The Buck Stops Where?

The hotel Taj in India is being blamed for lax security in the recent terrorist attacks. Wal-Mart is being blamed for inadequate security because 2000 shoppers stampeded into the store, breaking down the doors in the process. Toys R Us is being blamed for inadequate security in the shooting deaths of 2 men on Black Friday.

Where does personal accountability come into these situations? I hate to beat an old dead horse, but it is NOT the weapon that commits the crime: it is the person who uses the weapon. It is not the corporation's fault that criminals committed crimes on their premises: it is the criminal who chose that time, that place, that crime. As President Bush meant to say, the terrorists only have to be right once, but law enforcement has to be right all the time everywhere to prevent crime.

--Nothing could have stopped the terrorist attacks in India: nothing. Terrorists not only train, but they plan at least a year out, conduct reconnaissance, develop contingency plans, stockpile weapons and supplies. Terrorists are going to complete their mission because that's what they are willing to sacrifice their lives to do.

--It takes kindergarten teachers an entire year to teach the children to form a single line; they maintain the skill until about 6th grade, when it is no longer appropriate socially to do anything an adult directs a student to do. By high school, a bomb scare means unsupervised social times, with videos, text messages, and cell calls the order of the day, especially if by alerting the media, the students may be on-camera during the evening news. The 2000 men, women and children gathered outside that Wal-Mart store were going in regardless of the obstacles in their way. Directing them to form a single line could only have exacerbated the stampede, not prevented it.

--The 2 men who shot one another to death at the Toys R Us were simply waiting for the time to come: why else did they take their children toy shopping while they carried loaded pistols in their pockets? There is nothing that can prevent this sort of criminal activity from taking place when it's going to take place. Both of these men had criminal records, one of whom was arrested for possession of an illegal firearm, the other for domestic violence, so they had already decided how to resolve their differences: violently.

The head of India's security has resigned; perhaps the managers of the Wal-Mart and Toys R Us will also lose their jobs because we have forgotten how to hold the criminals responsible for their crimes. We cannot prevent crime by posting a guard, by installing security cameras, by checking purses, pockets and backpacks at the entry to a toy store: we can only deal with what happens after an individual commits a crime.