There are two broad approaches that can help mitigate the threat of mass shootings: proactive efforts to identify threats in advance, performed by behavioral threat assessment teams; and targeted gun regulations like red flag laws and bump stock bans.
Okay, yeah, let’s look at these.
Proactive efforts. See, here’s your problem: lots of things that might be a sign of a school shooter in the making are also protected speech. The US Secret Service released a document a while back looking at things that mass shooters had in common–and in this case, ‘mass shooter’ is defined as largely random violence that wasn’t domestic or part of some other crime, e.g., your typical school shooter–and the things they found as risk factors were very general. Like, kids that are bullied are at risk or committing a mass shooting. Kids that have divorced parents are at risk. Kids that make threats might be at risk. But no murderer met all of the criteria, and hundreds of thousands of people do have multiple risk factors, but never go on to commit mass murder.
Statistically speaking, mass murder events are RARE. We hear about them mostly because they make national news; we get 24/7 coverage of them when they happen, for weeks after the event. They’re so rare that addressing every single person that has one or more risk factor would be millions of people, and that millions of kids that now have a record of being interviewed by some kind of pre-crime cops.
Second, look at this -
At least four people were killed, and nine were injured after a shooter opened fire at Apalachee High School in northern Georgia on Wednesday, the latest in more than 250 mass shootings that have taken place in the US in 2024.
Did you catch it? It’s quick, and if you’re not paying attention, you’re going to miss it. They said that there have been more than 250 mass shootings in the use, in nine months. When you look at one of their solutions, they list “bump stock bans”. Did you see what they did? They implied that semi-automatic tactical rifles were one of the primary types of arms used in mass shootings (you can’t put a bump stock on, for instance, a Glock) by proposing a ‘solution’ that affects only rifles. Buuuuuuuuuut… That’s just not correct. Most mass shootings, by far, involve handguns only. Yes, people that are trying to inflict maximum carnage use them disproportionately, but most mass shootings are actually committed with handguns, and not rifles. They’re doing a bait-and-switch; they’re proposing ‘solutions’ that affect rifles, while knowing that–even if they were legal–they would have a very minimal effect on the actual number of people killed in mass shootings, because of how few people are killed with rifles in mass shootings.
Red flag laws have a different problem; you’re taking away constitutional rights without a criminal trial, and on the basis that someone might commit a crime at some indeterminate point in the future. The threshold can be very low, depending on how laws are written. If you want to fight them, well, since it’s nan administrative case rather than a criminal case, you’re going to have to pay for your own attorney. But the core problem remains: it’s punishing someone before a crime has been committed, by seizing their property.
Nagin, who helped develop a series of evidence-based recommendations for reducing mass shootings, says that “the sheer volume of firearms” circulating in the US, which are “far more lethal than they were in the past,” […]
Okay, this is just wrong. Modern small arms are less lethal than their WWII counterparts. The US switched from the M1 Garand to the M14, and then to the M16 because they simply didn’t need a full-powered cartridge. A smaller intermediate cartridge–the .223 Rem or 5.56x45mm NATO (they’re almost identical)–allowed soldiers to carry less ammunition, at the cost of both range and lethality. Same thing with pistol cartridges; the .45ACP was slow, heavy, and big, and soldiers just didn’t need something with that much recoil and ammunition weight, when the 9mm Luger worked well enough in almost all cases. (Note that yes, the FBI said that it was underpowered, used the 10mm briefly, then switched to .40S&W, and now pretty much everyone is back to 9mm, because there wasn’t any real advantage to the other cartridges, except in very, very rare edge cases.)
If you want to address violence, look at the material conditions. Fix the issues that lead to violence in the first place, rather than trying to address symptoms.
PS - like it or not, the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, which has been affirmed by both multiple SCOTUS cases, and 200+ years of precedent. Don’t like it? Propose a constitutional amendment, get it passed by a supermajority of both the house and senate, and then get 38 states to ratify the amendment with a popular vote. Or, alternatively, get 2/3 of all state legislatures to pass the same constitutional amendment.
If you can’t do that, well, quit fucking with constitutional rights.
We managed to pass the 14th, we even got–and repealed–prohibition. So fuckin’ get on it if you really, truly believe that having too many rights is the problem.
Okay, yeah, let’s look at these.
Proactive efforts. See, here’s your problem: lots of things that might be a sign of a school shooter in the making are also protected speech. The US Secret Service released a document a while back looking at things that mass shooters had in common–and in this case, ‘mass shooter’ is defined as largely random violence that wasn’t domestic or part of some other crime, e.g., your typical school shooter–and the things they found as risk factors were very general. Like, kids that are bullied are at risk or committing a mass shooting. Kids that have divorced parents are at risk. Kids that make threats might be at risk. But no murderer met all of the criteria, and hundreds of thousands of people do have multiple risk factors, but never go on to commit mass murder.
Statistically speaking, mass murder events are RARE. We hear about them mostly because they make national news; we get 24/7 coverage of them when they happen, for weeks after the event. They’re so rare that addressing every single person that has one or more risk factor would be millions of people, and that millions of kids that now have a record of being interviewed by some kind of pre-crime cops.
Second, look at this -
Did you catch it? It’s quick, and if you’re not paying attention, you’re going to miss it. They said that there have been more than 250 mass shootings in the use, in nine months. When you look at one of their solutions, they list “bump stock bans”. Did you see what they did? They implied that semi-automatic tactical rifles were one of the primary types of arms used in mass shootings (you can’t put a bump stock on, for instance, a Glock) by proposing a ‘solution’ that affects only rifles. Buuuuuuuuuut… That’s just not correct. Most mass shootings, by far, involve handguns only. Yes, people that are trying to inflict maximum carnage use them disproportionately, but most mass shootings are actually committed with handguns, and not rifles. They’re doing a bait-and-switch; they’re proposing ‘solutions’ that affect rifles, while knowing that–even if they were legal–they would have a very minimal effect on the actual number of people killed in mass shootings, because of how few people are killed with rifles in mass shootings.
Red flag laws have a different problem; you’re taking away constitutional rights without a criminal trial, and on the basis that someone might commit a crime at some indeterminate point in the future. The threshold can be very low, depending on how laws are written. If you want to fight them, well, since it’s nan administrative case rather than a criminal case, you’re going to have to pay for your own attorney. But the core problem remains: it’s punishing someone before a crime has been committed, by seizing their property.
Okay, this is just wrong. Modern small arms are less lethal than their WWII counterparts. The US switched from the M1 Garand to the M14, and then to the M16 because they simply didn’t need a full-powered cartridge. A smaller intermediate cartridge–the .223 Rem or 5.56x45mm NATO (they’re almost identical)–allowed soldiers to carry less ammunition, at the cost of both range and lethality. Same thing with pistol cartridges; the .45ACP was slow, heavy, and big, and soldiers just didn’t need something with that much recoil and ammunition weight, when the 9mm Luger worked well enough in almost all cases. (Note that yes, the FBI said that it was underpowered, used the 10mm briefly, then switched to .40S&W, and now pretty much everyone is back to 9mm, because there wasn’t any real advantage to the other cartridges, except in very, very rare edge cases.)
If you want to address violence, look at the material conditions. Fix the issues that lead to violence in the first place, rather than trying to address symptoms.
PS - like it or not, the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, which has been affirmed by both multiple SCOTUS cases, and 200+ years of precedent. Don’t like it? Propose a constitutional amendment, get it passed by a supermajority of both the house and senate, and then get 38 states to ratify the amendment with a popular vote. Or, alternatively, get 2/3 of all state legislatures to pass the same constitutional amendment.
If you can’t do that, well, quit fucking with constitutional rights.
We managed to pass the 14th, we even got–and repealed–prohibition. So fuckin’ get on it if you really, truly believe that having too many rights is the problem.