The recent arrest of former Broward Sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson is one more gut-churning, grief-extending chapter of the 2018 massacre at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High.

Not only is the confessed shooter facing trial, but now so is the armed school resource officer who remained outside instead of rushing in while one gunshot after another rang out.

Fourteen students and three staff members died. Seventeen others were wounded. The nightmare, already analyzed second-by-second by investigators, will at least twice more be reconstructed — and relived by survivors — in a courtroom.

After a lengthy investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Peterson stands accused of 11 charges, including child neglect, culpable negligence and perjury.

Never before has a law-enforcement officer been prosecuted in such a case, and the chances seem slim that anything except a perjury conviction would be upheld by an appeals court. Nonetheless, some parents of the young victims hailed Peterson’s arrest.

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime died at the high school, addressed the ex-deputy on Twitter: “I have no comment except to say rot in hell. You could have saved some of the 17. You could have saved my daughter…”

It’s easy to understand how any family member would burn with anger while watching the security videos of Peterson’s actions — or tragic lack thereof.

He looked scared. He was shouting frantically into his radio, but moving away from the gunfire, not toward it. According to the FDLE, he told arriving officers to stay 500 feet away from the 1200 building, where the killings were taking place.

The tape loops of Peterson hovering in the shadows are infuriating to watch, but prosecutors can’t build a solid case on a community’s outrage. Eventually a jury will be facing dry questions of law, such as: Is it actually a crime for first-responders to make bad decisions, or to show a lack of bravery?

A panel investigating the Stoneman Douglas tragedy already has exposed the slow, unorganized deployment of officers from several agencies. Then-Broward Sheriff Scott Israel lost his job as a result.

Peterson’s failure was only one part of what went wrong.

The FDLE reported the victims on the first floor of the 1200 building already had been shot by the time Peterson arrived, but that he had time to run upstairs to the third-floor and confront the 19-year-old gunman.

While Peterson did nothing, five more persons died and four others were wounded on that floor.

Still, the type of charges filed against the ex-deputy will be hard to prove. Almost all child-neglect cases involve caregivers, and there’s not much legal precedent for putting law-enforcement officers in that category.

Likewise, culpable negligence isn’t a charge often leveled against cops in the line of duty, even when fatal mistakes occur.

Peterson has said he didn’t go into the building because he thought the sniper was outside, firing at people. That contradicts other first-hand accounts, and prosecutors say the deputy was duty-bound to advance toward the gunshots.

Still, it would be unwise to assume that nobody in court will believe Peterson’s story, or that he’ll come off as a completely unsympathetic witness, if he testifies. Jurors are reluctant to convict police officers in situations where bullets are flying.

A guilty verdict would raise legitimate concerns about whether first-responders — whether it’s a cop, firefighter or paramedic — can be criminally prosecuted for doing the wrong thing on an emergency call.

There’s no way to know what would have happened if Peterson had done the right thing. He had a handgun; the killer was firing an assault rifle. It’s possible the deputy would have been shot before he could save a single student.

But, for God’s sake, you’re supposed to try. Peterson must live with the fact he didn’t, and it will haunt him forever whether he’s behind bars or not.

When rampages like the Parkland shooting occur, a scorching torrent of emotions washes over each victim’s family. I know this from personal experience.

There is disbelief, indescribable grief and then anger. You want to punish the killer, of course, but the pain fueling your rage is bigger than that. You want to spread the punishment around, and you don’t have to look very far.

Who let this nut have a gun? Why didn’t the guy receive any psychiatric help, or better help? How could he just walk in and start shooting? Why wasn’t there more security? Who? How? Why?

But in the end, the person you loved and lost to an armed lunatic is still gone. Locking up the killer for life won’t change that, nor will locking up a deputy who was paralyzed with fear.

However, one is a true criminal. The other is a man who failed for the whole world to see, at a terrible cost.

Carl Hiaasen is a syndicated columnist with the Miami Herald and Tribune News Service.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: CARL HIAASEN: Parkland deputy must be haunted by decision

We are living in a time of increasing domestic tension. Some of it stems from the presidency of Donald Trump. Another part of it is various advocacy groups on both sides of the political spectrum demanding one cause or another. But nearly totally ignored is how growing government control over our lives, along with the betrayal of constitutional principles, contributes the most to domestic tension. Let's look at a few examples.

Think about primary and secondary schooling. I think that every parent has the right to decide whether his child will recite a morning prayer in school. Similarly, every parent has the right to decide that his child will not recite a morning prayer. The same can be said about the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag, sex education and other hot-button issues in education. These become contentious issues because schools are owned by the government.

In the case of prayers, there will either be prayers or no prayers in school. It's a political decision whether prayers will be permitted or not, and parent groups with strong preferences will organize to fight one another. A win for one parent means a loss for another parent. The losing parent will be forced to either concede or muster up private school tuition while continuing to pay taxes for a school for which he has no use. Such a conflict would not arise if education were not government-produced but only government-financed, say through education vouchers. Parents with different preferences could have their wishes fulfilled by enrolling their child in a private school of their choice. Instead of being enemies, parents with different preferences could be friends.

People also have strong preferences for goods and services. Some of us have strong preferences for white wine and distaste for reds while others have the opposite preference — strong preferences for red wine. Some of us love classical music while others love rock and roll music. Some of us love Mercedes-Benz while others love Lincoln Continentals. When's the last time you heard red wine drinkers in conflict with white wine drinkers? Have you ever seen classical music lovers organizing against rock and roll lovers or Mercedes-Benz lovers in conflict with Lincoln Continental lovers?

People have strong preferences for these goods just as much as they may have strong preference for schooling. It's a rare occasion, if ever, that one sees the kind of conflict between wine, music and automobile lovers that we see about schooling issues. Why? While government allocation of resources is a zero-sum game — one person's win is another's loss — market allocation is not. Market allocation is a positive-sum game where everybody wins. Lovers of red wine, classical music and Mercedes-Benz get what they want while lovers of white wine, rock and roll music and Lincoln Continentals get what they want. Instead of fighting one another, they can live in peace and maybe be friends.

It would be easy to create conflict among these people. Instead of market allocation, have government, through a democratic majority-rule process, decide what wines, music and cars would be produced. If that were done, I guarantee that red wine lovers would organize against white wine lovers, classical music lovers against rock and roll lovers and Mercedes-Benz lovers against Lincoln Continental lovers.

Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was made in the political arena. Again, the prime feature of political decision-making is that it's a zero-sum game. One person's win is of necessity another person's loss. If red wine lovers win, white wine lovers would lose. As such, political allocation of resources enhances conflict while market allocation reduces conflict. The greater the number of decisions made in the political arena, the greater the potential for conflict. That's the main benefit of limited government.

Unfortunately, too many Americans want government to grow and have more power over our lives. That means conflict among us is going to rise.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: WALTER E. WILLIAMS: How to create conflict

Democrats agree with Trump that tariffs on China are a good idea. It always concerns me when the political classes in D.C. are in full agreement; the last time that happened, they voted for the Iraq War.

Retaliatory tariffs will hurt the U.S. in the near term and China in the longer term. If ever Trump is going to take on the Chinese, who have cheated on trade for years, it is now. With low inflation, a good economy and the stock markets near highs, we are in the best position to endure a trade war.

When I was attending Georgetown University in a remedial program for Southerners, I worked for President Reagan’s U.S. Trade Representative, former Senator Bill Brock (R-TN). We were free traders. We knew the world was a safer and more prosperous place when nations traded goods with each other. We said, “When goods cross borders, troops don’t.” Missiles and war rhetoric did not bring down the Berlin Wall eight years later; it was Russian citizens’ desire for Levi jeans, Marlboro cigarettes and Jack Daniels whiskey that did.

The acrimonious argument about who pays for tariffs need not be a debate. Trump says China will pay them but, like Mexico paying for The Wall, he conflates bluster with reality. Tariffs are, in essence, a tax on goods imposed by a government to punish another country. Consumers, you and I, pay the tariff in the form of higher prices at the cash register. Whether we pay the full 25% increase or a percent of that depends on if the product can be purchased from a less-tariffed country like Vietnam or India.

China’s communist centralized, command-and-control economy is in a quandary here. Cut prices and maintain market share to continue to employ their masses who demand jobs, or don’t reduce their prices and risk the pitchforks of the proletariat which might start protesting the kleptocracy into which every socialist/communist country devolves.

Trump tried to have a nice relationship with China’s President Xi Jinping. Trump even invited him to Mar-a-Lago and he met the Trump kids. When the Chinese president met 13-year-old Barron Trump, he was very nice and even asked which factory he worked in.

Trade wars were the cause of the War of 1812. Tariffs and French/British trade impediments sparked this war in which we got our tail whooped. The British actually attacked Washington D.C. and burned down the White House. It is a forgotten war that we lost so badly we called it a “tie.”

President Lincoln raised tariffs on cotton and the like, which was one of the factors leading to the Civil War. In fact, Lincoln was very similar to fellow Republican Trump: Both presided over a bitterly divided nation, raised tariffs, and actors of the day wanted to kill them.

Capitalism has a remarkable way of getting the best product to market, at the best price, when government leaves it alone. At this writing, I cannot think of one thing government inserts itself into that is made better.

Ron Hart, formerly of Goldman Sachs, is a libertarian op-ed humorist, an award-winning author, and a frequent guest on TV and radio. He can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Tariffs, trade and tyrants