Good Guys with Guns: An armed sheriff’s deputy guarding the Stoneman Douglas school stood by outside while 17 people were killed, the Broward County Sheriff revealed yesterday. Deputy Scot Peterson resigned after Sheriff Scott Israel viewed Peterson’s inaction on surveillance video.

Israel said he was “devastated, sick to my stomach.” Peterson’s failure to do anything feeds the argument about the usefulness of armed adults at schools. The NRA’s mantra is that the only defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Israel also revealed that his department had received 23 calls in the past 10 years about the suspect, Nikolas Cruz.

The National Rifle Association came out shooting yesterday with CEO Wayne LaPierre warning about gun confiscation and a socialist takeover in the face of renewed calls for gun control after the Florida school massacre.

“The shameful politicization of tragedy — it’s a classic strategy, right out of the playbook of a poisonous movement,” he said to a friendly crowd at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. “They hate the NRA. They hate the Second Amendment. They hate individual freedom,” LaPierre thundered.

He, like, President Trump, called for fortifying schools. “Evil walks among us,” LaPierre said. “And God help us if we don’t harden our schools and protect our kids.”

Earlier, NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch wielded her razor tongue against the press covering the Parkland shooting. “Many in legacy media love mass shootings,” Loesch said. “I’m not saying that you love the tragedy. But I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold.”

Trump also campaigned via Twitter yesterday to arm teachers and administrators. “Highly trained, gun adept, teachers/coaches would solve the problem instantly, before police arrive. GREAT DETERRENT!” he wrote. He suggested paying bonuses to teachers who agree to carry guns.

Trump appears to have joined with gun rights advocates who prefer that the targets … schools, teachers and students … should put up a better defense rather than eliminate the threat of attack.

Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Assn., released a statement saying, “Our students need more books, art and music programs, nurses and school counselors; they do not need more guns in their classrooms.”

Piling On: Special Counsel Robert Mueller  has brought new charges against former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort and aide Rick Gates, both of whom were previously indicted. Mueller appears to be piling on the charges in an attempt to get either or both men to plead guilty and testify in the Russia investigation.

The new indictment carries 32 charges, including giving false statements to banks, and failure to file reports on foreign bank accounts. The charges do not involve the Trump campaign.

Manafort, in particular, is accused being a lobbyist and adviser for the former pro-Russian Ukraine government and hiding as much as $30 million in income.

Gates, a political and business associate of Manafort, has been reported to be considering a plea deal, but so far it hasn’t happened. Gates is 45, has young children, and faces the possibility of decades in jail. Manafort, at 70, the rest of his life.

General Discharge: CNN reports that President Trump is contemplating getting rid of his National Security Adviser, Gen. HR McMaster after the two have been knocking heads. McMaster is an active duty three-star general and CNN says the Pentagon is looking at ways to being him back into the fold of uniformed service without making it look like he’s been demoted. That means they’d have to give him a fourth star, which Trump could reject, forcing McMaster to retire. There are some fears that McMaster has become a political figure during his time in the White House, making it inappropriate to put him back in uniform.

Naked Ambition: Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens has been indicted on charges of taking an unauthorized picture of a naked woman and transmitting it over the internet, making the crime a felony. The 43-year-old Greitens has admitted an extramarital affair in 2015, but denied reports that he blackmailed the woman or took a nude photo of her without permission. He says he has committed no crime.

The former navy SEAL and first-term governor wrote on Facebook, “With today’s disappointing and misguided political decision, my confidence in our prosecutorial system is shaken, but not broken.”

Nation: Teachers in West Virginia have walked out, closing schools all across the state. West Virginia ranks 48^th in teacher salaries, just above Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. — Snowmelt and heavy rain have brought damaging floods to the Midwest. The flooding, and threat of floods, stretches all the way from Missouri and Illinois south to the Gulf Coast.

Five Rings: Russia’s team may have been banned from the Olympics, but a Russian woman won the gold in women’s figure skating. Fifteen-year-old Alina Zagitova beat her friend and training partner Evgenia Medvedeva, also an “Olympic Athlete from Russia.”

Clean Sweep: On the brink of elimination for the entire Olympics, the US curling team beat Canada yesterday to advance to the gold medal round against Sweden. Curling is an obscure sport to most sports fans, but it has advanced to the point that some athletes use performance-enhancing drugs to help them precisely slide a granite stone down the ice. A Russian curler who won the bronze in mixed doubles with his wife was stripped of his b medal. Remember, we told you that mixed doubles would bring notoriety to curling.

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