The policeman who didn't shoot at Alek Minassian in Toronto is proof that real heroes aren't trigger-happy

Over the past couple of years, mass murder has developed into something remarkably unremarkable. Generations gone by never seemed to worry much about getting gunned down at church. Your mum probably never thought somebody in a big white van would plough into her outside a café and leave her for dead, either.

But that was then. Now, we can’t seem to go more than a week without a university campus going on lockdown, a bomb going off, or a vehicle mounting the pavement – and that’s exactly what happened yesterday in Toronto.

The story is becoming all too familiar.

It seems a man decided to rent a van, hop the kerb and mow down as many pedestrians as he could. Ten innocent people are now gone forever, and another 15 people have been left fighting for their lives. Words can’t describe the senselessness of it all – and so there’s no point trying.

But out of the pitiful darkness, this tragedy has left us with one, minuscule ray of light in the form of an everyday hero doing his job. And it has got to be the new gold standard for how we celebrate bravery.

Twenty-five-year-old Alek Minassian was cornered by the police and screamed at them to shoot him dead. He repeatedly threatened to fire at officers unless they killed him – and nine times out of 10, you can bet your bottom dollar that your local cop would happily comply (at least in North America, that is).

After all, the world deserves better than dangerous men like this, and wouldn't we all be a little bit safer with fewer Alek Minassians on our streets? That’s why we normally forgive our protectors when they get a little bit too trigger-happy, right?

Well, nobody needed a trigger yesterday. An unnamed officer took control of the situation, kept his cool and got Minassian down on the ground using only words. That’s a real hero – that’s moral authority and bravery incarnate – and in this day and age, it’s incredibly rare.

You see, we’re conditioned from the moment we turn on the television to admire and respect the supreme authority of uber-masculine, gun-toting “heroes”. We’re subconsciously schooled in the art of violent revenge – which is why so many of us cling onto this artificial and prehistoric construct of the ultimate action hero and his licence to kill.

Brute force should be answered with brute force, we’re told, and a whole lot of us seem to inherently expect all our police officers to act like they’re living in some clear-cut, good-versus-evil Arnold Schwarzenegger film.

But the truth is that this planet is anything but clear-cut – and real bravery is not shooting first and asking questions later. Anybody who says otherwise is simply perpetuating this dark climate in which mass murder seems to thrive.

Let’s not mince words here. Law enforcement officers put their lives on the line every day in order to keep us safe. Most of them are incredible, caring and courageous individuals. We owe them everything, and there are going to be situations in which they've got no choice but to fire a gun. But our warped take on heroism and guns is also giving some a bloody complex.

We place unrealistic and gory expectations upon officers, and then feign surprise when they gun down a harmless immigrant for the crime of being black and holding a hammer – or shoot a Syrian immigrant nine times to protect us from his little pocketknife. Excessive force doesn’t quite cover it, but it's what we've come to expect.

More important still, this infatuation with Glock-heavy heroes denies justice to victims touched by genuine acts of violence. Alek Minassian won’t be remembered by anybody as a great martyr for some airy-fairy cause. His action-packed death won’t inspire others to repeat his actions in search of their own memorable end.

And at the end of the day, that’s ultimately what these people want, isn’t it? They want to go down in flames of glory. They’re nobodies on the hunt for notoriety, and they’re often the sorts of vulnerable people or genuine scumbags who end up flocking to the banners of genuinely evil terrorist cells like Isis. It's not a tenuous link to make by any stretch of the imagination.

Like it or not, murder begets murder – and what we truly need in this day and age is heroes who are willing to lay off the trigger wherever possible in order to reclaim the moral high ground upon which our societies are supposedly built.

Today, Alek Minassian will appear in court. Justice will be served and, with any luck, the people of Toronto can begin to heal. The rest of us have got to learn from this. We've got to rethink the way we deal with criminals and work to prevent these sort of atrocities – and for better or for worse, that journey starts by redefining the way we celebrate true heroism.