Solutions for Mass Shootings

In regards mass shootings:  The answer always is, “nothing can be done.” This is madness. If you guaranteed anyone who came up with an answer, or part of an answer, $1,000,000, there would be answers all over the place. I would agree that nothing can be done overnight, but long term something can be done, and that something does not have to include “taking all our guns.”

For starters, buybacks from home owners in certain Chicago zipcodes, up to five guns each, at prices higher by say 50% than the current black market prices, would go a long ways to reduce, “Chicago syndrome.” 

We had a horrible example of this just the other night in Oakland, where a young muralist, working on a sanctioned project, was up on a scaffold, and somebody started messing with his supplies below. He called down to ask the intruder to stop. The intruder’s response was to shoot him dead.

I have written more about other solutions, sketches if you will, at the following location: http://farstars.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-to-stop-slaughter-of-innocents.html

I learned of the Sandy hook shootings from an 8th grade student at Lyman Gilmore, where I was substituting. She showed it to me on her iPad, with tears in her eyes. It has caused me to think long and hard about the topic.

My wife and I own three guns. We live rural. When we are not here, they are locked up in a 600 lbs safe. When we are here, the .38 is in a concealed spot inside the house, where I can get to it as fast as I can get up for a glass of water.

But we do not ever expect to have to use them. We have fenced property, a locked gate, a couple of dogs, sensors, pop-on lights, and good video coverage, which is set to alert us on our phones. Almost 20 years now, and no intruders. Some suspicious behavior up on the road, observed via the cameras, motion activated, but no breaches of the perimeter. I guess we are just lucky, or too far off the beaten path. Or the pop-on lights outside the gate, and the high placed videocam just inside the gate looking outwards, gives rational thieves, good reasons to look elsewhere.

Set aside $100,000,000 for the 100 best ideas. So who decides which ideas are the best ideas? The parents of any child killed or wounded in a mass shooting would be paid to form a Congress and hash the ideas out, and money would also be spent on professional pre-screeners to categorize all the entries, so as to simplify the tasks of the parents.