There probably isn’t much we can do. And if you get rid of guns, they’ll just use vehicles, which are even more deadly. And no, you can’t make them hate us less. The ones who actually kill people are supremacists. Treat them as you would right-wing nationalists. Because they are.
Bollards sound good but why not go for trees instead? Nice pretty trees everywhere.
Auto-braking and collision-avoidance will become mandatory soon enough. It is already common across new vehicles. This together with management of traffic/pedestrian areas should held reduce this. You can’t fully eradicate such things but you can make it much more difficult without infringing on the lawful use of vehicles.
Are mass shooters necessarily “terrorists” or people just having a bad life?
If you were addressing me I propose to quote my own post, you seem to have missed it:
That report is probably a hoax by 4chan. It was based on an alleged post where the guy addresses “Sgt 4chan” and then spouts a bunch of “incel” buzzwords.
Not one that rational people spend much time worrying about.
We don’t need to “do something” to prevent every conceivable evil act.
That’s a ridiculous definition that no one would use. If a drunk driver falls asleep at the wheel and knocks a school bus off a cliff, killing 40 kids, it’s terrorism?
Your other point is right on, though. Suck it up. The world has 7 billion people, lots of which are nuts or evil. All things considered, we live in, by far, the most peaceful and safe time to be alive. Freaking out about a few people being killed here and there only serves to give you the wrong sense that the world isn’t that safe and gives you anxiety that degrades your quality of life even though the chance of something like this happening to you is infinitesemal.
Furthermore, people doing this sort of thing look for weak spots. After 9/11 we spent a lot of money, inconvenienced a lot of people, and damaged our idea of privacy because we were basically chasing the last attack. So the next attack will use a different mechanism. If we hypothetically spent billions putting up rails everywhere and taking other measures, then people would find another weakness and attack that.
That said, putting up bollards at high traffic easy access areas is relatively cheap and also protects against drunks/people having a seizure/old people who can’t drive, so it’s probably a cost effective idea in some places.
Right. There are some places where walking doesn’t feel very safe due to risk of accidents. That might be worth attention.
They wouldn’t get very far. You can’t drive a truck on either side of the mall, even on a normal weekday. And everything has been surrounded by bollards for more than 10 years now.
Remember THIS SCENE of the 1980’s film “Blues Brothers” where they run thru a mall. Of course in the movies its just funny and nobody is hurt but imagine in real life?
I think those would be easy to turn off or undo.
I expect that the next edition of “how to be a jihadist” will include step-by-step instructions on how to disable / bypass these systems.
It’s probably challenging to get trees that are both big enough to stop a vehicle and close enough together to prevent a vehicle from just swerving around / between them to gain access to pedestrian areas.
What? You think this guy in Toronto was a right-wing nationalist?
No, the last one was. This one appears to just be a frustrated loser.
Yes, we could. Unfortunately, terrorism is also a lucrative business that gives its perpetrators power and a lot of financial funding from disgruntled sources. Since peace is the enemy of terrorism, terrorists do not want peace because it would put them out of business.
Ironically, the United States has been possibly the best recruiters for terrorist organizations because of its aggressive policy in the Middle East. When you invade and bomb people, you create a lot terrorists. Go figure.
Pretty close: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnge8nWl3Vs
FYI here’s a typical example of a sidewalk protected by guard rails and bollards in Japan.
Bollards are selective barriers, designed to stop cars but allow pedestrians to pass through. So you want each bollard to be fairly low (hip height) and narrow. And you don’t want an area of soil around each one - which you’d need for a tree.
(Where you don’t need pedestrians to walk through, you’d use a continuous barrier like a guard rail. Not bollards.)
Also, you’d need a fairly big tree to stop a car. I’m not sure you could plant such big trees close together, close enough that a car couldn’t drive through the gap.