On February 14, 2018, Nikolas Cruz found an unforgettable way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

The 19-year-old former student returned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and allegedly slaughtered at least 17 people.

As in: “What are all these allegedly dead people doing here?”

The massacre has become one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern United States history.

He carried out his massacre with at least one AR-15 assault rifle and multiple magazines.

Although he had posted “I wanna die Fighting killing shit ton of people” he didn’t have the nerve to shoot it out with police SWAT teams. Instead, he concealed himself among the hundreds of students fleeing the school.

Nikolas Cruz posted this picture of himself on the Internet

Investigators used school security videos to identify Cruz and found him in a nearby neighborhood in Coral Springs, Florida.

Cruz had posted “I am going to kill law enforcement one day they go after the good people.” But he was arrested without incident.

Like so many other mass killers, he didn’t have the courage to shoot it out with armed police. He could only prey on defenseless men, women and children.

As always, most Republican lawmakers believe the answer to halting such future attacks lies in giving everybody a firearm.

That, of course, is the standard mantra of the National Rifle Association (NRA), which lavishly bankrolls the GOP.

National Rifle Association headquarters

Bjoertvedt, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

But it it true?

(In 2016, the NRA spent more than $38 million on Federal elections. Donald Trump proved the largest beneficiary—netting more than $21 million.

(In 2020, the NRA spent $29,355,400 on Federal elections—over $12 million campaigning against Joseph Biden and $4.5 million for Donald Trump.”

On July 7, 2016, five Dallas police officers were shot and killed by a disgruntled ex-Army Reserve Afghan War veteran named Michah Xavier Johnson. Another seven officers and two civilians were wounded before the carnage ended.

The shootings erupted during a Black Lives Matter protest march in downtown Dallas.

Texas has long been an “open carry” state for those who want to brandish rifles without fear of arrest. And about 20 people wearing “ammo gear and protective equipment [had] rifles slung over their shoulder,” said Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings.

“When the shooting started, at different angles, [the armed protesters] started running,” Rawlings said, adding that open carry only brings confusion to a shooting scene.  What I would do [if I were a police officer] is look for the people with guns,” he said.

AR-15 assault rifles

“There were a number of armed demonstrators taking part,” said Max Geron, a Dallas police major. “There was confusion about the description of the suspects and whether or not one or more was in custody.”

A 2012 Mother Jones article on “More Guns, More Mass Shootings–Coincidence?” offered a striking finding: After analyzing 62 mass shootings over a 30-year period, the magazine determined: “In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun.”

So much for the ability of gun-toting, untrained amateurs to “stop a bad guy with a gun.”

But even highly-trained shooters—such as those assigned to the United States Secret Service—don’t always respond as expected.

On May 15, 1972, Alabama Governor George C. Wallace was campaigning for President in Laurel, Maryland. He gave a speech behind a bulletproof podium at the Laurel Shopping Center. Then he moved from it to mingle with the crowd.

Since the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, all those campaigning for President have been assigned Secret Service bodyguards. And Wallace was surrounded by them as he shook hands with his eager supporters.

Suddenly, Arthur Bremer, a fame-seeking failure in life and romance, pushed his way forward, aimed a .38 revolver at Wallace’s abdomen and opened fire. Before the Secret Service could subdue him, he hit Wallace four times, leaving him paralyzed for the rest of his life.

 Arthur Bremer shoots George Wallace

Nor was he Bremer’s only victim. Three other people present were wounded unintentionally:

• Alabama State Trooper Captain E C Dothard, Wallace’s personal bodyguard, who was shot in the stomach;
• Dora Thompson, a campaign volunteer, who was shot in the leg; and
• Nick Zarvos, a Secret Service agent, who was shot in the neck, severely impairing his speech.

None of Wallace’s bodyguards got off a shot at Bremer—before or after he pulled the trigger.

On October 6, 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was reviewing a military parade in Cairo when a truck apparently broke down directly across from where he was seated.

Suddenly, soldiers bolted from the rear of the vehicle, throwing hand grenades and firing assault rifles. They rushed straight at Sadat—who died instantly under a hail of bullets.

Meanwhile, Sadat’s bodyguards—who had been trained by the CIA—panicked and fled.

Sadat had been assassinated by army officers who believed he had betrayed Islam by making peace with Israel in 1977.

The ultimate test of the NRA’s mantra that “there should not be any gun-free zones…anywhere” will come only when one or more heavily-armed gunmen target an NRA convention.

It will then be interesting to see if the surviving NRA members are as quick to blame themselves for being victims as they are to blame the victims of other mass slaughters.