[TheForge] todays shooting in school.

Sat Dec 15 10:32:20 EST 2012

No, we don't have a national policy.  We have a national consensus,
but not a policy.

I am rather gratified to learn the police took a different approach in
the Clackamas shooting -- they got right IN there and confronted the
shooter before he'd killed more than two (or 3?) people.  This is a
radical change from Columbine, where the cops stayed outside for
nearly 40 minutes, while terror reigned inside.  I've never
experienced a situation like this and have no idea how I'd respond,
but I long ago "gave myself permission" to counterattack at risk to
myself, on the grounds that I can only die once and it's better to die
resisting than passively.  I've long felt that an immediate
counter-response by a mass of people would be the best means of
stifling a murderer.  (An untested hypothesis.)

I don't think we'll ever ban all weapons, and for the reasons you
note, I'm not in favor of doing so.  If we ban semiautomatic weapons
(to the extent that NOBODY can get them) then mass murderers will use
hand guns.  Ban hand guns, they'll use crossbows or knives.  Well, you
can probably try to ban crossbows, but I could build a passable one in
my garage in a day or so.  And knives will never be banned (though the
UK has started down that road).

Limiting access to weapons might be an approach, but suffers many of
the same problems, and adds the question of who gets to do the
limiting.  (Who watches the watchers?)  I do think that diminishing
the rate of fire of available weapons would be a good thing.  (I
really don't buy the argument that meat hunters need a semiautomatic
rifle with a high rate of fire and a 100-round magazine.)

Many times we've seen it said that "those people" (mass murderers)
should not be able to get their hands on weapons.   Maybe there really
IS a criterion that one can use to distinguish somebody who's about to
kill people.  I've seen the idea in fiction, but AFAIK nothing of the
sort has ever been proposed technologically.  The closest I've seen
are monitors that can be placed on the scalp that MIGHT discern the
thoughts or emotions of the person wearing it.  Not exactly a
practical solution.

Do we put a signal chip (detectable by electronics) in weapons so
their presence can be detected when they pass a threshold?  Do we use
face-recognition software (and cameras) at every door to recognize
known criminals or perhaps to discern the emotional state of all
persons entering?  You KNOW we won't spend the money to post a guard
at every shopping mall or schoolhouse door, so obviously we consider
that idea either unnecessary or ineffective.

Myself, I'm leery of the NRA's idea that if all citizens were armed
all the time, these things would never happen.  Even Robt. Heinlein
(who wrote SciFi about such societies, of which he seemed to approve)
showed the downside of such a system.  And NObody should carry a gun
who cannot hit what he shoots at!  Judging by how well the cops do at
shooting (e.g., 41 shots to kill Amadou Diallo, fewer than 50% hitting
him, despite the fact that he was not shooting back because he was
unarmed), that may mean that nobody should be carrying a gun...

I'm not suggesting WE can come up with a solution on this forum.  What
I'm suggesting is that all citizens should say "enough is enough" to
their politicians and get SOME sort of dialog started that will work
toward a goal of preventing these mass killings.

I don't have the answer.  I don't think I should HAVE to have the
answer before I should ask the question.  But we have a lot of smart
people in this country, and maybe if some of them put their heads
together they'll come up with something that hasn't been tried before,
which might even be politically feasible.

Somebody "put it in perspective" by comparing this sort of death to
"ordinary" murders, suicides and traffic deaths.  Somebody else
pointed out that this is comparing apples to oranges.  I'd like to
expand on that slightly.

Suicide is self-inflicted  (and has to due with depression, etc.) so
is in a different category entirely.   Yes it needs to be dealt with,
but few of us worry about dying unexpectedly from suicide!

Traffic accidents result from the fact that MOST people are incapable
of evaluating probability or risk on the fly.  (1% chance of death may
sound low, but it translates to 3 million people in the USA.  The
states are doing fairly handily by taxing this inability of people to
assess probability. That tax is known as the lottery.)  Rather than
being intentional killing, they're generally just a (slight to
complete) disregard for safety.

Most murders are in a somewhat different category because they usually
have a discernible motivation that at least makes some sense, albeit
unjustifiable.

I assert all those things are different than going into a shopping
mall and shooting randomly, or entering a school and killing children
execution-style.

And, BTW, while I generally consider "capital punishment" to be a dumb
idea, in the case of mass murderers I'd be happy to administer the
lethal injection.

So where does this go?  I expect we'll hit another brick wall.  I
think it was the NY Times that ran an article on sociopaths -- people
who have no empathy toward other people and would kill you as soon as
look at you.  Such people could readily become mass murders,
obviously.  However, not having a moral conscience does not equate to
being stupid or unable to perceive consequence.  One could regard all
other humans as dirt and still realize that killing one might result
in jail time at the least.  Hence, the "intelligent" sociopath will
conceal his sociopathy.  Indeed, if he conceals it and never acts upon
it, then no problem -- it's a diagnosis without a consequence.  The
article I read, however, suggested that that's exactly what happens to
most of such people, and that instead of killing other people,
sociopaths may merely exploit them.  And our society allows one to
exploit others almost without consequence.  The article actually
suggested that the 2007-8 Wall St. meltdown was a direct result of the
actions of such people.  (This is not my own conclusion, but it is
conveniently persuasive.)

All of which is ONLY to suggest that if sociopathy could REALLY be
diagnosed, that diagnosis might have some benefit.  Maybe if diagnosed
it could be treated.  Caveats -- this would have to be an objective,
hard-science screening (e.g., measurement of some blood protein level,
for example) -- not some subjective soft-science screening like
psychoanalysis.  (Again -- who watches the watchers.)

Once more I assert I do NOT believe I have the answer.  I just think
we're long overdue in asking enough questions.

Sorry for the intensity.  Twenty children and several adults died in
two shootings, this past week, for no reason at all. And all your
prayers will not bring them back.  I for one am sick of it.

I don't like hijacking this forum, but I find it one of the most
thoughtful and diverse body of voices I know, so simply don't know a
better place to voice these concerns.

On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 9:31 AM, CGRAF <adveniam at att.net> wrote:
>
>
> On 12/14/2012 5:15 PM, Bruce . wrote:
>>
>> How about a national dialog about this too obvious problem?  Two
>> shootings in one week -- in the holiday season, no less?  Seems to me
>> it's time to form some sort of national policy.  Ignoring the issue is
>> not working.
>
>
>
>
> Lizzy Borden took an ax...
>
> HMM National policy?
>
>  I think we have one.The government and better than 99 percent of the people
> are against such things.
>
> The question is how would you stop it?  Changing the method is easy.The
> obvious answer is eliminate all weapons.
>
> We would soon find out that the crazies are still there,and that they would
> soon be using common household cleaners to gas large numbers,or lawn
> fertilizer to atomize them,or gasoline to burn them.
>
> If we truly wish to decrease the numbers of this type of occurrence,perhaps
> we need to look honestly at what creates the types of individuals who go off
> track far enough to do such things.
>
> I have my thoughts,but will hold for now until this list decides that it
> wants to go OT and participate in looking for an answer.
>
> Mike Graf
>
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-- 
Bruce
NJ