According to Murphy’s law, anything that can go wrong will.

Systems, no matter how carefully set up, will fall short of their objectives.

Good intentions will attend us all the way to hell and those who should know better will do worse.

That’s why we have to be so careful, especially when the lives of others are put in our charge.

As leaders we have a duty, not to get complacent with tradition, but to keep up with what’s happening in our respective fields and keep improving our game.

Because when things go horribly wrong, as they did last month when 13 year-old James Brown, the Cornwall College student who collapsed and eventually died after an arduous cross-country run with his teammates, it hurts that much more to know that the outcome could have been prevented had the necessary checks and balances been in place.

We suspect that this is behind much of the invective unleashed by the teen’s mother, Mrs Karen Brown, on the administration of the Cornwall College at the thanksgiving service for her son’s life last Sunday.

According to our sister title, the Observer West, Mrs Brown said that based on her knowledge of physical education, the school broke every safety rule relevant to the exercise.

There were no water stops on the journey and the ambulance wasn’t near enough to help James when he needed it most.

Now, we know there’s no telling what may have happened that day if all the things that Mrs Brown would have liked to be in place were.

Maybe her son would still have died. Maybe he wouldn’t.

However, we’ll never know, because if we are to take Mrs Brown’s word for it, the requisite supervision simply wasn’t there.

Enough care wasn’t taken.

We’re not passing judgement on the school’s administration.

Hopefully — we say hopefully because the school has declined to comment on the issue — they’ll take the necessary lessons from this tragedy and ensure that the race is better organised next year.

We wish we could be as optimistic about the administration of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, which is currently dealing with yet another scandal regarding the integrity of its armoury.

According to yesterday’s edition, ballistic tests have shown that several gun murders have been committed with guns from the armoury which, if our sources are to be believed, is secured with a lock and key and nothing else.

Surprise!

But what is even more worrying about this situation is our police commissioner Mr Owen Ellington’s simplistic take on it.

According to Mr Ellington, the security procedures at the armoury are adequate. The illicit removal of the weapons are the result of a breach of trust.

This, from Mr Ellington’s perspective, is what our safety comes down to:

A lock and key standing between a growing army of ruthless killers and an armoury full of guns for sale and hire.

Wow.