Fear is Ascendant

Fear controls our lives.

Many of us fear bad or crazy people with guns, so we buy a gun ourselves. That protective behavior raises the fear quotient, because those who don't have guns fear everyone who has one, not just the aforementioned bad or crazy people. (It doesn't help in the gun debate, by the way, that opponents are calling each other stupid and evil. Anger and demonization of the other adds to the general meanness of civic discourse and leads to hardening of positions.)

The fiscal cliff has been in the news. This colorful metaphor is most likely an exaggeration of what will happen to the economy under higher tax rates and reduced government spending. True, there are some sectors, like defense, that will fare much worse than others (and for whom the cliff imagery may be apt), but few economists are forecasting a widespread collapse or even a near-collapse like the one in 2008. These comforting rationalizations, however, mean little to the stock market, which has been dropping in recent days.

Then there's the Mayan prophecy of doomsday on December 21, 2012 (if you're reading this after Thursday, hooray, mankind dodged another one).

Your humble observer can't wait for these latest concerns to be resolved (or forgotten) so that he can go back to worrying about global warming, the war on terror, Iranian nuclear weapons, and the breakup of the Euro. Ah, the good, old, less-fearful days. © 2012 Stephen Yuen

We'll Get There

As the country lurches (again) into the swamp of legislative and court battles over guns and gun control, workplace violence is down in the real world:

Mass shootings are not less common than before, but fewer are employment-related. Of 20 this year, only one killer was a disgruntled co-worker. Learning has taken place. If laws haven't changed to help corral dangerous personalities or keep guns out of their hands, at least employers, who get to see people in their everyday interactions, have become wiser about personality and risk.

Businesses turned to none other than the United States Postal Service on how to become alert to grievance nursers in their midst. Most important: Don't ignore employees who mutter threats. Police around the country teach the "Run, Hide, Fight" discipline to local businesses, developed by Houston cops with a Homeland Security grant. Half of employers now have violence prevention programs and workplace shootings are down by two-thirds since the early '90s.

It's encouraging that workplaces, both private- and public-sector, have been able to implement measures that have reduced violence. Even greater wisdom and dedication will be required to protect schools, however, given the vulnerability of potential victims and the (presumed) fewer occasions to be alerted to the behavior of killers such as the Newtown shooter. We'll get there eventually, but "there" is years away.

There Will Be a High Cost

I have never owned a gun. The last gun I fired was in high school ROTC, and I doubt that I'll use one again. For me owning a firearm carries too much risk of an accident, of it being stolen, or, in the worst case, of me or someone I love being tempted to use it in a moment of weakness. Personal aversions writ large, however, often make poor social policy.

Yes, the mass slaughter of innocents in Newton, Connecticut, would not have happened if guns were not available (the killer apparently acquired his weapons legally through his mother). But let's put eliminationism aside as a fantasy: not only would a comprehensive ban run afoul of the difficult-to-amend Constitution, there are already more than 300 million guns (non-military) in Americans' hands. A discussion about guns echoes the problem of illegal immigration: the cost of removing all prohibited people or objects already in place would not only be enormous but also transform society in a direction that very few people would want.

The basic techniques used to protect large gatherings of people are well-known, and most of us have encountered them at airports and professional sporting events. Metal detectors and bag searches are the first line of defense. Within the perimeter, ubiquitous cameras and other sensor devices are monitored at a central location. Rapid-response security forces outfitted with weapons and communications equipment are the third leg of the stool.

Because it would be economically impossible to establish a TSA-like system at each school and shopping mall, we are forced to consider counter-intuitive solutions, like more private citizens arming themselves and reducing, not expanding, the use of "gun-free" zones:

some mass shootings have been stopped by armed citizens. Though press accounts downplayed it, the 2002 shooting at Appalachian Law School was stopped when a student retrieved a gun from his car and confronted the shooter. Likewise, Pearl, Miss., school shooter Luke Woodham was stopped when the school's vice principal took a .45 fromhis truck and ran to the scene. In February's Utah mall shooting, it was an off-duty police officer who happened to be on the scene and carrying a gun.

Police can't be everywhere, and as incidents from Columbine to Virginia Tech demonstrate, by the time they show up at a mass shooting, it's usually too late. On the other hand, one group of people is, by definition, always on the scene: the victims. Only if they're armed, they may wind up not being victims at all.

There are technological remedies that have been proposed, such as installing location monitors and/or remote shutoff receivers on firearms. However, such steps would be hard to accept in a culture that objects to Big Brother tracking its cars and TV viewing habits.

Whatever solutions eventually arise to prevent future acts of evil, there will be a high cost, not only in dollars expended, but to our freedoms. Let's pray that the cost will be worth it. © 2012 Stephen Yuen