# How can we better prevent school shootings?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [December 14, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051 "2012-12-14T18:46:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 17
### Author:  [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/321 "2012-12-16T21:53:34Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> I was once personally involved in a simple incident. I’d be interested to hear comments from 2nd Amendment enthusiasts.
>
> A mother learned her son, in his early 20’s, had purchased a revolver. The young man had no history of crime or major violence, but definitely seemed somewhat disturbed or delusional. He’d once been incarcerated involuntarily in a mental ward; I don’t know what the diagnosis was.
Personally, I’d say being incarcerated in a mental ward (voluntarily or not) should, at a minimum, disqualify you from purchasing a firearm until a qualified medical professional explicitly certifies that the restriction should be lifted. And I would not mind a federal database keeping track of such things.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/322 "2012-12-16T21:56:57Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> I was once personally involved in a simple incident. I’d be interested to hear comments from 2nd Amendment enthusiasts.
>
> A mother learned her son, in his early 20’s, had purchased a revolver. The young man had no history of crime or major violence, but definitely seemed somewhat disturbed or delusional. He’d once been incarcerated involuntarily in a mental ward; I don’t know what the diagnosis was.
>
> He’d purchased the gun legally. We had no certainty that he’d use the gun inappropriately, but he’d never been interested in target-practice or such, and had no apparent threats outside his own head. At his mother’s request I seized the gun without the man’s knowledge, returned it to the gun store, and gave him the proceeds. AFAIK, he never purchased another gun. It wasn’t too long later that he committed suicide.
> I probably committed theft, and certainly violated his “2nd Amendment Rights,” but neither his mother nor I had any doubt that we’d done the right thing.
I’m not a 2nd Amendment enthusiast, but I can predict what they will say.
“Well, of course you did the right thing! He was clearly nutso! We don’t want no nutso playing around with guns!”
But what they fail to understand is that anyone can look like a nutso, depending on who’s scrunitizing you.
What I’m curious about is why you went through the trouble of returning the weapon? I’m not saying you did a bad thing, but couldn’t you just have put the gun in a safe deposit box until he had demonstrated his wellness?
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/323 "2012-12-16T22:06:35Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#):
>
> If he had been committed involuntarily he lied when he bought it and didn’t buy it legally.
Thank you. He bought it in the mid 1980’s; was that rule in effect then?
Also, although he was at least 21 when he bought the gun, my memory is poor and he might have been a minor when placed on hold in mental ward. Could the hospital have kept a minor locked up just on his mother’s say-so? I don’t think there was any police report or court order.
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### Author:  [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/324 "2012-12-16T22:11:46Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> Thank you. He bought it in the mid 1980’s; was that rule in effect then?
>
> Also, although he was at least 21 when he bought the gun, my memory is poor and he might have been a minor when placed on hold in mental ward. Could the hospital have kept a minor locked up just on his mother’s say-so? I don’t think there was any police report or court order.
The rule was still in effect but if there was no court order they were not involuntarily committed.
[United States Supreme Court decision in 1975, O’Connor v. Donaldson was very much in effect at this time.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Connor_v._Donaldson)
I keep hoping the country will revisit this, but we seem to lack the attention span to do so. It is quite a complex topic.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2012, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/325 "2012-12-16T22:17:31Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> What I’m curious about is why you went through the trouble of returning the weapon? I’m not saying you did a bad thing, but couldn’t you just have put the gun in a safe deposit box until he had demonstrated his wellness?
If by “trouble” you mean time, returning the gun was probably faster than renting a box. Saving the difference between purchase and return price wasn’t a priority but might have been if I’d realized how large it would be. Problem was: _The gun had been fired_, thus reducing its return value. (I never asked the young man “Fired where?” – maybe I didn’t want to know. :smack:)
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2012, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/326 "2012-12-16T23:33:38Z")
> [@Mike Huckabee](#):
>
> We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?
> …
> We don’t have a crime problem, a gun problem or even a violence problem. What we have is a sin problem. And since we’ve ordered God out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn’t act so surprised … when all hell breaks loose.
This from the governor who was happy to pardon any killer who said he’d got religion in jail.
> [@Muffin](#):
>
> That attitude by the politician is very unfortunate.
Yes, and if there’s one thing we know, it’s that religious people never get violent.
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### Author:  [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2012, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/327 "2012-12-16T23:51:05Z")
> [@Absolute](#):
>
> This is so stupid. Have you ever taught your “offspring” how to use a knife in the kitchen? OMFG you retard, you’ve taught them how to wield a deadly weapon and butcher an innocent creature! They’ll be coming for you next! Quick, hide the chainsaw in the garage!
>
> Do you have a problem with kids taking archery lessons? Fencing? Martial arts? Playing “soldier” or “cops and robbers” in the backyard? All of these things have their origins in war, death, and killing. But that’s not why any kid does it today. They do it because it’s fun!
>
> Taking your kid out to the target range and teaching them how to respect and safely handle, use, maintain, etc. a gun is no different than any of those pursuits, except that some people have been conditioned over a long period of time to think “OH MY GOD guns are bad, bad bad bad” and totally bypass the rational part of their brain whenever the topic comes up.
>
> I can understand saying that you personally would never use a gun or take your kids shooting, but saying that people who do are “mildly mentally retarded?” Get a grip.
>
> If your kid is a demented psychopath and has threatened you with a knife when you told him to do his homework, sure, probably best not to introduce him to firearms just yet. You may also want to hide all your pointy objects and lock your bedroom door at night. But I cannot imagine what level of smothering, obsessive, deluded overprotectiveness you have to reach to proclaim that anyone who goes shooting with their normal, well-adjusted kid is mentally retarded.
Again, different experiences.
I learned how to shoot AK-47, grenade launcher and all types of pistols when I was 17 but in a controlled, army environment where there was a process of physical and mental evaluation of every boy that was in his last year of high school. Most of us qualified but not every one did and, sometimes a kid would be sent home after couple of weeks of small mishaps or what-not. The whole setup was managed by people who knew what they were doing, there was discipline and a notion of order and all of that was for the purpose of common sense of safety.
To have some “mom” perform similar duties is downright crazy considering what we are dealing with.
Also, since I might know a bit or two about hand weapons, I take these comparisons to knife as silly and people making them lose a notch on a seriousness scale. But, as I said, that’s me; some may differ and that’s fine.
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/328 "2012-12-17T00:09:34Z")
> [@newcomer](#):
>
> To have some “mom” perform similar duties is downright crazy considering what we are dealing with.
>
> Also, since I might know a bit or two about hand weapons, I take these comparisons to knife as silly and people making them lose a notch on a seriousness scale. But, as I said, that’s me; some may differ and that’s fine.
Your suggested alternatives were bike riding and concerts. I already gave death and maiming statistics for bike riding. No responsible parent should ever let their child ride a bike let alone teach them how to do it if physical safety is the ultimate goal. If you want to avoid mass tragedy, do not ever take your child to a concert. The car ride alone is dangerous enough but the raw carnage possible is also much worse than any gun related crime several times over as demonstrated by 100 people dead in one incident in Rhode Island alone. You need to ban all mass congregation events to avoid such a thing in the future.
This tragedy is reinforcing something that I have believed for a long time. Everyone dies but few people fully understand that. You will one day and your kids will as well. It is good to minimize needless deaths but you can’t make the world perfectly safe. You would not have a bathtub in your house if that was your real goal. Bathtubs kill more young children than guns ever will. In a world with mind-boogling large population, we focus on what the news wants us to see but ignore the everyday issues. More kids died in the 3rd world from preventable diseases than the Connecticut shootings while I was writing this but who cares about that?
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/329 "2012-12-17T00:56:04Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#):
>
> Bathtubs kill more young children than guns ever will.
But if we didn’t have bathtubs we’d probably be failing at basic hygiene, and germs can be more deadly than guns. Yes, the world is inherently uncertain and lots of things can be dangerous. It does not follow that we can’t address any one dangerous thing just because other things are also dangerous. People die in cars, but we essentially cannot live without cars at this point. And we have done a lot of things to make cars safer: seat belts, speed limits, drunk driving laws, technological advances. I can’t say I see that kind of effort being made on gun safety. It’s not just a question of the absolute number of deaths, it’s a question of the possibility of reducing the deaths and what it would cost us.
> [@](#):
>
> More kids died in the 3rd world from preventable diseases than the Connecticut shootings while I was writing this but who cares about that?
Proximity is one of the factors that goes into news judgment, but still: there are people devoting their lives to those issues and billions of dollars are being spent on programs to stop those kinds of diseases. It’s not as if the world is ignoring it.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/330 "2012-12-17T01:08:17Z")
> [@artemis](#):
>
> I’ll salute your post; I don’t think there’s any doubt that the way the media covers these shootings is making things worse. But if the media isn’t willing to self-regulate in this matter (HAH!), I don’t see any way to change that. I don’t think most people will support First Ammendment restrictions (I certainly wouldn’t, even though I know the First Ammendment costs lives).
I agree, which is why I think the government could do with more of the carrot than the stick. Commission a serious study by psychiatrists to discover how in these cases mass media reporting could encourage future shootings through sensationalism and publish a list of recommendations on how to prevent this from occurring. Provide incentives for the big news outlets to adopt these recommendations; make the recommendations and the study public knowledge so that outlets who do not adopt them are frowned upon.
The news would be a bit more boring but again you wouldn’t need to touch gun legislation. I think the majority of the American population would support such a study and list of recommendations; if it stops nutjobs thinking that mass killings are an instant ticket to fame and a warped sense of inspiration from them and ‘badassness’, the black combat gear and all that rubbish.
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### Author:  [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/331 "2012-12-17T01:36:15Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#):
>
> Your suggested alternatives were bike riding and concerts.
You may have misunderstood my point - I was merely suggesting that there are other ways for family to socialize. As I clarified in the next post, she is not a professional in the field and their kin relationship may in fact compromise the whole thing.
But, I think I get where we differ - I think of guns as the tool that is solely made to kill people; for you, it seems, it’s like a hobby, just another activity. Every time I hear the term “gun enthusiast” I see unhealthy obsession bordering idolatry or fetishism.
Again, it maybe me; I saw to many people killed by guns for no reason.
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/332 "2012-12-17T02:11:15Z")
> [@newcomer](#):
>
> You may have misunderstood my point - I was merely suggesting that there are other ways for family to socialize. As I clarified in the next post, she is not a professional in the field and their kin relationship may in fact compromise the whole thing.
>
> But, I think I get where we differ - I think of guns as the tool that is solely made to kill people; for you, it seems, it’s like a hobby, just another activity. Every time I hear the term “gun enthusiast” I see unhealthy obsession bordering idolatry or fetishism.
>
> Again, it maybe me; I saw to many people killed by guns for no reason.
It is you. I grew up with guns and my father obsessive about gun safety. I could shoot as much as I wanted from a young age as long as I followed the rules. Guns are almost unsurpassed in their safety as far as manufactured devices go. They will never hurt anything that you didn’t intend them too as long as you follow the basic rules. There has to be guns somewhere. Some people need them for personal protection and lots of land owners need them for hunting. Deer populations don’t manage themselves and they can and do kill people including kids if they jump out in front of you while you are driving.
This is a philosophical difference between us however as well as one based on statistics. Name another activity that you think would be a good alternative to shooting sports and lets review the statistics and mass deaths. Concerts and bike riding are already out as I have shown.All swimming should be banned immediately. Most people can’t handle large numbers intuitively and that is the problem. You can’t make the world perfectly safe without vastly impinging on everyone’s freedom. The U.S. has already waxed up that board and started down that slippery slope especially after 9/11.
Bottom line: Enfringements of freedom in the name of safety or security are getting out of control. Everyone here dies as well as your kids and grandkids. You have to go through security theater to get on airplane. The NSA is monitoring every communication in the U.S. including this one out of their new giant facility in Utah. Freedom has risks but also extreme benefits and it is the reason for living at all. Minimize senseless deaths through sensible measure and then forget about it and live your life. It is a huge world and your mind is being controlled by the media. There are much worse things happening in the world every day that you don’t know about and they have since the beginning of time but you don’t think about those do you?
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/333 "2012-12-17T04:41:35Z")
> [@](#):
>
> How can we better prevent school shootings?
We can’t, basically. Oh, it’s possible, but there is no realistic (politically, economically) way to accomplish it…and, tragic as this was, I don’t think there is any need either. Off the top of my head, I’d say that if you put armed security at each school, and, more importantly, if you made it known that you had armed security at each school, it would rapidly cut down on school shooting incidents…especially after the next angst riden teenage fuck or crazy mother fucker is dropped by that security as he or she tries to come in. That’s going to put a damper on these guys right there. The problem is…it’s not going to happen for a variety of reasons, from the political to simple economics. It’s just not that big a problem, when you come down to it…you’d be better off putting the resources into better protected school buses if you are looking to save lives over time.
> [@](#):
>
> Suppose it were your job to come up with a strategy, whether it be new legislation, new policies, etc. to prevent school shootings (or, if you’re feeling ambitious, mass shootings in general). Saying “People will always kill people; there’s not much we can do” isn’t an option; it’s your job to come up with the best solution that you can, flawed though it may be. You should respect the right to bear arms to whatever degree you think it deserves to be respected (i.e., I want to hear gun-rights advocates’ opinions as well as gun-control advocates’).
As I said, you could put an armed and trained (and permanent) security presence at each and every school in the country, and ensure a wide ranging campaign to get the word out about it (do specials on the Discover or History/TLC type channels showing the security folks training and such). That would almost certainly work just from the deterrent perspective…especially, as I said, after the first time you have some maniac go in to shoot up a school and get blown away, or better yet taken down, arrested before they could shoot anyone OR whack themselves, and then put in jail to be the butt buddy of a guy named Bubba for the next 30 years.
The trouble is, unless you are given god like powers, it’s not going to happen. It’s simply not a political reality. Just like most of the other suggestions in this thread, especially those dreaming of gun control or gun bans or the like. In the end, we simply have to accept that bad things happen. Kids die every day, and some small number are going to be killed in horrible things like this one. It’s a tragedy when any child dies, IMHO…but you can’t bubble wrap the world, and you can’t prevent all bad things from happening. Literally 10’s of millions of kids go to school every day in the country…20 died in this horrible tragedy. IIRC, on average something like 30 die every year in school bus accidents. About the say in cross walking accidents. A larger number (won’t even guess at this one) are kidnapped and sexually abused every year. There is, unfortunately, nothing we can do to regulate these grim facts out of existence, or ban bad things from happening, much as it would be nice if we could. ☹
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/334 "2012-12-17T06:32:47Z")
> [@Quartz](#):
>
> Of course, the teachers and staff were unarmed, weren’t they? Were they forbidden from carrying weapons? I seem to remember an incident in a school in Israel where an armed attacker was killed by armed staff or students or both.
Israeli schools usually appoint a number of teachers as “security officers”, paying them a small stipend to carry a handgun to aid in the defense of their school. Naturally, they require that they undergo training and extensive background checks. It’s a good system, although IMHO it helps that the security officers are all military veterans.
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### Author:  [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/335 "2012-12-17T06:53:41Z")
> [@Oakminster](#):
>
> Even if that were true, it would do nothing for the millions of unmodified guns and magazines that already exist except drive the prices up in the resale market.
As your post basically points out, the need here is for a systematic change in the types of weapons that can be readily supplied while siphoning off the weapons we want unavailable. One deterrent to the continued purchase of the weapons and paraphernalia of the currently readily available highest rate of fire weapons would be a massive price increase. This would particularly be relevant to socially awkward, unemployed teens with poor job skills. Thank-you for pointing out the genius of my plan.
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> The rub here is that many mass killings are committed using very run-of-the-mill firearms, not super-deadly, extra-special death machines. The Virginia Tech shooter used a Walther P22 and made something like 15 or 16 mag changes.
>
> If you were to list guns from the deadliest to the least dangerous, a .22 pistol with 10-round magazines would be way down at the bottom of the list. You’d have to ban almost all the guns in America before you thought to ban Walther P22s.
Nothing you said counters the characteristics I think need to be tightly regulated. The Walther P22 can fire 10 rounds as fast as the Virginia Tech shooter can pull the trigger and its so convenient to switch out magazines that he did it 15 to 16 times with adrenaline flowing and people freaking out all around him. That seems like one of the deadliest weapons ever. How about a 4 round magazine that cannot be replaced until the weapon cools off from the rapid depletion of the last magazine or some other hurdle to quickly reloading it? How about a mechanism that enhances recoil? Then how many shots does the Virginia Tech shooter get to fire? I think there is more to a weapon’s ability to kill than the caliber of the bullet.
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> Umm.. what about option three: have someone on site who can do what the police would have to do anyway- confront the attacker with armed force of their own- only without the 20 minute response time?
I would prefer this idea if I honestly thought it sustainable. You ever talk to a teacher about their budget woes? I know teachers using history books from 1974. Our schools, despite the horrifying events of Newtown and school districts around the country, have much bigger problems to deal with. I work with the poorly educated products of our secondary education system every day of my life. I can’t imagine how much worse it’ll be if some overpaid cop is found monitoring the door of every single school in our country. It would be a budgetary disaster.
The common variables to most of these shootings is depressed/insane/suicidal males, crowded public spaces, and weapons with a high rate of fire. Unless there is some serious change in our attitudes toward the medical system and treatment of the mentally ill, the only viable point of attack in these variables are the weapons. If I thought that Americans in general, and Republicans in particular, were seriously ready for a change in their attitude toward the treatment of the mentally ill then I might have a different attitude. Yet this morning I woke up to some Republican from Utah discussing violent video games while never mentioning guns at all. That’s so fucking disgusting I can’t believe it. If the attitude of those who wish to enjoy their 2nd amendment rights is to obfuscate, avoid, and discuss violent video games then you will find people like me, people who do not exercise their 2nd amendment rights but generally support others to exercise theirs, will not say much when people actually do come with new laws like the idiotic AWB.
A further benefit to restricting access to semiautomatic firearms of all types is to make it more difficult for impulsive anger to lead to shootings as it does throughout this country every single day.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/336 "2012-12-17T06:55:45Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#):
>
> I agree, which is why I think the government could do with more of the carrot than the stick. Commission a serious study by psychiatrists to discover how in these cases mass media reporting could encourage future shootings through sensationalism and publish a list of recommendations on how to prevent this from occurring.
I would be surprised if that hasn’t already happened. I know there are studies to that effect about suicides, and news sources have adopted policies based on those studies. If there have not been studies about this, there should be.
> [@](#):
>
> Provide incentives for the big news outlets to adopt these recommendations; make the recommendations and the study public knowledge so that outlets who do not adopt them are frowned upon.
I don’t know what incentives you have in mind here, but the idea that the government should reward news outlets for covering the news in government-approved ways is more than a little troubling.
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### Author:  [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/337 "2012-12-17T07:10:27Z")
> [@XT](#):
>
> There is, unfortunately, nothing we can do to regulate these grim facts out of existence, or ban bad things from happening, much as it would be nice if we could. ☹
It is all so hopeless! Let’s just stop trying and each go get an AR15 with a 10 100 round magazines. Maybe our sense of helplessness will more readily take its natural course with the best possible tools around.
The facts are that deaths due to a huge variety of preventable causes have been mitigated throughout my lifetime. These issues that you seem to feel so hopeless about are no different.
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### Author:  [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/338 "2012-12-17T13:56:12Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> … I don’t know what incentives you have in mind here, but the idea that the government should reward news outlets for covering the news in government-approved ways is more than a little troubling.
And I agree. Not singling you out specifically, but I find it especially ironic that so many are now calling for curtailment of Second Amendment rights while completely disregarding any change towards the First Amendment to perhaps minimize the hype and media frenzy that seems to always lead to additional copy cat events.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/339 "2012-12-17T14:03:16Z")
> [@JXJohns](#):
>
> Not singling you out specifically, but I find it especially ironic that so many are now calling for curtailment of Second Amendment rights while completely disregarding any change towards the First Amendment to perhaps minimize the hype and media frenzy that seems to always lead to additional copy cat events.
The First Amendment is actually useful. These days, the primary use of the Second Amendment is to serve as a distraction; something that is zero threat to the rich and powerful that the common people can be convinced to focus on while the rights that actually do them some good are whittled away.
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/340 "2012-12-17T15:01:58Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#):
>
> It is all so hopeless! Let’s just stop trying and each go get an AR15 with a 10 100 round magazines. Maybe our sense of helplessness will more readily take its natural course with the best possible tools around.
>
> The facts are that deaths due to a huge variety of preventable causes have been mitigated throughout my lifetime. These issues that you seem to feel so hopeless about are no different.
Including those due to fire arms. Perhaps you should try and read what I’m writing for content, instead of jerking your knee? I never said things were hopeless (nor that I feel hopeless), nor did I say that you can’t mitigate somewhat bad things…I said you can’t simply ban them away, or legislate them out of existence with a magic wand. The fact remains that in a society there is always a cost (in lives) to everything we do. That’s reality, not hopelessness. It’s sad that you didn’t get that out of what I was writing.
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