From: [tom brunetti] at [satalink.com] (Tom Brunetti)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Just One Life, 1 of 3
Date: 21 Jul 93 13:49:35 GMT

I saw this on Fido(Anews) and thought it was interesting, Pretty good
editorial in my opinion.

This message was from DENNIS SANTIAGO to ALL
originally in conference ANEWS(Fido
and was forwarded to you by AGATA
                    ----------------------------------------
Op Ed Piece

Still No Solutions In Place to Save "Just One Life"

(Part 1 of 3)

contact:  Dennis L. L. Santiago
          Telecommuter WorkSystems - Los Angeles
          P.O. Box 3349
          El Segundo, California 90245
          bbs (310)676-0492 or Fidonet address (1:102/230)


Los Angeles, July-9-1993  -  It's happened again.  A disgruntled
stranger bent on an irrational murder-suicide came into the
supposedly "safe" environment of a San Francisco high-rise.  The
offices of a professional services firm no less.  People, not
unlike you and I, were killed and injured for being in the wrong
place at the wrong time.  We've see this before.  There was
Stockton, California where the sanctuary of our schools was
violated.  There was Killeen, Texas where the notion of safety in
public was exposed as myth.  Now San Francisco, California where
the thin veil of corporate rules, building management policies,
and municipal codes was exposed as nothing more than a pile of
paper.

The pattern has been the same.  One person out of 250+ million
people in the United States succumbs to the stress of a
combination of personal and societal problems and tragedy occurs.
This person is by definition both mentally disturbed and
operationally resourceful.  Prior to the incident, this person is
for the most part unknown to or very low on the priority list of
trouble makers of law enforcement agencies.  A bit of a misfit by
the standards of political correctness perhaps; maybe not.
Probably a fellow down on his luck one way or another.  But
otherwise pretty ordinary.  It doesn't take much to reason that
there are more of these walking time-bombs out there.  Certainly,
the economic times aren't helping alleviate any stresses.

Conventional law enforcement is next to useless for dealing with
this type of crime.  Notwithstanding the myth of the government
as an institutional nanny, the fact remains that law enforcement
is neither equipped nor empowered to actively monitor or pass
judgement on the mental stability of 250+ million Americans.  Yet
this is the massive level of intrusion that would be needed to
locate these very rare individuals out of our population actually
in the process of preparing to commit a murder-suicide.  It's a
needle in a haystack problem.  The cost would be prohibitive to
say the least.  Then come the civil rights implications.  Even if
the data collection process were successful, U.S. law's
presumption of innocence means that nothing can be done until an
overt act of aggression occurs in any case.

On the interdiction side of the equation, conventional law
enforcement is not very effective either.  Response oriented
agencies are simply not designed to interdict this type of crime
until well after the bulk of the damage has been done.  These are
crimes that require active intervention in the first few seconds
if loss of live is to be truly minimized.  The only way to do
that is to have an authorized person able to provide such
interdiction in position at the moment that the threat emerges.
This isn't controversial theory; after all, it's the protective
strategy afforded to high public officials.  Realistically, no
amount of investment in a conventional police force can cost-
effectively provide such coverage to the aggregate population.

So what does one do about the threat of infrequent irrational
attack by a basically undetectable perpetrator?  How does one go
about implementing policies which stand a reasonable chance of
saving "just one life"?  Let's look at what's been tried.


 * OLX 2.1 TD * TWS-LA - Working to Raise the Common Denominator


--- WM v2.08/93-0237
 * Origin: Telecommuter_WorkSystems_LA 310/676-0492 (1:102/230)