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The quote of the day is presented by Guns.com.

So…massive data sharing — including medical records — and dropping a dime on your neighbors to keep everyone safer. You could make a pretty good movie about a system like that.

After the latest mass shootings, state lawmakers sought the advice of Florida’s top cops last week. What they got back, after three hours of testimony, was one big idea.

It wasn’t better background checks. Or keeping guns away from domestic violence abusers. Or maintaining a database of military-style weapons.

Rather, the state’s leading law enforcement authorities offered an ambitious but vague solution far removed from gun control: a first-of-its-kind effort to predict mass shooters before they attack. It would train police across the state how to recognize threats. The new alert system would require police, local governments, medical providers and the public to share more information about their fellow Floridians than ever before.

“I know that sends shivers and shudders through those that champion privacy concerns and rights and mental health rights,” State Attorney Phil Archer, president of Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, told lawmakers during a Monday hearing. “Everybody’s going to have to give a little.”

– Lawrence Mower in Florida’s top cops offer their big idea to stop mass shootings. It’s not about guns.

 

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132 COMMENTS

    • Criminals who commit gun crimes are allowed to plea bargain away gun charges for lesser sentences , while the law abiding gun owners are scape goated and blamed for all crime.
      Enforcing laws already on the books just simply is not DISARMING everyone fast enough.

    • Why should any American citizen surrender one millimeter of their liberty to pander to paranoid busybodies? Do these people have crystal balls?

      • Because they think the movie “Minority Report” was a real view of the future.

        Where “Stasiland” will be the reality.

      • Well said.
        Those willing to sacrifice hard earned Liberties in order to gain some insignificant and temporary PERCEIVED security, deserve NETHER, and WILL lose BOTH!
        I see a vlad (Sig pic) response coming, pre-emptive strike, stick you keyboard up your ass, because you’re wrong and everyone’s fed up reading your BS.
        I mean that in a nice way too, learn when you’re not wanted.

      • Don’t know about crystal balls, but they definitely have proven they don’t have steel balls. Glass balls, maybe?

    • You and dam well bet that the “top cops” and politicians sure as hell aren’t giving up any of **their** privacy.
      “Everybody has to give a little”, my ass. Trading a little freedom for a little safety is always a bad bargain because the safety can go away but the state will never return your freedom..

  1. He was elected unopposed to the current position. Let’s hope someone run against him in the next election. I’ll vote for anyone that doesn’t have gun control as a plank.

  2. It won’t help anyway.

    The Parkland shooter might as well have been wearing a t-shirt that said “Mass School Shooter In-Training” and they still would have overlooked him.

    Parkland proves why there is nothing the government can do about mass shooters.

    • Parkland proves that there’s nothing the government WILL do about mass shootings. Mass shootings give them the political capital to impose greater control over the law abiding masses, which is the real objective.

        • Things haven’t changed much in the last 145 years. The vast majority of people in government are the most self serving people in any society.

        • “Exactly! One of our founding fathers said if we would give away freedom for safety, that we deserved neither.”

          Well…that was then, and this is now. We are talking about giving only a teensie weensie bit of liberty for a teensie weensie bit of hopefully safety.

        • And Sam if you do not get even the teensiest weensiest bit of “hopefully safety” then you have no one to blame but your teensiest weensiest less free self.

        • “And Sam if you do not get even the teensiest weensiest bit of “hopefully safety” then you have no one to blame but your teensiest weensiest less free self.’

          I know you are busy, so I will (this time) be brief: you missed the message completely.

      • “Government is not reason; it’s not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it’s a dangerous servant and a fearful master…” George Washington

    • Parkland was a massive failure, absolutely.

      But where practiced, the methods of Early Detection,. Threat Assessment and Planned Intervention do stop attacks in schools while still in the planning stage. I’ve seen them work in school districts near me. This approach has been available to schools from the US Secret Service since shortly after Columbine.

      Google News search on Secret Service Safe School Initiative:
      https://tinyurl.com/y4s7o7wv

      We need this in every school in the country, without exception.

      • I’m familiar with Secret Service Safe School Initiative but that would take situational awareness and vigilance; something that the authorities are clearly incapable of or (as the Gov. pointed out above) not to their political advantage.

        • Not so. It works in schools all over this country. You only hear about the results if you pay close attention to local news sources. A story about a student discovered to be planning some act of violence, but found out and prevented, simply is not big enough to be splashed over the big nationwide news outlets.

          It failed at Parkland for lack of training. The threat assessment team was lead by a man with 31 years experience in education, but zero in Threat Assessment. No one knew how to do the task they were assigned. The techniques and protocols simply were not there. Like having a big hardcover book with an imposing title embossed on the cover, but inside it were blank pages.

          Training is where money should be spent. Not on the FDLE daydreams of shiny new computer servers and hiring more IT staff.

        • Enuf, it failed in Parkland because of racism. The Obama (in)justice compartment forced schools and municipalities to not arrest black and hispanic youts and also to not put them into the mental health system.

          Of course they could lock up all the white and asian kids they wanted.

        • The Crimson Pirate – No, that’s Obama Derangement Syndrome talking. If not your own ODS then the it’s the effectiveness of a whole lot of it spouted by others.

          Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission
          https://www.fdle.state.fl.us/MSDHS/Home.aspx
          http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/MSDHS/CommissionReport.pdf

          There are multiple failures but they all come down to local authorities being incompetent and not trained, not experienced, not qualified for their jobs. Obama did not do that, the locals did that.

  3. Two – opposing – comments.

    I read this and immediately thought of the Orwellian steps this could lead to. Imagine a world where your neighbor can make a single phone call questioning your “loyalty” or stability and prompt a full swat raid with confiscation of firearms, knives, matches, even books, and your arrest and “reeducation.” I don’t want to live a world where spies have replaced neighbors.

    At the same time I remind myself that, once upon a time, we actually knew most everything about all our neighbors. There were few secrets and it was easy to predict who was a little “off” and when they might become “inappropriate.” Neighbors and family decided how to intervene and when additional help was needed. It wasn’t perfect then, but it certainly isn’t perfect now. Perhaps “see something, say something” and electronic snooping can be a partial replacement for the isolation created by our electronically connected world.

    I am not sure what the balance is = = = but I am leaning toward high fences, gps free autos and cell phones, and a few more cases of ammo.

    • Agree with LifeSavor. I grew up in the ’80s, where life was still one foot in “Mayberry” and all this stuff we fret over today wasn’t even on the horizon yet. There was true privacy, and true neighborhoods.

      I’ll tell you what a good balance is, and I’ve been saying it over and over. Just enable national permitless (Constitutional) carry for everyone, everywhere. Society will quickly take care of any miscreants and malcontents who act out. No need for mass surveillance of Americans, no “see something say something” Stasi nonsense.

      • “…Just enable national permitless (Constitutional) carry for everyone, everywhere. Society will quickly take care of any miscreants and malcontents who act out…..”

        and reform the criminal justice system (judges and DAs) who have obvious bias against self-defense and deadly force use.

    • I am not sure what the balance is = = = but I am leaning toward high fences, gps free autos and cell phones, and a few more cases of ammo.

      This….. Could not agree more.

  4. If Florida follows this advice, I propose a name change….henceforth Florida shall be known as East Germany and their state police can be called Stasi. Everything old is new again!

  5. As an IT guy, I can tell you that once the state starts to churn ‘big data’ to perform predictive behavioral analysis on its population, the correlations returned by those computations will NOT be limited to identifying potentially violent offenders. Who is most likely to cheat on taxes, have an affair, shoplift, collect firearms, pay in cash rather than electronically, keep snakes as pets, study Arabic…all possible and all likely. It is all about correlating data, the more trends they identify, the more precision in the predictive analysis.

    At one point, some one will reach the conclusion that the big data crunching machine needs to know your pattern of gun and ammo purchases, or trends in your online activity. A law or regulation will be instituted to feed the machine.

    I am not sure of how we stop this, but, finding alternatives to Google, Bing, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube is a start. I use Brave as a browser because it has strong privacy feature. I use Proton Mail because it does not mine and sell my data. You might try Brighteon instead of YouTube for your personal posts. I have no need in my life for Twitter and my extended family is annoyed with me for not responding on Facebook.

    As with our firearms, it is up to each of us to shield ourselves and our families.

    • It’s already happened and it will continue to grow on its own. We, as a society, are just to lazy and cavalier with our privacy. “WE” as a subgroup will be outed by default. You can read and develop a profile by the “holes” in the data also.

    • Wow, LifeSavor. It seems you and I are more alike than I realized. I, too, am in IT, and I use alternatives such as Protonmail, Startpage, WhatsApp, Signal, etc. Never had Facebook, Twitter, YouTube logon, etc. which used to annoy my friends and family, but they’re used to it now. Even my phone is “hacked” and reprogrammed with a 3rd party non-Google Linux OS and all-open-source apps. Even then I have only a few apps on it and keep it off most of the time.

      That being said, we still need to remain vigilant and willing to change when necessary. Facebook now owns WhatsApp, for example.

      • Haz,

        Amazing how much we have in common! Although since we agree so often, maybe it should not be a surprise. Going to check out Startpage and Signal. Thanks for mentioning them.

        I have thought about hacking my phone OS, but, it is an expensive device (Android) upon which I depend for work. Worried about breaking it.

        How did you do it?

        • I use Startpage. I like it because it’s based in NL and not the US. It also has a useful and free anonymous view feature that actually works.

        • LifeSavor,

          My group uses OnePlus phones, “jail broken” and overwritten with LineageOS v.15.1. Then you use non-Google apps such as:

          * FDroid or Aurora instead of Google Play Store
          * NewPipe instead of YouTube (accesses YT’s videos)
          * OsmAnd instead of Google Maps
          * Signal instead of Messenger (encrypted and includes videophone)
          * WhatsApp instead of Messenger (encrypted and includes videophone)
          * etc.

          My phone acts just like any store-bought Android, but with almost 0% connection to our Google Overlords. One good additional thing about Signal is that they were approached by the Feds to create one of the infamous back doors, and Signal publicly told them to pound sand.

    • “I can tell you that once the state starts to churn ‘big data’ to perform predictive behavioral analysis on its population, the correlations returned by those computations will NOT be limited to identifying potentially violent offenders.”

      For a long time, I never really feared the world of 1984 that much. After all, even if they had cameras on every TV, who would watch all the footage?

      However, with mass data scoops, combined with machine learning algorithms and developments in AI, the totalitarians of the near future could have capabilities that even Orwell never imagined in his worst fever dreams.

  6. My reply to any politician who suggested any such thing would be the same as Mr./Dr. Franklin.

    “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Ben Franklin

  7. As a child during the big communist scare I remember one of the evils of the system was that the state encouraged the spying, and informing on, of neighbor on neighbor. Are we now going to tolerate that behavior in the United States of America? I pray not.

    • Gadsden Flag,

      Some will, many will, those who believe in the nanny state will. But we must lock arms and say “NO”.

      We have to yell “NO” loudly and in the faces of our lawmakers and beaureaucrats. Each of us according to our ability.

      This week, I am spending 2 days in Harrisburg, our Commonwealth capitol to join others in saying “NO”. Then, in Nov. we go to DC for a day of the same.

      Not every can do that; I am blessed that I can, so I do.

      You have served, you know how to fight. I will fight together with you on this.

    • Yes I too remember those days,duck and cover,like that would have done us any good,more like bend over and kiss your @zz goodbye.

      Your point is well taken and what’s more correct,everyone is guilty until proven innocent.

      • I remember Duck & Cover. First we watched a film about it. All the kids in the film hid under their desks. But our school had a better idea. The teacher would yell “FLASH!”, as in we just saw the bright flash of an atom bomb. At the flash we were to move out of the classroom in an orderly fashion by rows, into the hallway. Line up along the wall and Duck & Cover there.

        The idea was we’d be away from all the flying glass.

        Yup, see the bomb go FLASH and you will have time to calmly walk, do not run to cover. Good plan.

        Yeah, that was going to work!

        • What saps we were at that age in grade school,that any steps could or would save us from the atom bomb.

        • Duck and Cover was recently removed from schools when I was growing up. Heard about it from some of the tenured teachers, but never went through the drills myself.

          The USSR fell after I graduated high school, anyhow.

        • There should be a medal for the best Rat of the Year.

          I’ll rat out any person I think is planning a violent crime. No problem, drop a dime on a scumbag in a NY minute. No tolerance for murderous swine. “See Something Say Something”, that’s me.

          As for the “ditches” comment, it would take some doing.

        • “As for the “ditches” comment, it would take some doing.”

          Friend who own backhoes and don’t ask a lot of nosy questions are nice nice to have… 🙂

        • Which is exactly what Threat Assessment is all about. It does not require the Florida State Police to spend tens of millions of dollars on new IT services.

    • “…the state encouraged the spying, and informing on, of neighbor on neighbor. Are we now going to tolerate that behavior in the United States of America?”

      When it’s directed at the gun owners, you bet your ass the Leftists will be all for it.

      The Leftists ought to be the ones screaming (metaphorical) bloody murder against this monstrosity.

      If it gets built, it *will* be weaponized against us…

  8. What the Florida State police guy is saying sounds like a great idea long proven elsewhere, then twisted into a massive funding opportunity for his agency. That is not the point of threat assessment. Massive data collection and analysis is not the point of the US Secret Service Safe Schools Initiative.

    Threat Assessment works when it is part of a larger methodology practiced in schools and large employers. Countless acts of violence have been prevented and troubled children and teens helped while a violent act was still being planned.

    Where money is needed is in training. Among the findings in the report after the Parkland shooting was the fact that the recently created threat assessment team there did not have the training to do the job. Especially the leader of the team, who had never done a threat assessment in his 31 year career. The team had an obscure rating system for threats, and had no plans for how to respond to threats. They were not trained and they failed miserably.

    When threat assessment teams are trained, the methods taught by the Secret Service Safe Schools Initiative work. I have seen it work. We need a hell of a lot more of it all over this country.

    We do not need to pour tens of millions of dollars into big data IT services in every state. Spend that money on training at the school level, not more computers and data analysts.

    • Enuf,

      Agree! Human Intel. A human approach to a human problem. No expensive, expensive, intrusive AI churning through everyone’s privacy to spit out correlations that may or may not be meaningful but result in insinuation that become further surveillance. Instead, humans practicing proven methods with the sort of intelligence that machines cannot have.

      • When it’s someone with a strong political bias doing the ‘data sorting’, all kinds of bullshit happens.

        Example – Twitter. Isn’t it odd that ‘Antifa’ and other violent Leftist videos almost never get pulled, but a simple gun review video gets yanked? And there’s *zero* recourse?

        Expect that in fucking *spades* with that policy…

    • Regarding schools and govt. you are correct. We don’t need more resources. We need less. Abolish all public schools and home school or private school with security. The best way to survive a mass shooting is to not be there. And it’s cheap.

  9. Its what I’ve been saying all along!
    It’s about “Authoritarianism” Yo !
    This year all the ” closet authoritarians and tassel loafer tyrants” of local/city/state/ federal government have gone public to see if the mob of the unwashed masses will grant THEM the authority to abolish freedoms and Liberty 🗽!

  10. As a retired LEO and Chief I say NO FREAKEN WAY! I have had to work with some of the most corrupt and sick people and have experienced how they protect their ‘friends” (meaning those who are just like them) who should be in prison or the psych ward. This information would be used only to further those in power by punishing and persecuting individuals who were not like them.
    The two way to reduce this mindless evil is:
    1st Go back to the foundation of morals in this Country, hint the Bible, and teach them diligently to you children
    2nd Let everyone be armed for their own self defense and be allowed (meaning no laws that punish for self defense or having the instruments of protection) to use them for defense of themselves, family, and others.

    • ^^THIS^^

      ^^DOUBLE THIS^^

      Any program implemented for one purpose will eventually be used (abused?) by those in power for another purpose. Can anyone say guns and mass shooters, for example?

      There was another hearty comment thread here on TTAG last week in which several of us expounded on the detrimental change of society due to the forced removal of faith (Judeo-Christian principles, God, Bible, etc.) from schools, then public office, then the public square, and now conversations. I found it interesting to learn *who* here stands for *which* side of the conversation.

      • Some good conversation on that thread, but painful. Some folk did a lot of writing, but not a whole lot of reading for understanding.

      • “Any program implemented for one purpose will eventually be used (abused?) by those in power for another purpose”
        Can you say HIPAA? The original purpose as hinted by the I and the P (insurance and portability) was to assist federal employees in keeping their insurance benefits when they transitioned into the private sector. Eventually it evolved past its original purpose and especially under Barack Osama and Osamacare became a way for the government to assure easy access to everyone’s health care information.
        Hey, Dan if you are listening what happened to the edit button, again? This reply posted as a reply to myself and I can’t event replace it. Arrrgh!!

    • “1st Go back to the foundation of morals in this Country, hint the Bible, and teach them diligently to you children”

      Nope. Does absolutely nothing about violence or mental defectives. Of course parents should teach their children right and wrong and morals and ethics. All of which, no matter how well taught, will fail against severe mental defect. Always has, always will.

      “2nd Let everyone be armed for their own self defense and be allowed (meaning no laws that punish for self defense or having the instruments of protection) to use them for defense of themselves, family, and others.”

      Yes, of course. That’s what I have where I live and what every American, hell every human on the planet is entitled to. The basic right of self defense by your own hand and with whatever weapons you pick is a human right.

      Just like Health Care.

      • Enuf,

        I get your point that moral/ethical teaching will not correct for people who are so damaged that teaching, training is not sufficient to correct or prevent bad behavior. But don’t you sense a breakdown of civility in our country? A deterioration of ethics, morality?

        It seems so to me. I acknowledge that ethical and moral training is not a complete solution, but it could move us in the right direction.

        For a few years, I taught business ethics at a local university. I was amazed at how dis-interested many of the day-students were. The night-students, however, having been out there supporting and raising their families, were eager for the material.

        • For a short time, I taught macroeconomics and monetary history at a nearby university. I, too, was sobered by how few students truly cared. And sure enough, it was the older adults in the class who followed along and engaged in the class.

      • Nope. Does absolutely nothing about violence or mental defectives.

        I’d say a vast percentage of menatlly handicapped people can still understand the concept of good and evil.

        The small percentage that can’t need fulltime attendance in new mental wards that were mostly eliminated in the 60s/70s by both Dems (“Let’s be nice to everybody!”) and Repubs=(“Cool, let’s save money”)

      • “Nope. Does absolutely nothing about violence or mental defectives. ”

        @enuf,

        Surely you aren’t suggesting that the teaching of kindness toward others (through the outlook that we’re created by a God who wants us to know/love him and others) has no effect whatsoever on violent tendencies? I typically enjoy reading your comments, but your statement has to be one of the most oxymoronic ones I’ve seen here at TTAG.

        When Jesus was asked which of the Commandments was the greatest, he simply replied “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.” You say this concept has “no effect whatsoever” on violence?

        I argue that the zealous attack on this concept by the Left is exactly the first domino that fell in the long road that led us to where we are today.

  11. All kinds of ways to infringe on freedoms and the 4th amendment but it WOULD BE SO UNAMERICAN to arm schools. What in heavens name causes them to think more laws will cure the problem when there is already a plethora of laws against every segment of any shootings, mass or otherwise. We should ask these politicians for a guarantee that their plans will show major success not just prevent 1 out of a multitude by offering themselves up for euthanasia as a demonstration of faith in the utility of that plan.

  12. How about any police officer consuming even one alcoholic drink after work every night will no longer qualify as a police officer. This shouldn’t be a problem, right?

    • I see this happening. Cops are already sworn officers of the court by default, so it would take more than a simple dime-drop to get one Red Flagged. Would probably require multiple complaints to get anything done.

      No problem! I foresee groups of disgruntled people focusing on one cop/agent at a time and strategically submitting ERPO-acceptable info on a “mark” to get the ball rolling. In the very least, the cop/agent might be taken off of active duty and put on administrative leave while the investigation plays out. That would not only go on the cop’s record, but successfully remove him/her from patrol for a while.

  13. Widespread backlash from left wing civil libertarians any day now.
    They’ll be all for this police perpetual police state crap because guns then under the next dem administration they’ll say they hate what that evil fascist Trump put in place while doing sweet jack all nothing to work toward dismantling it because politics like those code pink war protestors paraded around when Bush was in and swept under the rug for Obamas bombings or darling Assange cast aside when his light shone on a (D) or darling Snowden unwelcome in either house now for a brief moment a left wing savior.

    Above all it’s the inconsistency and hypocrisy that really gets to me. And for what? Partisan politics. It’s like nobody really believes in anything except for benefitting themselves in a moment.

  14. They won’t make a move on a protected class. Muslims, gays, democrats, you name it. Cruz was Hispanic and they didn’t want him to be a statistic or so are told.
    This just goes to show you are better off keeping your comments and business to yourselves. Don’t engage that progressive at the office or say anything provocative to people you know. Red flag laws are here and will be used against people selectively not generally. When they scoop up internet traffic and get into email the file is going to be thick after they add interviews.
    You’ll see most if it a day after they take your guns at 4 a.m.

    • Cruz was mishandled out of incompetence, lack of training and professionalism. Nothing about his parentage had a damned thing to do with it.

  15. A lot of that info the Police can access already, they just want to make it easier for them to get it not that they cannot get it already. In the world of computers you have no privacy period. That is a fact.

    • “A lot of that info the Police can access already, they just want to make it easier for them to get it not that they cannot get it already. In the world of computers you have no privacy period. That is a fact.”

      Another brilliant analysis written by the college dropout.

    • The “computer” won’t provide a “trigger event” (like a neighbor’s call) or a “defendant” if the Police wish to believe whatever the caller claims to have happened.
      I went thru a divorce in Florida, had to fight all types of charges (abuse/battery/stealing her property……)
      Got thru it clean (if a 6 month batterers intervention program is clean. Caused by coming back to FL from an out of state job, and finding an investment home (that was a marital asset) and I was told was NOT RENTED, with property inside. Called the ex to get the name if the renter so I could identify them by name and identify myself as the homeowner. She called the cops and I was found in violation of a restraining order. The judge agreed with her no less. Lied to me, put me in danger by allowing me to walking into MY investment home not knowing it was occupied. Don’t count of the FL legal system to get it right).

    • No, it did not.

      It began with a campaign of hate mongering and blame for the conditions the country suffered under. There are more elements to it than this, but that is how the targeting of the Jews, a convenient minority, began in Germany.

        • Not following where you are going on “Holocaust political propaganda”. It happened, it is history, it was evil on a fierce and terrible scale.

          So yes, the slaughter of the Jews began with political propaganda, or agitprop, for those unfamiliar with the term.

      • At the time Jews were less than 0.1% of the population of Germany. But they were a visible minority with their involvement in certain areas.

      • @Enuf, not really. Race based hate mongering was endemic throughout the world at the time. In Nazi Germany what we saw that enabled mass murder was effectively “Progressive” policies of government intervention. The Naxzis pretty much copied the US progressive movement. Progressivism brought the general concept of the state having a legitimate role in using epidemiology to intervene in order to enhance the population health. In the US this involved “scientific racism”, alcohol prohibition, the foundations of the war on drugs, forced sterilization , and not incidentally the first real national gun control.

        We know for a fact that the same attitudes, and even many of the same mechanisms, that the Nazis were using to murder those who they considered unhealthy and damaging to the states resources (they had socialized health care) or genetic health were then melded with racism that were at the root of the Holocaust.

        In terms of Hitler’s motives for the genocide in the Holocaust, he voiced different, often contradictory claims. Eg the Jews as super intelligent creators and directors of international capitalism, and or of the Bolshevik project vs the Jews as inherently untermenschen. But what he really thought in that vein is irrelevant to the fact that the Nazi state copied and used progressive concepts and mechanisms to use making the public safer and more healthy to systematically reduce rights, right up to depriving people of their lives.

        Ther is no escaping the fact that the assertions of the Nazi state in terms of its role, justification and legal mechanisms to reduce rights in order to make the population and people “safer”, which were what changed routine European antisemitism into the Holocaust, are extremely similar to gun control rational. They certainly are both rooted in the “progressive rational.

  16. Data sharing my ass, they want a means to tap phones without warrants, and to pry into peoples personal lives, it’s unconstitutional and will be overturned in the first legal argument.

  17. If cops didn’t wait outside the scene of massacres until the shooting was over, there would have been fewer deaths associated with mass shootings.

    See Parkland; Las Vegas; Pulse Night Club; Columbine; and the list goes on and on.

    But it’s all our fault dontcha know.

  18. I agree with most of what’s written above. Just a couple of words with regard to this proposed police plan in Florida: unintended consequences and 1984.

  19. It’s kinda an odd thing to have to constantly point out that this really isn’t that big of a problem even when you break it down.

    AWR Hawkins points out, kinda using Bill Maher as a foil, that if you take the inflated numbers from Shooting Tracker you get 53 deaths from mass shooting this month yet even with inflating the shooting deaths far, far more people die from other preventable (and mudane) causes. 40,000 a month from obesity, 412 from motorcycle accidents, 420 from choking, 304 from fire and 294 from drowning. All of those PER MONTH but no one much seems to care.

    • “All of those PER MONTH but no one much seems to care.”

      We often think that somehow the other 100 causes of death on the CDC list ahead of death by gunshot should get just as much media attention as number 101. There are reasons those 100 causes are discounted. And this is something we have no real answer for.

      Look at the CDC top 100 causes of death, and you see there is a serious element of self-control over outcomes. Those 100 can be placed under the heading, “If I am a good person, keep healthy and fit, introduce no risky behavior into my life, keep safety in mind at all times, take precautions against most diseases, I am very unlikely to end up suffering an unnatural death or injury. But I have no control over some crazed gun owner showing up and shooting everyone in sight.”

      People with the mindset above know that cancer does not drive a truck through a mall, medical errors do not suddenly storm a school, swimming pools don’t suddenly rampage through a night club, killing dozens in a short time, and so on. These people also accept that certain risks must be taken because people “need”: medical care; personal transportation; athletics to keep in shape; food….but no one needs a gun.

      • It’s less and more complicated than that. Most people don’t think this through on the level that you’re suggesting. They’re simply victims of the news and their own brain’s evolution.

        We’re wired to look for patterns and, when it comes to safety, create them where they don’t exist.

        The news reports on unusual events. When that happens repeatedly it initiates the pattern recognition part of our brain which is telling us this event is more common than it is so that we tend to avoid the problem or problem area.

        From an evolutionary point of view this is beneficial. It’s a combination of pattern recognition/creation with ‘The Snake is a Stick’ schema in our brain.

        It doesn’t work very well in the modern world and once it was discovered it was quickly taken advantage of by ad-men who in turn sold it to politicians. Savvy politicians had been doing this for millennia but now this weapon, in a refined form, has become available to ALL of them and their acolytes.

        It’s extremely effective in a multitude of ways. Ways we don’t like and which many POTG reject as real. But if they don’t work why do companies spend billions doing this while politicians do the same? How are the antis racking up what wins they get on purely emo arguments?

        Because this works. That’s why.

        • “Because this works.”

          Yep. Advertising works.

          However…..

          Spending hours every day engaged in video games has zero effect on behavior. And our ingrained talent for pattern recognition is useless when it comes to trying to fashion a cause and effect.

  20. Too vague to know what they’re talking about, still scary, and they aren’t doing it to prevent mass shootings. Just maybe hoping to. Sorry, giving up liberties for a little MAYBE security? Don’t think so.

  21. I’m part of “Everybody” and I’m not giving up anything. Hey, Cop thinktank Asshats: This is AMERICA, stop trying to erode its foundation and basic tenents. For every crime there is a punishment. Though there may be some deterrence value that alone has never stopped any catagory of crimes from commision. If a greater deterrent is required for say mass shooting, there are options that would get deterrent results but the facade of a polite “keep their hands clean” society does not have the stomach for it. They silently chose the public slaughter of civillians, children and police instead of expedient public executions. What message is stronger?

  22. I’ll drop this here as an example of using emotions and visual propaganda.

    POTG MUST start fighting like this. Engage peoples emotions.

    • “Any program implemented for one purpose will eventually be used (abused?) by those in power for another purpose”
      Can you say HIPAA? The original purpose as hinted by the I and the P (insurance and portability) was to assist federal employees in keeping their insurance benefits when they transitioned into the private sector. Eventually it evolved past its original purpose and especially under Barack Osama and Osamacare became a way for the government to assure easy access to everyone’s health care information.

  23. If the government is not doing anything wrong then the government doesn’t have to worry about gun owners. Obviously the government doesn’t worry about illegals or drug dealers. In fact, under fast and furious, Obama gave guns to drug dealers and gangs while blaming American gun stores.
    Government is instituted by God Himself, so citizens are dishonoring God when they allow criminals to take over government.

  24. I can see that We Law Abiding Gun Owners will soon be Openly Supporting Black Market No Serial # Guns because they are Untraceable. If you Treat Us like Criminals then FUCK YOU we will do what we Have to As Free Men & when You come to Take them then You Will be Dealt with just like Rapist, Mugger, Thief, Antifa or Communist. You can Eat Lead & DIE!

  25. First, a lot of Federal laws would have to be repealed and replaced (like HIPAA), and I don’t see that happening. Second, while this might (doubtful, but anything’s possible if improbable) catch a few, like the ERPO’s, it’ll be 10 to 20 percent tops. Catching 1 or 2 out of 10 isn’t really a statistically significant a reduction to warrant violating the privacy of 310+ million people. The logistical nightmare reality alone, of sifting through millions of records, really isn’t a feasible option. If you think people are falling through the cracks now, enacting this would make NICS look like the best and succesful program ever conceived.
    Why don’t we try enforcing the laws we already have, and stop letting these schmucks commit crime after crime with little or no consequences. No more “Let’s Make A Deal,” or judges handing out ridiculously light punishments. For example, a few years back, a “Straw Purchaser” convicted of over 200 violations, was given a 6 month Probation sentence. That’s just plain ASININE!

    • “Catching 1 or 2 out of 10 isn’t really a statistically significant a reduction to warrant violating the privacy of 310+ million people.”

      It is significant. Promise to eliminate a “gun crime” with some sort of government program, and it secures your voter base. A base of people who ever ask why government protection of their lives never seems to work.

  26. “…Everybody’s going to have to give a little.”

    Except for you, of course. You lot won’t have to give up anything.

  27. To a cop it’s about giving private information to him, to politicians it’s about giving him a little money (taxes) to a rapist it’s about giving a little *ss.

    EVERYBODY wants something for nothing.

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