Elliot Rodger is the latest mass shooter whose actions provoke calls for "more gun control". It is easy in the heat of the moment to listen to emotion rather than reason. It helps to look at the numbers.
Here’s a non-comprehensive list of seven recent mass
shooting incidents that grabbed media attention. The list has names, where it happened, and a judgement as to why. There are two patterns, one predominant.
Of the seven, four
were known to have mental problems, but
were able to get guns legally, because
no court ever found them crazy and institutionalized them. That’s the criterion currently used to
“exclude” people judged to be crazy from getting guns, and it clearly doesn’t work right.
In the case of Jared Loughner, the store that sold him his guns was reported
as definitely uncomfortable doing so,
but had no grounds to deny the sale.
The background check revealed no court judgement as to Loughner’s
sanity. They were faced with a person
who obviously had mental problems, but a
clean record as to his sanity. Yet his
friends, his college faculty, and his doctors all knew he had
problems.
Elliot Rodger.......CA girl shooter.........crazy, never
institutionalized
Wade Page.........Sikh
temple shooter..seduced
by extremist politics
Jared Loughner...AZ rep shooter.........crazy, never
institutionalized
James Holmes.....CO theater shooter...crazy, never institutionalized
Harris&Klebold..Columbine school......crazy, never institutionalized
Adam Lanza.......Newtown
CT school..crazy, never institutionalized, criminal act
Nidal Hasan........Ft.
Hood...................seduced
by extremist religion
Of the seven, there
was one (Lanza) widely-known to have serious mental problems, who was denied owning guns by his
mother, but still encouraged to use them
for sport under his mother’s supervision.
This didn’t “work” either, since
he killed his mother to get her guns and go shoot up that school. Guns (even locked up) in the same house with
a crazy person just isn’t a good idea.
The other two in the list were seduced by extremist politics
or religion into committing their crimes.
This is the same phenomena that creates home-grown terrorists like the
Tsarnaev brothers in Boston, and most
recently a Florida resident who became a suicide bomber in Syria. It is a significant enough effect to worry
about.
Dealing with the
Mental Health Leak
What this tells me is that the way we do background checks
is very flawed with respect to mental health problems. It is currently an “either-or” choice based
on a court judgement of insanity. What
we need is more gradual and less legally-formalized.
The sense that a potential gun customer “isn’t quite right”
should trigger a deeper look than the simple records search background check
for a court judgement. It should trigger
the local police doing interviews of associates and health providers as to their
perceptions of mental fitness.
The idea is increasing impediments with increasing evidence
of mental problems, not just an “on-off
switch set too high”, as it is now. Had that been in place, it is likely that 4 of the 7 incidents listed
would not have taken place. But, doing it effectively but fairly will require
thought, debate, and compromise.
Dealing with
Seduction by Extremism
This applies to explosives as well as guns. In addition to the two mass shooter cases
listed, plus the Tsarnaev brothers, and the recent Florida suicide bomber, there was also the Oklahoma City bomber. All of these were known to be believers in
either extremist politics or extremist religion before committing their
acts.
The same sort of idea should be used: increasing impediments to gun (or
potentially-explosive materials) purchases with increasing evidence of
extremist belief. Exactly how to do that
fairly will require thought,
debate, and compromise.
Other Observations
The two main gun control schemes popular in politics are
magazine size limits, and a ban on
semi-automatic rifles that cosmetically-resemble military machine guns. Neither would be effective, as some simple calculations demonstrate.
Clip
Size Limits
For an out in-the-open scenario, shots must be aimed to hit people. That takes about two seconds per shot for a
well-trained shooter, with recent
practice. It also takes about 5 seconds
to change a clip.
To get off 100 shots with 30-round clips will take about 60
seconds per full clip, three full
clips, with three clip changes (15 more
seconds), plus 10 more rounds out of the
fourth clip (20 more seconds). That’s
100 shots in 215 seconds.
Using instead 8-round clips (16 seconds to empty), the same 100 shots requires 12 full clips (12
changes for 60 seconds) and 4 shots out of a thirteenth (8 more seconds). That totals to 260 seconds. The difference is only 45 seconds in almost 4
minutes time. Limiting clip size will
not have a significant effect.
For an enclosed-space scenario, shots need not be aimed, because people are tightly-packed together in
the worst case, such as a classroom. It takes about a half-second between trigger
pulls. It still takes 5 seconds to
change clips.
100 shots with 30-round clips: 3 full clips (45 seconds plus 15 seconds
changing 3 clips) plus 10 shots from the 4th clip (5 more
seconds). That’s 65 seconds for 100
shots.
100 shots with 8-round clips: 12 full clips at 4 seconds
each plus 60 seconds changing clips 12 times) plus 4 rounds (2 seconds) from
the thirteenth clip. That’s 100 shots in
110 seconds.
The difference is still only 45 seconds. Having to change more clips doubles the
time, but both times are still quite
short. The smaller clip is just not that
much of an impediment to kill lots of people.
Ban
on Semi-Automatic Weapons that Look Like Machine Guns
It’s a semi-automatic rifle with a firing rate of 1 aimed
shot every 2 seconds, or 2 non-aimed
shots every second, no matter what it
looks like. Same firing rate. No difference in how fast one can kill with
it. So,
what’s the point of banning cosmetic appearance?
Response
Times
There’s perfectly-good reasons to declare gun free zones
today, just as in the Old West. But you have to defend them, or the people therein are sitting-duck
targets. Towns being small in the Old
West, an armed deputy could be anywhere
in town in 60 seconds at a dogtrot. That
actually worked quite well.
The shooting scenario times calculated above range from 1
minute to just over 4 minutes. That’s
why the Old West 1 minute response worked as well as it did, and it is why the same standard applies
today.
Conclusions
Fix the mental health leak in the background check
process. It’s the most effective thing
we could do, by far.
Forget the rest of the popular gun control proposals. They’re demonstrably ineffective.
Cut police emergency response times nearer to 1 minute. If this takes armed guards on site, then so be it. Just make sure they are trained as peace
officers, they’ll need to be.
Start thinking about how to impede gun (and explosive materials) purchases by those known to hold extremist beliefs.
Update 6-7-14:
The latest shooter incident at Pacific College actually proves my points about gun-free zones. The local law enforcement confirms that if the student with the pepper spray had not acted to take-on the shooter, the death toll would have been worse. That proves my first point about the required response time to defend a gun free zone.
The fact that the student with the pepper spray was successful, being an almost-unarmed civilian, was due to the shooter's poor choice of weapon. He was using a shotgun, not a clip-fed weapon. The extended time to reload gave the student his chance to take the shooter down.
In a reverse way, this proves my second point, because this would not have worked, had the shooter been using a clip-fed weapon. That would have required the student to have been armed equally or better, and to have been trained to do this kind of dangerous work.
My second point is: defenders of gun free zones need to be real peace officers with real training and proper weapons. Civilians (including school teachers) with concealed-carry permits, do not qualify. Just "bite the bullet" and hire qualified guards. That's the right decision.
Update 6-7-14:
The latest shooter incident at Pacific College actually proves my points about gun-free zones. The local law enforcement confirms that if the student with the pepper spray had not acted to take-on the shooter, the death toll would have been worse. That proves my first point about the required response time to defend a gun free zone.
The fact that the student with the pepper spray was successful, being an almost-unarmed civilian, was due to the shooter's poor choice of weapon. He was using a shotgun, not a clip-fed weapon. The extended time to reload gave the student his chance to take the shooter down.
In a reverse way, this proves my second point, because this would not have worked, had the shooter been using a clip-fed weapon. That would have required the student to have been armed equally or better, and to have been trained to do this kind of dangerous work.
My second point is: defenders of gun free zones need to be real peace officers with real training and proper weapons. Civilians (including school teachers) with concealed-carry permits, do not qualify. Just "bite the bullet" and hire qualified guards. That's the right decision.
Update 6-8-14:
A version of this article appeared as a guest column in the Waco Tribune-Herald newspaper today (Sunday).
A version of this article appeared as a guest column in the Waco Tribune-Herald newspaper today (Sunday).