The outcry after shootings, especially school shooting, are couched not only in sorry but quickly thereafter gun control.
The gun control advocates insist that more and tighter regulations or outright bans of certain weapons will solve the problem. The Second Amendment advocates staunchly defend the right to bear arms.
In two weeks’, time ten people were killed in a Buffalo supermarket and then the tragic loss of nineteen fourth graders and two of their teachers exacerbated the rhetoric of both sides pointing accusatory fingers at each other.
Certain venues, but most especially schools are gun free zones, soft targets and unhardened. Predicting the next location is impossible. We are faced with certain decisions and innovations that may have some effect on the problem.
First of all, schools need to be entered by the identification and stated purpose of each and every nonstudent presenting themselves. Protocols must be in place and practiced for active shooter scenarios. No body wants to scare the students but remember the nuclear attack drills of the Cold War in the 50’s and 60’s. Fire drills are mandatory today. Young ones take these drills in stride for the most part not connecting with the possible eventuality.
Second, as to the hardening of the school and other locations, I commenced and online survey focused on retired law enforcement and military. It was very basic and straight forward. “Would you be willing to take a job protecting school buildings and school children…. Yes…No…I’ll think about it. The results 90% said Yes, 5% said NO and 5% would think about it. The demographic of retired police and military runs into the millions. A ready and willing cadre of trained professionals. Would it not be sensible, even if only a temporary measure to hire them for each school facility. Images on social media are already showing grandparents, parents and others stepping up as armed guards for the schools. It seems a solution has already been created and reacted to.
Restricting certain weapons, tighter name checks, new gun control laws may be fractionally effective, but the truth is that mass shooters will get very creative in devising equal devastating alternative methods of committing mayhem.
The majority of mass shooters are post pubescent males in their late teens and early twenties. They populate social media almost universally, but it seems their intentions or mental instability are only discovered after the fact. If Big Tech is so quick to shut down posts that violate their rules it should be relatively easy for them to create an algorithm that ferrets out the ones that want to yell fire in a crowded theatre metaphorically. Search engines operate on keywords. History of past mass shooters social media will reveal those key words that they used prior to their attacks. Kind of a fact checker for evil.
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