Shootings: What /Can/ Be Done

>I've received half a dozen emails about 'how to talk to kids' about violence, how to handle grief, etc. etc, but nothing about prevention of any kind. It seems that politically, in the US, nothing will happen.

A good government can see when intentions have unintuitively gone wrong. Then decide to fix the problem even if it against your political ideology. That's what good politicians do. Unfortunately good politicians are practically non-existent.

>There was a short thread about fortification of schools.

This is and does cause counter-intuitive consequences to society that are quite destructive. Often does result in less shootings and knifing but often results in destruction of the community. Obvious why... treating children like they are prisoners is not a good idea.

The bigger discussion is why it seems all the solutions that have been tried are either counter productive and making the situation worse or at best not helping the situation. At what point do you see the pattern of failures in solving this problem for decades and decide that hanlon's razor is no longer the reality? That is indeed malice and not stupid politicians?

I feel like we are there. The politicians are actively doing this intentionally with malice.

Ready to talk about eliminating 'zero tolerance' in school and actively encouraging the opposite in a safe way. I believe the US Navy has a tradition of boxing?

'fix the thing that is preventing the other thing from being fixed'.

the focus needs to be on refactoring a political system which prevents decisions from being made.

I would say increasing deterrence and eliminating attractive soft targets.

Strong deterrence would help prevent most unhappy people from deciding to become active shooters. For example, if it was widely known (or at least widely believed) that active shooters would be killed and that active shooters taken alive would face swift justice with a guaranteed death penalty then fewer unhappy people would become active shooters. Certainly there would be some "suicide-by-police" types, but that would need to be addressed through other means designed to help those facing depression and suicidal ideations get mental health care.

The Uvalde shooter did not have any deterrence because the police response was ridicuously bad. If police cannot or will not protect people, the people must protect themselves.

Eliminating soft targets would include changes to harden the physical security of schools, churches, and other places that are "gun free" zones. "Gun free zones" are only gun-free for law-abiding citizens. They are the physical equivalent to open ports on the Internet with a default username and password. Anyone can walk in and do what they want because there is nothing to stop them. It is the same as having a "police-free" city or an "army-free" nation.

A person considering becoming an active shooter should not know where they can "safely" attack and it should be difficult to get into schools, churches, etc. unless the proper procedures are followed, for example, a designated entry point, perhaps a metal detector check or something similar.

We already know how to harden schools. Uvalde messed up - that door should have been locked and there was supposed to be a resource officer there. They already had things like bulletproof doors (that worked against them as police fumbled to respond)!

The issue is not how to do it, or even allocating resources (Uvalde had them!), but while we do not have realistic solutions for how to keep guns out of the hands of lunatics - how to maintain vigilance at every school everywhere in the event of a very low probability event.

If you live in California, why not give Shellenberger a try?

https://substack.com/profile/2255433-michael-shellenberger

He wants to try some new things to tackle mental illness, which would impact this issue and many others.

The people running the Democrat party in CA don't seem to be willing to fix anything, despite overwhelming political advantage.