The most recent shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut once again highlights our vulnerability to savage attacks from those who have no respect for human life. According to media reports there have been at least 75 such attacks since 1995.  The death toll and destruction are staggering. The toll on our psyches is overwhelming. 

 

We remember the Oklahoma City bombings, Columbine High School and Virginia Tech massacres, the Aurora movie theater shootings, the Gabby Giffords shooting, and the 9/11 attacks. After each horrendous attack our numbed sensibilities turned first to horror; then to sorrow; then to outrage; and then to a desire for new laws and new controls over assault weapons, and new restrictions on guns and ammunition; and finally to bewilderment at why these murders continue to occur while we apparently can do little more than ask “why?”

 

In order to begin to solve this issue, we must first acknowledge that it is a complex issue that is not solvable by simply passing another law. The fact that terrorists have no respect for life or current laws is good evidence that they will not respect another law that tries to protect another life. And while it is true that guns and bombs do not kill; people do, it is also true that their ease of acquisition is a major contributor to the problem. It will continue to be contested, but bringing deadly weapons under control is the easier part of the solution to the broader issue. The much more difficult part lies in the early detection of those attributes, symptoms, and behaviors that lead to murderous conduct. And then use this knowledge to prevent the dangerous persons from acquiring and from using weapons that kill.

 

In finding a solution to the difficult part, we can take some comfort in knowing that we can outthink these mental lightweights.   Some are devious and clever, but they are not mental giants. And it will be costly in terms of money expenditures, training, and deployment of a detection system that can find the perpetrators before they act, perhaps even before they know they are potential perpetrators. 

 

On the positive side, we do have a growing reservoir of knowledge about the behaviors of those who are intent on doing harm to others.   Homeland Security and airport security here and around the world have developed profiles of potential perpetrators.   They also have detection systems in place. There are already databases of known terrorists, of known criminals, and of those with mental conditions that make them a potential danger to others. This list needs to be expanded by the use of more refined and faster detection methods. We need to identify and track dangerous persons, even to the point of forcing them to wear tracking implants or anklets.

 

Surveillance locations. Clearly, cameras and other detection devices will need to be installed at or near our most vulnerable points including schools, border entry points, airports, gun shows and gun sales outlets, shopping malls, theatres, sports arenas, docks, and train stations all tied electronically to central computers able to rapidly process and assess threat levels and persons. We don’t need to spend ourselves into bankruptcy in order to deploy a system that will cover every possible junction of potential trouble. Warning signs and false cameras can used extensively to cut costs. 

 

Everyone's freedom ends where the freedom to live is denied.  At this writing many groups are forming here and around the world that set “us” apart from “them.”   Individuals and groups are showing their good intentions by performing coordinated and random acts of kindness to others, especially to those in need, by hugging their children, and by telling them and their friends that they love them. Ultimately, those are the human behaviors that must prevail.