Originally Posted by SilentKnight

Let me make one thing perfectly clear - I was NOT placing any sort of blame on the waitress. She was 100% victim here. I was putting partial blame on a legislative system that puts people in a potentially confrontational position with the general public WITHOUT any sort of training or means to enforce their position or safeguard themselves.

Obviously the large bulk of the blame goes to the psychotic asshole with the gun. And again, the broken system that allows unstable individuals like him to possess a gun in the first place.

I have an employee/co-worker who, as a small part of her job responsibility - is to deal with people smoking on municipal-owned property under terms of the newest legislation prohibiting smoking on any municipal land. At present, she's received no formal training of any kind from our company, the client we contract with, or other governmental agency in handling these potentially hostile situations. She is not trained in the use of force (as in self-defense), conflict resolution or de-escalation techniques. As a result, she simply verbally advises people they're not to smoke on the premises, walks away and observes from a distance - and if they don't leave or put out their smoke, she calls a regional by-law enforcement officer to attend the scene. She is not to engage the individual further herself.

The law is in place - with no mechanism to properly enforce it.