Lone Wolves in the USA (new title)

[carl]

Firn:

the way I look at the Second Amendment is that is primarily to allow the citizens some viable recourse to oppose the government if it comes to that. With that in mind, citing European weapons laws as a model to be followed doesn't hold much water given European history over the last hundred or so years.

[Firn]

Firn:

the way I look at the Second Amendment is that is primarily to allow the citizens some viable recourse to oppose the government if it comes to that. With that in mind, citing European weapons laws as a model to be followed doesn't hold much water given European history over the last hundred or so years.

As a matter of fact I'm not at all concerned about this or that Amendment. I just pointed out an aspect from a European point of view which may explain partly the stark difference in terms of murders and mass murders between the two big Western continents in the last fifty or so years.

How to deal with it is a different, American problem. Other countries reacted various ways, we will see how things go in the US after this tragedy.

P.S: European history is hardly a factor in this case and it is pretty hard to see a positive effect of a more liberal gun policy during the last hundred years. In a much poorer Europe price would have in any way kept the volume down, especially in the Eastern areas. A slightly bigger availabilty for small wars against a foreign aggressor mght have been the only plus while it would have changed even less in internal affairs.

[Bob's World]

Carl,

Reasonable minds differ. Unreasonable minds even more so.

We can discuss symptoms and tactics, and certainly there are symptoms that must be addressed and one should have the best tactics possible for dealing with those symptoms.

We can also explore and discuss the fundamental aspects of such symptoms and the strategic frameworks that must be addressed to get to better trends over time.

I for one agree with Sun Tzu: "Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." Currently the airwaves are swamped with a lot of "noise" on this topic. Not much strategy though. To say there are no root cause for anything is simplistic and a dodge of taking on the hard work necessary to break a problem down to its components and attempt to understand why it is and how it works. We do this avoidance often, and nearly as often achieve predictably poor results.

[carl]

Bob:

I don't like looking at the big picture in these things because I don't think there is a big picture. These are crimes committed by individuals and looking for a so called 'root cause' is a distraction from that. What motivates these criminals is irrational and their objective is evil, but the planning and execution are a perfectly rational series of decisions and actions by an individual. They decide and they decide what they can pull off. It seems to me that it is much more productive to look at these occurrences as crimes that take advantage of some obvious vulnerabilities and the most productive way to address them is to remove those vulnerabilities to the extent possible.

Beyond that the additional factor is the specific publicity given to these crimes. The world knows the name and faces of these criminals. Some of this is the result of a simple reward system. If you want everybody to know who you are, there is a surefire way to do it. The media will oblige the desire to be known. If something is rewarded, there will be more of it...so stop giving the reward.

As far as specific remedies, except for streamlining commitment procedures, I don't think there is much more than that. If you want more that is to be found in religious philosophy and perhaps the concept of original sin. People do evil.

[Bob's World]

Well, then by all means, attack the symptoms (repeat as necessary).

[jmm99]

The NRA's Press Conference today was headlined by the Wash Post, NRA’s Wayne LaPierre: Put ‘armed police officers’ in every school (Sean Sullivan, December 21, 2012) (LaPierre has proposed this before).

The Post also has provided the transcript, Remarks from the NRA press conference on Sandy Hook school shooting, delivered on Dec. 21, 2012 (Transcript). It includes closing remarks by Asa Hutchinson (Wiki bio), which outlines a two-pronged approach to school security:

HUTCHINSON: We all understand that our children should be safe in school. But it is also essential that the parents understand and have confidence in that safety. As a result of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, that confidence across this nation has been shattered. Assurance of school safety must be restored with a sense of urgency.

That is why I’m grateful that the National Rifle Association has asked me to lead a team of security experts to assist our schools, parents, and our communities.

I took this assignment on one condition, that my team of experts will be independent and will be guided solely by what are the best security solutions for the safety of our children while at school. Even though we are just starting this process, I envision this initiative will have two key elements.

First of all, it would be based on a model security plan, a comprehensive strategy for school security based upon the latest, most up-to-date technical information from the foremost experts in their fields. This model security plan will serve as a template, a set of best practices, principles, and guidelines that every school in America can tweak as needed and tailor to their own set of circumstances.

Every school and community is different, but this model security plan will allow every school to choose among its various components to develop a school safety strategy that fits their own unique circumstance, whether its a large urban school or a small rural school such as we have in Arkansas or anything in between.

Armed, trained, qualified school security personnel will be one element of that plan, but by no means, the only element. If a school decides, for whatever reason, that it doesn’t want or need armed security personnel, that, of course, is a decision to be made by the parents and the local school board at the local level.

HUTCHINSON: The second point I want to make is that this will be a program that does not depend on massive funding from local authorities or the federal government. Instead, it will make use of local volunteers serving in their own communities.

In my home state of Arkansas, my son was a volunteer with a local group called Watchdog Dads (ph) who volunteer their time at schools, who patrol playgrounds and provide a measure of added security. President Clinton initiated a program called Cops In School, but the federal response is not sufficient for today’s task.

Whether they’re retired police, retired military, or rescue personnel, I think there are people in every community in this country who would be happy to serve if only someone asked them and gave them the training and certifications to do so.

The National Rifle Association is the natural obvious choice to sponsor this program. Their gun safety, marksmanship, and hunter education programs have set the standard for well over a century. Over the past 25 years, their Eddy Eagle (ph) gun safe program has taught over 26 million kids that real guns aren’t toys, and today child gun accidents are at the lowest levels ever recorded.

School safety is a complex issue with no simple, single, solution, but I believe trained, qualified, armed security is one key component among many that can provide the first line of difference as well as the last line of defense.

Regards

Mike

[carl]

Well, then by all means, attack the symptoms (repeat as necessary).

Bob:

I done my bit by providing some superficial tactical things that attack only the symptom, mass shootings.

How about some stategicals to go with it?

[slapout9]

IMO carl is generally right. It is very hard to use Strategy and stuff against Psychos!