Guns: Stuck in the Same Old Arguments

SF Police Commissioner John Hamasaki (Chron)

Speaking as one who has never owned a gun, I nevertheless comprehend the motivation of law-abiding citizens to own guns, especially if they believe the police cannot reliably protect them. Reducing gun violence must accommodate the on-the-ground reality of living or working in dangerous neighborhoods. That's why it was refreshing to see San Francisco Police Commissioner John Hamasaki call for understanding for the teen when the NY police seized a gun from the 17-year-old:

“Uncomfortable truth,” Hamasaki wrote in the tweet. “Taking a gun from one kid may as likely stop violence as end up in that kid getting killed. It may feel good to post this photo, but I’ve known too many kids who were killed for being in the wrong neighborhood (often their own) & being unable to protect themselves.”

San Francisco Supervisors Catherine Stefani, Myrna Melgar, and Ahsha Safai immediately called for Commissioner Hamasaki's resignation because he deviated from the absolutist no-gun position. IMHO, he responded reasonably:

Hamasaki responded that he “actually work(s) and spend(s) time in the communities impacted by gun violence.”

“I have had clients and their families killed by guns, and I have consoled the fathers, mothers, and children killed by guns,” he continued. “The world is bigger and more complicated than D2 and the Marina.”

Hamasaki said he was not calling for teens to be armed, but for nuance in the debate.

“I think the reading of (the tweet) that some people took was a little bit disingenuous,” Hamasaki said. “I don’t want, approve or encourage people to use guns to solve their problems.”

Hamasaki said while it’s a great idea to take guns off the streets, the realities for some neighborhoods are more complex.

“When you simplify it, it justifies the system of mass incarceration that we have,” he said. “I just have a real hard time passing the same level of judgment to a kid who’s living in a neighborhood infested by drugs and violence.”

The politics of the main actors may be a little surprising:

Stefani and Safai are known as the two moderate Democrats on the Board of Supervisors, while Hamasaki more closely aligns with the city’s more left-leaning contingency.

It's not an election year, so now is the time to question and test assumptions about gun violence without worrying about what political opponents will say. Otherwise, we'll stay stuck in the same decades-old arguments.

Interesting Findings on Mass Shootings

And now for something special: a study on mass shootings that produced interesting findings and did not have an obvious agenda:

Barriers and locks meant to block outsiders and active-shooter drills do little because most attackers already have access and are aware of the procedures, said the authors of the study, Jillian Peterson and James Densley. The university professors have created a mass-shooter database that goes back more than 50 years. [snip]

The most common site for a mass shooting since 1966 is the workplace, Mr. Densley and Ms. Peterson found. In May, a disgruntled Virginia Beach, Va., city employee killed 12 people at a municipal building. Next was a category that includes restaurants, bars and nightclubs, followed by retail establishments, schools, houses of worship and colleges.

There is no single profile of a mass shooter, but the study’s authors found common factors based on the target. School shooters, like the 19-year-old who killed 17 people at a Parkland, Fla., high school in 2018, tend to be suicidal white-male students with an interest in guns. College shooters tend to be suicidal nonwhite men with a history of violence and childhood trauma. Workplace shooters tend to be men in their 40s of any race who are having trouble on the job. [snip]

In schools, the cost of active-shooter drills for kids outweigh the benefits. Would-be attackers are learning how to take advantage of drills, which create a fascination for some students, said Ms. Peterson.

“You want the adults in the building to be trained to know what to do,” she said. “But training the kids who are the potential perpetrators doesn’t make sense with our data.”

The last recommendation is surprising; train the adults but don't teach students what to do because would-be shooters would learn too much about school defenses. Instinctively I am skeptical, because withholding knowledge from people for their own protection is an excuse that bureaucracies use to cover up their mistakes and to maintain their authority [only they know the secret, important stuff].

Surely there can be a compromise between knowledge and total ignorance. For example, hidden passages through which police may enter the school can be kept secret. And the students can be taught the general principles of run, hide, fight, which may also be used outside of school.

Nevertheless, more studies like this, please.

The Great Divide: Thoughts and Prayers

Tree of Life synagogue (Chronicle/AP photo)

The shooting started at 9:50 AM Saturday. The first 911 call was at 9:54. At 11:13 the gunman, Robert Bowers, was taken into custody.

Eleven worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh were killed, and four police officers and two others were wounded.

Newspaper and television commentators immediately looked at the massacre through the prism of politics--gun control, anti-Semitism, whether inflammatory speech triggers violence, and what effect the event could have on the mid-term elections. While your humble blogger does have political opinions, politics is not the be-all and end-all of existence.

Cannot the families be allowed to mourn a terrible loss that is far more important to them than who wins the seat in their Congressional district?

As for me they will have my thoughts and prayers.

Note: the above is one more example of the world-is-divided-into-two-groups trope, in this case those who believe "thoughts and prayers" are worthwhile and those who believe that they are useless. To the former, prayers are meaningful because there is a Deity who is listening (how or whether prayers are answered is a different question, but the fundamental premise is that Someone is receiving them at the other end). In the latter group it's possible that there are a few who believe that there is a God who is totally uninvolved in the Universe, but I suspect that most members do not believe in God.

The Great Divide is about much more than which party should be in office or the correctness of a court decision, it's about whether human life has meaning beyond death, in fact beyond the existence of the human race itself. It's about thoughts and prayers.

Dropped From Sight

In this week's version of "it's the end of America as we know it" President Trump will soon nominate another Supreme Court Justice. Anthony Kennedy retired last week, kicking off a nomination firestorm that will dominate headlines into fall.

For perspective I pulled up the 2018 Time covers to see if the overturning of Roe v. Wade (a threatened occurrence, BTW, with every Supreme Court nomination by a Republican President since 1987) would be more outrageous than any of the other things that Donald J. Trump was responsible for this year.

There were several weeks of #MeToo coverage that recounted numerous incidents of sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault that predated not only President Trump but also the 21st century. Yes, let's shame or prosecute the people responsible, but at least give President Trump indirect credit. #MeToo would never have happened under President Hillary Clinton, with big-time supporter Harvey Weinstein yukking it up with the Big He in the Lincoln bedroom.

Then there are President Trump's inflammatory speeches and tweets directed at Kim Jong Un. Time's February mushroom cloud (which indeed would have been worse than anything going on with the Supreme Court) was superseded by the June cover that showed the two leaders talking amiably.

And what happened to those determined, angry kids who want gun restrictions? I agree that stopping school shootings has to be a national priority. Despite the polarization, surely we can reach common ground on mental illness, rapid-fire technology, and background checks. Or was it all a voter registration drive for Democrats?

Then there are the pictures of border families and crying kids who seem to elicit powerful emotions from people on all sides of the illegal immigration issue. Here's where over two decades of screening grant requests has hardened my heart. Everyone who wants money knows that crying babies trump nearly all rational consideration. OK, reunite the border families, but you still have to deliberate over the adults, some of whom are using their children to catch a break. Note: in California alone there are over 50,000 children separated from their parents by Child Protective Services, undoubtedly for good reason. Over 20,000 are age 5 or younger; I'll bet some of them cried when they were taken away, but their pictures aren't on the cover of Time. I do get it, CPS good, border patrol bad. Indeed, I have to work on my hardened heart.

Other observations: 1) the portraits of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a sexual-predator felon are both cast in shadow. I wonder what Time's editorial position is on these guys. 2) Pictures or representations of President Trump appear on four covers, only one of which is non-hostile. If Time were a person, I'd advise it to get therapy for its obsession. 3) What happened to Russia-Russia-Russia and the anytime-now impeachment of Donald Trump? 4) What happened to the tariff wars that will plunge the world into the next Great Depression? (I'm actually worried about this one and wonder why they're not using this to undermine the President's support from business.)

Now that I've done the half-year in review I feel a lot better. These "crises" must not have been so important after all because they've dropped from sight.

Gun Control: Going National

I've already commented enough about guns, a subject about which I have no first-hand experience (I suppose I'm lucky?). Excerpts from past posts:

2012:

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.

February 14, 2018:

As one who has the highest respect for the Constitution but at the same time doesn't regard the right to bear arms as essential to my being, I--and I suspect many Americans--am willing to consider drastic solutions, including a ban on gun sales and even a ban on gun ownership. I think either of those goals will be too difficult to attain, but if someone can put together a plausible plan that people will get behind, let's listen.

February 17, 2018:

Gun-confiscation and banishment advocates---I meet them every day in the Bay Area---have no answer to the following questions: 1) Why would passing such a law solve the mass shooting problem, when the laws don't work in stopping illegal immigration? 2) ....Or in curing the drug epidemic? 3) Shall police invade the homes of millions of owners who refuse to turn in their guns? 4) Just what is the plan to repeal the Second Amendment, which requires the assent of 38 state legislatures?

After watching some of the demonstrations earlier today, I am convinced that some conservative blogs were correct in their assessment: Was Gun Control Rally Just A Big Voter Registration Drive?

Politicians have a habit of saying whatever it takes to get elected, then not doing what they promised. Many Republican voters were sorely disappointed that a budget bill bursting with spending on Democratic causes like Planned Parenthood and nothing for the President's southern wall was signed yesterday.

As for the Democrats, they were never more dominant than from 2009 to 2010 when they had a liberal President and a filibuster-proof Congress---and they did nothing for gun control. (Another example of Democrats placing power over principle: President Trump has said that he is willing to solve the limbo-like status of the DACA children in exchange for curtailing future illegal immigration; illegal immigrants are a source of future Democratic votes, i.e., a building block to a permanent majority, while the DACA kids are already in the Democratic camp. No surprise, the President's negotiation offer has so far been rejected.)

A final note: California has some of the most restrictive gun-control laws in the nation. Wikipedia: [bold added]

The gun laws of California are some of the most restrictive in the United States. A 5-year Firearm Safety Certificate, obtained by paying a $25 fee, submission of applicant data to the state, and passing a written test proctored by a DOJ Certified Instructor, is required for the sale, delivery, loan, or transfer of any firearm. Handguns sold by dealers must be "California legal" by being listed on the state's Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale. This roster, which requires handgun manufacturers to pay a fee and submit specific models for safety testing, has become progressively more stringent over time and is currently the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit on the basis that it is a de facto ban on new handgun models. Private sales of firearms must be done through a licensed dealer. All firearm sales are recorded by the state, and have a ten-day waiting period. Unlike most other states, California has no provision in its state constitution that explicitly guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Semi-automatic firearms that the state has classified as assault weapons; .50 BMG caliber rifles; and high-capacity magazines (magazines that can hold more than ten rounds of ammunition) may not be sold in California.

Despite these laws, mass shootings still occur in California (2013--Santa Monica, 5 dead; 2014--Isla Vista, 7 dead; 2015--San Bernardino, 14 dead; 2017 - Tehama County, 4 dead.)

SF March for our Lives (KTVU image)

SF Chronicle: Thousands protest in Oakland, SF to demand an end to gun violence. The demonstrators can't be talking about California, because we already have the laws that gun-controllers want (a Democratic governor with a filibuster-proof Democratic legislature can do whatever they please). Maybe California's doing so great we want to go national?

Diet, Exercise, and Pray

(Graphic from Brainy Quote)

After the Florida school shooting on Valentine's Day impassioned protestors marched on the State legislature in Tallahassee. Statements like these were typical. [bold added]

“We’ve had enough of thoughts and prayers. If you supported us, you would have made a change long ago. So this is to every lawmaker out there: No longer can you take money from the NRA. We are coming after you. We are coming after every single one of you, demanding that you take action.”

No, this is not a post about gun control or gun rights; it's about prayer.

Denigrating prayer is, er, all the rage these days, especially by those who don't engage in it much. Your humble blogger prays at least once a week--in church on Sunday!--and has grown up with the tradition of saying grace before meals and to pray as soon as I can for those in extremis.

Prayer is a worthless undertaking if there is no One listening at the other end. And even if there is a One, he/she/it may not answer, or answer in the way we want. So what good is it?

Prayer seems to be good for one's health. [bold added]

A number of studies have shown associations between attending religious services and living a long time. One of the most comprehensive, published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2016, found that women who went to any kind of religious service more than once a week had a 33% lower chance than their secular peers of dying during the 16-year study-follow-up period. Another study, published last year in PLOS One, found that regular service attendance was linked to reductions in the body’s stress responses and even in mortality–so much so that worshippers were 55% less likely to die during the up to 18-year follow-up period than people who didn’t frequent the temple, church or mosque.

...prayer has been shown to be powerful, in at least one way. It triggers the relaxation response, a state of mind-body rest that has been shown to decrease stress, heart rate and blood pressure; alleviate chronic disease symptoms; and even change gene expression. This state is typically linked to activities like meditation and yoga, and research suggests it can also be found through praying.

For the overwhelming majority of people who don't have the misfortune of being in an airplane crash or a school shooting or a raging firestorm, prayer seems to increase the odds of a longer life, specifically 33% to 55% higher. The science is settled.

Afterword:
Cynics may say that prayer was not helpful to the 17 people who died in the 2018 Valentine's Day massacre. Putting aside the question of how many of those murdered prayed during their last moments and whether their prayers were helpful in a spiritual reality that may exist, the rest of the 3,000 students at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School did live.

How many of the 99.4% who survived prayed also? How many think that their prayers were answered? Have they come to some decisions about the rest of their lives? Are they enraged or grateful or both (though anger and gratitude don't often co-exist)?

I'd like to hear more from the silent survivors, but I doubt that we will, because to reveal any thoughts or emotions that deviate at all from the current angry narrative opens oneself up to social opprobrium, and no high-school kid needs that.

Hope You Found Some Joy

Another school shooting (17 dead so far) has ruined this Valentine's Day. The usual questions arise: how did the gunman get his weapons, were there warnings signs (emphatically yes in his case), would mere enforcement of existing laws have prevented this horror, etc. etc.

As one who has the highest respect for the Constitution but at the same time doesn't regard the right to bear arms as essential to my being, I--and I suspect many Americans--am willing to consider drastic solutions, including a ban on gun sales and even a ban on gun ownership. I think either of those goals will be too difficult to attain, but if someone can put together a plausible plan that people will get behind, let's listen. Frankly, I think it will be easier to solve immigration or illegal drugs. [Added - 2/15: of course it's harder--a comprehensive gun ban requires an amendment to the Constitution.]

Meanwhile, I did send a bouquet to my true love, who is visiting her mother two thousand miles away. So, Happy Valentine's Day, everyone, hope you found some joy.

Monday Musing

Two truths hotly denied: no guns means there would be no crimes with guns; no illegal aliens means no crimes committed by illegal aliens.

— Stephen Yuen (@stephenyuen) October 3, 2017

A Surprise Nonetheless

California is one of the states with the strictest gun control laws (see graphic below), and anti-gun sentiment is strongest among coastal redoubts like the Peninsula.

Your humble blogger had to look twice at the display in the Foster City Costco. First, that was a lot of inventory. Second, the big-box retailer only sells products for which there is brisk demand.

This strange political year has been filled with unexpected revelations about our fellow citizens. Ammo boxes at Costco may not have been the biggest surprise, but it was a surprise nonetheless.

Graphic from Slate.com

"He is the Mark Zuckerberg of Guns"

(WSJ photo)

18-year-old Kai Kloepfer

has spent the past four years designing a handgun with a fingerprint reader built into the grip, and he deferred his acceptance to MIT after winning a grant from the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation in 2014. His startup, Biofire, is just a few months from a live-firing prototype, which, assuming it works, will be the first gun to unlock like an iPhone. [bold added]

Young Mr. Kloepfer has spent years designing a gun that not only looks and feels like a regular Glock 22 but also addresses the concerns that caused previous smart-gun prototypes to fail: speed of activation, reliability, and battery life.

When you pick up the Biofire gun, it wakes up from a low-power mode and activates the microprocessor and sensor. Processing your print requires roughly a second and a half; Kloepfer says he can get the delay down to less than half a second with more work on the software. Assuming your fingerprint is a match, the circuitry releases an internal trigger lock. As long as your middle finger remains in place, the pistol is ready to fire.

The firearms industry is wary of the technology. What if a smart gun can be shut down by a hacker (government or otherwise)?

There’s no way to access the tech in Kloepfer’s gun without taking it apart. The USB plug is just for charging; it doesn’t connect to the internet or even a smartphone app and can’t be controlled remotely. The gun is a “single-purpose application,” he says—more like a toaster than a smartphone—that makes it much, much more difficult to hack or for the government to control.

Another objection: government will mandate the technology once it comes to market, just as once-optional seat belts and motorcycle helmets became required. (This is not pro-gun paranoia: the New Jersey Childproof Handgun Law requires the use of smart locks on new guns within three years after the technology is introduced.)

IMHO, the gun lobby is not thinking strategically. Two-thirds of Americans don't own guns, and the reasons are not necessarily ideological. If safety concerns could be reduced through technology, that might bring in thousands, perhaps millions of new customers, some of whom would pay membership dues. Dealing with the lawmakers could be complicated, but that obstacle has been managed before. Don't resist the technology, embrace it.

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