Two weeks ago, a 19-year-old man armed with a semiautomatic weapon shot and killed 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The incident sparked new debates on gun control, with many pro-gun supporerts dragging out the old "if only there had been a good guy with a gun" argument - only to later find out that there had been an armed guard on the scene.

Scot Peterson was an armed sheriff's deputy who had been assigned to the school for the very purpose of protecting it, but he stayed outside while the shooting took place.

Since being identified, Peterson has received a lot of public criticism, with Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel saying that he should have "addressed the killer, killed the killer." Even Donald Trump weighed in on the issue, saying that he would have entered the building to stop the shooter even if he didn't have a weapon.

Sheriff Israel also denied any culpability for Peterson's inaction, saying "Leaders are responsible for the agency, but leaders are not responsible for a person. 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."

Peterson was suspended by Israel, but quit before an official investigation could take place. When the sheriff found out about this, he said he felt "devastated. Sick to my stomach. There are no words. I mean, these families lost their children."

People on Twitter have also been particularly harsh towards the guard, with many calling him out for being a "coward".

However, Peterson's lawyer, Joseph DiRuzzo III, said in a statement yesterday that Sheriff Israel had been too hasty to judge the guard without considering the entire situation first.

"Let there be no mistake, Mr. Peterson wishes that he could have prevented the untimely passing of the seventeen victims on that day, and his heart goes out to the families of the victims in their time of need," DiRuzzo said.

"However, the allegations that Mr. Peterson was a coward and that his performance, under the circumstances, failed to meet the standards of police officers are patently untrue. Mr. Peterson is confident that his actions on that day were appropriate under the circumstances and that the video (together with the eye-witness testimony of those on the scene) will exonerate him of any sub-par performance."

The statement went on to quote Peterson, who claimed that he "thought that the shots were coming from outside," which was why he "took up a tactical position."

He also said that he gave the SWAT team the keys to the building, provided them with diagrams of the campus, and helped school administrators access the relevant security videos - far from doing nothing, in his eyes.

What's more, Peterson is far from the only person to have come under fire for his actions (or lack thereof) during the shooting.

Israel himself has been criticized for the way he handled the matter, especially as his department had received complaints about the killer before he committed the crime. Three deputies from Broward County also reportedly remained outside the school while the shooting took place, making them just as responsible as Peterson.

However, no matter how much we want to criticize officers and guards for what they did or did not do, we must remember that there is only one perpetrator here - and he wouldn't have been able to kill 17 innocent people if he hadn't been allowed to purchase a deadly weapon.

So, before you call people cowards for their behavior during a mass shooting, perhaps consider what allowed that shooting to happen in the first place.

Two weeks ago, a 19-year-old man armed with a semiautomatic weapon shot and killed 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The incident sparked new debates on gun control, with many pro-gun supporerts dragging out the old "if only there had been a good guy with a gun" argument - only to later find out that there had been an armed guard on the scene.

Scot Peterson was an armed sheriff's deputy who had been assigned to the school for the very purpose of protecting it, but he stayed outside while the shooting took place.

Since being identified, Peterson has received a lot of public criticism, with Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel saying that he should have "addressed the killer, killed the killer." Even Donald Trump weighed in on the issue, saying that he would have entered the building to stop the shooter even if he didn't have a weapon.

Sheriff Israel also denied any culpability for Peterson's inaction, saying "Leaders are responsible for the agency, but leaders are not responsible for a person. 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."

Peterson was suspended by Israel, but quit before an official investigation could take place. When the sheriff found out about this, he said he felt "devastated. Sick to my stomach. There are no words. I mean, these families lost their children."

People on Twitter have also been particularly harsh towards the guard, with many calling him out for being a "coward".

However, Peterson's lawyer, Joseph DiRuzzo III, said in a statement yesterday that Sheriff Israel had been too hasty to judge the guard without considering the entire situation first.

"Let there be no mistake, Mr. Peterson wishes that he could have prevented the untimely passing of the seventeen victims on that day, and his heart goes out to the families of the victims in their time of need," DiRuzzo said.

"However, the allegations that Mr. Peterson was a coward and that his performance, under the circumstances, failed to meet the standards of police officers are patently untrue. Mr. Peterson is confident that his actions on that day were appropriate under the circumstances and that the video (together with the eye-witness testimony of those on the scene) will exonerate him of any sub-par performance."

The statement went on to quote Peterson, who claimed that he "thought that the shots were coming from outside," which was why he "took up a tactical position."

He also said that he gave the SWAT team the keys to the building, provided them with diagrams of the campus, and helped school administrators access the relevant security videos - far from doing nothing, in his eyes.

What's more, Peterson is far from the only person to have come under fire for his actions (or lack thereof) during the shooting.

Israel himself has been criticized for the way he handled the matter, especially as his department had received complaints about the killer before he committed the crime. Three deputies from Broward County also reportedly remained outside the school while the shooting took place, making them just as responsible as Peterson.

However, no matter how much we want to criticize officers and guards for what they did or did not do, we must remember that there is only one perpetrator here - and he wouldn't have been able to kill 17 innocent people if he hadn't been allowed to purchase a deadly weapon.

So, before you call people cowards for their behavior during a mass shooting, perhaps consider what allowed that shooting to happen in the first place.