# 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:** 28
### Author:  [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/541 "2012-12-22T00:16:40Z")
> [@XT](#):
>
> Well, you give a magical solution that has very little basis in fact
So you admit you didn’t read the link I posted, huh. You know, the one that says
> [@](#):
>
> In August 2012, the team announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and are starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs.
And the “magic lolz” comment is only because you have explicitly used that word in every single post commenting on the subject, so the well-poisoning is your own.
Now, do you have any technology link that you can post that is analagous to guns? You know, something that has been used extensively in live field tests, like driverless cars? Something that has already caused legislation to be enacted to support it? I am all ears.
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/542 "2012-12-22T00:26:39Z")
I actually was involved in one of the teams that submitted a vehicle for the DARPA trials, so I’m well aware of the technology and what it can and can’t do. And it’s a fantasy at this time to even think about such a system on the scale of actual production and use for the driving public. That you keep harping on it does not make the technology any more realistic.
As for active safety systems, well, [here](http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/armatix-smartgun-uses-wrist-watch-as-electronic-safety-device-2010021/) you go. They exist. They work. They are probably closer to reality than auto-driving systems. And it’s highly unlikely they will be ready for prime time soon, nor is it realistic to think that such things could be retrofitted to all the hundreds of millions of existing guns out there…just like even if a realistic autodriving system actually existed today it’s unrealistic to think that such a system could or would be retrofitted to all the hundreds of millions of existing cars today.
Your whole point is ridiculous, but if you want to continue to hijack these threads about it I’m not going to shut you down. Feel free.
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### Author:  [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/543 "2012-12-22T00:33:27Z")
That safety system (or RFID chips, that I have also seen bandied about) help against unauthorized or accidental use, but they do not represent “a technology that would make guns that can’t be used to kill the innocent or whatever.” Its a start, I suppose, but one of the problems we are trying to solve is crazy people taking their guns and killing innocents, which this doesn’t solve. Unlike driverless cars, I don’t foresee a tech solution to that 20 years from now, 50 years, etc.
[QUOTE=XT]
Your whole point is ridiculous
[/QUOTE]
Right back at ya. And irrelevant. And totally consistent with the pro-gun strategy of dealing with efforts to eliminate guns with “LOOK, ALCOHOL! VIDEO GAMES! MUSIC VIDEOS!”
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/544 "2012-12-22T00:40:15Z")
[QUOTE=HoboStew]
That safety system (or RFID chips, that I have also seen bandied about) help against unauthorized or accidental use, but they do not represent “a technology that would make guns that can’t be used to kill the innocent or whatever.” Its a start, I suppose, but one of the problems we are trying to solve is crazy people taking their guns and killing innocents, which this doesn’t solve. Unlike driverless cars, I don’t foresee a tech solution to that 20 years from now, 50 years, etc.
[/QUOTE]
Seems to me that RFID chips would have actually prevented this latest tragedy actually, since this kid took his mothers guns after killing her. I’d say you could reasonably extrapolate a similar unlikely path to minimized gun deaths as to your fantasy about zero (or even substantially reduced) alcohol deaths 20 years from now.
> [@](#):
>
> Right back at ya. And irrelevant. And totally consistent with the pro-gun strategy of dealing with efforts to eliminate guns with “LOOK, ALCOHOL! VIDEO GAMES! MUSIC VIDEOS!”
😛 Man, just no getting through to you is there. Ah well…you keep humping that strawman.
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### Author:  [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/545 "2012-12-22T01:38:32Z")
> [@XT](#):
>
> Seems to me that RFID chips would have actually prevented this latest tragedy actually, since this kid took his mothers guns after killing her. I’d say you could reasonably extrapolate a similar unlikely path to minimized gun deaths as to your fantasy about zero (or even substantially reduced) alcohol deaths 20 years from now.
If you can demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of gun homicides (remember, that is what we are trying to stop here, not just this last one) occur with guns that aren’t used by their rightful owners, you have an argument. If not, this is just pro-gun distraction #237.
> [@XT](#):
>
> 😛 Man, just no getting through to you is there. Ah well…you keep humping that strawman.
Oh you have gotten through, loud and clear. Your argument is that we have put up with the cost of alcohol in our lives, which is greater than the cost of guns. To which I have responded (repeatedly) **we are working on that**. But by all means, keep humping your false equivalence.
And make sure you bring it up in every thread.
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### Author:  [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/546 "2012-12-22T02:04:14Z")
> [@HoboStew](#):
>
> If you can demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of gun homicides (remember, that is what we are trying to stop here, not just this last one) occur with guns that aren’t used by their rightful owners, you have an argument. If not, this is just pro-gun distraction #237.
>
> Oh you have gotten through, loud and clear. Your argument is that we have put up with the cost of alcohol in our lives, which is greater than the cost of guns. To which I have responded (repeatedly) **we are working on that**. But by all means, keep humping your false equivalence.
> And make sure you bring it up in every thread.
Most guns used in crimes are Stolen but RFID chips are only a couple of seconds in a microwave away from destruction.
In 1985 the DOJ found that five out of six felons got their firearms from the underground market.
> [@](#):
>
> “[the] criminal handgun market is overwhelmingly dominated by informal
> transactions and theft as mechanisms of supply.
“The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons , James D. Wright, Peter H. Rossi, National
Institute of Justice (U.S.), 1985” (sorry only on dead trees it seems)
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### Author:  [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/547 "2012-12-22T02:29:20Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#):
>
> Most guns used in crimes are Stolen but RFID chips are only a couple of seconds in a microwave away from destruction.
>
> In 1985 the DOJ found that five out of six felons got their firearms from the underground market.
See, now we are getting somewhere. I was googling the subject too, and came up on [this article discussing how to make guns safer](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/12/smart_guns_we_have_the_technology_to_make_safer_guns_too_bad_gunmakers_don.html). If, indeed, most damage from guns comes from unauthorized owners, it seems to me the easy solution is to make sure every single gun made going forward has technology to prevent unauthorized owners from firing. Sure, it won’t help guns already out there, but as time goes by (just like the seatbelt analogy I have made elsewhere) all working guns will have it. This is definitely something I can get behind, assuming the premise is correct.
See how much more productive the discussion becomes when we actually talk about the problem, instead of pointing to totally unrelated things?
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### Author:  [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/548 "2012-12-22T03:05:30Z")
> [@HoboStew](#):
>
> See, now we are getting somewhere. I was googling the subject too, and came up on [this article discussing how to make guns safer](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/12/smart_guns_we_have_the_technology_to_make_safer_guns_too_bad_gunmakers_don.html). If, indeed, most damage from guns comes from unauthorized owners, it seems to me the easy solution is to make sure every single gun made going forward has technology to prevent unauthorized owners from firing. Sure, it won’t help guns already out there, but as time goes by (just like the seatbelt analogy I have made elsewhere) all working guns will have it. This is definitely something I can get behind, assuming the premise is correct.
>
> See how much more productive the discussion becomes when we actually talk about the problem, instead of pointing to totally unrelated things?
The country’s police departments should be all over this technology if it exists as advertised in the link. Since they don’t, it makes you wonder.
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### Author:  [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/549 "2012-12-22T04:31:35Z")
**NRA proposal to post armed guards in schools is debunked by critics**
> [@](#):
>
> Cost
>
> At a time when the US is trying to reduce government spending, the move would present a further bill to taxpayers, potentially running into billions of dollars. There are some 98,817 public and 33,366 private schools in the US, according to the department of education.
>
> According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average pay for a police officer is $55,010 per annum.
>
> In that case, a crude estimate for the overall bill for the placing of an armed guard in every US school could be as much as $7.2bn. If the government only had to cover public schools, the total could be a minimum of $5.4bn.
>
> Even if the NRA was to claim that such officers could be redeployed during the summer break, it would still mean that the equivalent of around 74,000 positions would need to be filled – at a cost of $4.1bn.
Plus:
Effectiveness
Logic
> **[NRA proposal to post armed guards in schools is debunked by critics](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/21/nra-armed-guards-schools)**
>
> Wayne LaPierre's post-Newtown call for 'a properly trained armed good guy' in every school meets stiff opposition
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/550 "2012-12-22T14:51:10Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#):
>
> **NRA proposal to post armed guards in schools is debunked by critics**
>
> Plus:
> Effectiveness
> Logic
>
> [NRA proposal to post armed guards in schools is debunked by critics | NRA | The Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/21/nra-armed-guards-schools)
Just how expensive do people think an **effective** gun control law would be? It would take a dictatorship with a Stalin-level secret police to get rid of the guns already out there.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/551 "2012-12-22T14:52:43Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> Just how expensive do people think an **effective** gun control law would be? It would take a dictatorship with a Stalin-level secret police to get rid of the guns already out there.
Ah, the old “America is uniquely incompetent” argument. Other nations can get rid of guns; America can’t.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/552 "2012-12-22T15:22:29Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> Just how expensive do people think an **effective** gun control law would be? It would take a dictatorship with a Stalin-level secret police to get rid of the guns already out there.
Do you reckon the UK features a dictatorship with a Stalin-level secret police ? I mean, I always had my suspicions about the beefeaters, but…
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### Author:  [@Bruce\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Wayne)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/553 "2012-12-22T15:44:29Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> Ah, the old “America is uniquely incompetent” argument. Other nations can get rid of guns; America can’t.
I simply can not see a door to door confiscation of certain weapon types across U.S. going well. Such a law/action will alienate tens of millions of people and have all sorts of legal ramifications.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/554 "2012-12-22T16:01:42Z")
> [@Bruce\_Wayne](#):
>
> I simply can not see a door to door confiscation of certain weapon types across U.S. going well. Such a law/action will alienate tens of millions of people and have all sorts of legal ramifications.
Why do people _always_ assume confiscation would involve policemen ransacking people’s homes looking for guns to seize ? It’s not what happened in any first world country that opted to control firearms when their spread became a concern. For that matter, do cops routinely ransack your house looking for bricks of cocaine ?
No matter their online bluster, people are generally law-abiding (or perhaps punishment-averse would be more apt). They have a little policeman inside their heads, going “tut-tut, you’ll get caught” whenever a bad thought crosses their mind. And when the government says “give up your guns now please, and if we happen to find you with one at some point in the future you’re in deep doo-doo without a shovel”, people by and large give them up of their own volition.
And if they don’t, well, it’s really not a concern. They’ll simply be caught with them at some point in the future, at which point they’ll be in deep doo-doo. Without a paddle.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/555 "2012-12-22T17:22:03Z")
> [@Kobal2](#):
>
> For that matter, do cops routinely ransack your house looking for bricks of cocaine ?
In Chicago, possibly. 😛
> [@](#):
>
> No matter their online bluster, people are generally law-abiding (or perhaps punishment-averse would be more apt). They have a little policeman inside their heads, going “tut-tut, you’ll get caught” whenever a bad thought crosses their mind. And when the government says “give up your guns now please, and if we happen to find you with one at some point in the future you’re in deep doo-doo without a shovel”, people by and large give them up of their own volition.
> And if they don’t, well, it’s really not a concern. They’ll simply be caught with them at some point in the future, at which point they’ll be in deep doo-doo. Without a paddle.
You really think it will be that easy? The more paranoid gun proponents have _already assumed_ that gun confiscation is inevitable and made plans. For starters if turning in guns is voluntary there will be a huge scofflaw problem- how many people illegally keep guns in New York, Chicago, DC and LA? Then there’s the \boating accidents where people lose so many of their guns. People can and will craft guns in basement workshops, or find ways to smuggle them; and it will not be just a for-profit contraband operation but people who are ideologically committed to guns as a mark of freedom- they’ll be more like a resistance underground. And finally there are the people who have flat-out stated that confiscation would be the last straw and they will openly rebel against government authority if it happens. They may well lose, but they _would_ make it the largest insurrection since the Civil War. This would be neither cheap nor easy for the government.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/556 "2012-12-22T17:39:33Z")
_shrug_. Again, the law doesn’t have to be proactive about gun possession crimes any more than it has to be proactive on drug possession or DUIs. They wait, they watch, and whenever people give them the excuse to, they search and lock-up. It’s how they do. It’s how they’ve always done. More to the point, it’s how they’ve done to regulate guns in France, the UK, Australia… and it worked there just fine, for the most part.
If there is “underground resistance” & active smuggling, then that too will be surveyed, monitored, stung and dealt with ; in the same fashion drugs or cigarette smuggling is. The prisons will fill right up… again… upper 🙂
As for the last straw folk, yeah, let me quietly shiver at the public threat posed by middle-aged couch-borne internet tough guys. Brrrrrr.
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### Author:  [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/557 "2012-12-22T17:44:48Z")
Gotta start draining the swamp sometime. We can’t just keep claiming the problem is too big to do anything about. If we were to ban semiautomatic weapons but grandfaher current owners, that would be better than nothing. We could incentivize voluntary surrender of the weapons to increase the rate they are removed.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2012, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/558 "2012-12-23T01:51:46Z")
> [@Kobal2](#):
>
> If there is “underground resistance” & active smuggling, then that too will be surveyed, monitored, stung and dealt with ; in the same fashion drugs or cigarette smuggling is. The prisons will fill right up… again… upper 🙂
Except that guns are different from drugs, cigarettes, etc.: they don’t get _used up_. Indeed, smugglers currently consider them inferior to drugs as contraband because they’re durable goods; most buyers don’t constantly need more. If police bust a heroin smuggling ring, the supply from that ring is over. If they bust a gun smuggling ring, every gun they smuggled in is still out there, at least until police catch someone with it. If an underground factory turned out 5000 illegal extended magazines before getting caught, the 5000 magazines are still out there. I could see the illicit supply keeping up with the rate that they could be confiscated.
> [@](#):
>
> As for the last straw folk, yeah, let me quietly shiver at the public threat posed by middle-aged couch-borne internet tough guys. Brrrrrr.
I wonder about the guys too paranoid to post anything on a public board… :eek:
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2012, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/559 "2012-12-23T03:31:31Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> Except that guns are different from drugs, cigarettes, etc.: they don’t get _used up_. Indeed, smugglers currently consider them inferior to drugs as contraband because they’re durable goods; most buyers don’t constantly need more. If police bust a heroin smuggling ring, the supply from that ring is over. If they bust a gun smuggling ring, every gun they smuggled in is still out there, at least until police catch someone with it.
Fine, make that stolen cars or car parts rings if you prefer. Stolen cars still exist, and chop shops still do decent business even, but they’re not exactly flooding the market with mufflers wot fell off a truck either. Besides, do \*you (\*which I’ll assume are a regular, even upstanding citizen)know where you can acquire a jacked truck, or who to talk to if you wanted a street-illegal carburettor for some reason ? 'Cause I don’t.
And you’re right: guns \*don’t \*get used up. Which makes them poor for contraband/illegal distribution purposes, from the maker’s point of view. Either a customer won’t get busted with it and doesn’t need more (certainly you can’t sell them new ones every Friday night…) ; or they’ll get busted, may or may not care for a new one when they’re out but will be upstate for 5 to 10 either way (or however many years illegal possession of a firearm nets one).
That’s a poor business model, isn’t it ? I believe serious car jacking rings export theirs abroad (where the market’s bigger, and nobody gives a crap/can easily check that they’re stolen) for just this reason.
> [@](#):
>
> If an underground factory turned out 5000 illegal extended magazines before getting caught, the 5000 magazines are still out there. I could see the illicit supply keeping up with the rate that they could be confiscated.
Yeah, I don’t. I reaaaally don’t. Not from domestic factories anyway. AR-15s aren’t bootleg DVDs, you can’t just print batches of them in your basement, or in an RV in the desert for that matter 🙂
And even \*if \*the supply could be there, the demand wouldn’t. I think you grossly overestimate the extent to which regular Joes are willing to trouble themselves (and risk putting themselves in trouble) just to thumb their nose at laws they don’t approve of, no matter how loud mouthed they are.
To give you an example: if this forum is anything to go by a small but vocal amount of people disapprove or even strongly disapprove of DUI laws, think they’re too stringent, the random stops are invasive & constitute unwarranted searches, that they should only be applied in case of accidents etc… Do you reckon any of them are getting lit before driving, on principle ? Argue with cops asking them to blow into the thingamajig ?
Wait, I got a better one: everybody, and I mean \*everybody \*hates the TSA, with good reason. How many people stringently object to the pat downs, strip searches & dong-o-vision booths, how many people make a scene ?
We’ve all got places to go, people to see, children to feed. Extended magazines and barefaced invasions of privacy committed by the terminally incompetent ain’t worth getting locked up over. They’re barely worth getting late over.
As for non-regular Joes, the more militant & paranoid groups ? If the FBI, NSA and/or BATFE don’t keep extensive records on each and every one of them, I’ll eat my left nut.
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### Author:  [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-we-better-prevent-school-shootings/644051/560 "2012-12-23T03:40:43Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#):
>
> Would you please quit saying this.
Why?
Is it the guns fault or not? I think it would be more effective if you could argue your point instead of just trying to make topics offlimits when you find them difficult to deal with.
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