were massacred at a high school in an affluent suburb of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Plenty of articulate student survivors and grieving parents to mobilize for kangaroo court town halls and to be bussed to Tallahassee and Washington, D.C. spelled good visuals and heartbreaking stories. The knee-jerk response of the left-media combine following a school shooting always is to blame the NRA, which stands in the way of dreams of tyranny. If only Americans didn't have access to guns, we'd all be safe, goes the familiar mantra, ignoring mass slaughters in gun-restrictive locales like the Bataclan in Paris.

But this time, it turns out that an armed responder was present – joined by three colleagues from the Broward sheriff – and all failed to take action as the carnage continued. It also turns out that federal funding and local policies prevented the arrest of the perp for crimes committed that would have prevented him from buying his armory. Existing laws could have prevented the problem, and existing personnel on the spot at the high school could have minimized casualties. But they didn't – and one man stands at the center of both problems: Broward County sheriff Scott Israel. Over the weekend, Sheriff Israel moved aggressively to make himself the scapegoat for the outrageous slaughter. Two videos tell the story. First, if you have half an hour, treat yourself to the grilling administered by Jake Tapper on CNN's Sunday-morning interview show. Tapper was moderator at CNN's now notorious town hall where Israel berated NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch while concealing the fact that his armed deputies stood by as the shooter finished his bloody mission. Perhaps Tapper doesn't appreciate being bamboozled this way. Israel, already in a hole, dug deeper a bit later in the day, claiming he was not responsible for his deputies' behavior: Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel refusing to resign telling @nbc6: "I gave him a gun. I gave him a badge. I gave him the training. If he didn’t have the heart to go in, that’s not my responsibility." Clip from our one-on-one interview below. #DouglasHighSchool pic.twitter.com/FV5Gn0ZEBY — Erika Glover 🎥 (@ErikaGloverNBC6) February 25, 2018 Apparently, Israel has never heard of Harry Truman's famous adage, "The buck stops here." Were he a military officer, he would be cashiered. Keep in mind that the tapes of cell phone or radio conversations with the four deputies who stood by have not been released. It is inconceivable that they did not contact their bosses and ask for guidance. When those tapes are released, we will understand what kind of orders they were under from the sheriff's office. Israel was a fervent supporter of Hillary Clinton's candidacy. He is even reported to have been a favorite of Clinton for appointment as director of the FBI. But he is now so radioactive that the #fireSheriffIsrael hashtag is trending, and Governor Rick Scott is pondering removing him from office, a move that is fully within Governor Scott's power. In the era of Trump, conservatives don't accept the media-generated memes as gospel. We fight back. And often enough, we win. This story is not going away, and it could get much, much worse for the party of statists who demand our guns while they prove they are unable to protect us.