Aim at the Real Problem

Much has been written about how to prevent mass shootings like we recently experienced in Newton...and I boldly proclaim...all of it is wrong.

After every massacre - and that's what these are - we line up along party lines to bicker and fight over the wrong issues....high capacity magazines, mental health, "assault rifles", background checks, violence in entertainment,and the greatest battle of all...the Second Amendment.  Emotions run high, calls for action are passionate, legal scholars weigh-in and politicians give speeches on the graves of the innocent.   The pitched battles and party loyalties prevent us from identifying the real problem, so here it is....

>>>   The discharging of a weapon in the wrong place at the wrong time.   <<<

That's it. That's the problem we need to focus on.  While there may be other related issues, the only thing that actually causes the loss of life is the discharge of the firearm within the range of others.   If some psycho walks into an elementary school with an assault rifle that has a high capacity magazine and squeezes off 30 rounds, people die.  If the same pyscho walks into an elementary school with an assault rifle that has a high capacity magazine and pulls the trigger - but nothing happens - nobody dies.  The key is whether the weapon fires or not.  Nothing else is as important.  

If we can't round-up 12,000,000 illegal aliens who have to interact with society every day just to survive, we're not going to round up 300,000,000 guns sitting quietly in a safe from 80,000,000 law-abiding citizens who believe they have the right (and the backing of the SC) to own their guns.

If we can't get criminals to follow a law that says "Don't murder people" we're not going to get them to follow gun control laws.

Additional gun control laws may be needed...or they may not be, but they won't solve the problem of mass shootings and I'm not even sure they will minimize the number of casualties.  But even if we do reduce the number of casualties, is that our goal....smaller body-counts in elementary schools?

We put a man on the moon >40 years ago. We have functional spacecraft leaving our solar system. We developed artificial organs, artificial intelligence and cheese in a can. Certainly we can develop technology that prevents the discharge of a firearm in the wrong place, at the wrong time by the wrong person.

We should commit to developing technology that allows us to establish a "no-fire net" so that when a trigger is pulled within its range, nothing happens.  Think of the technology used in a wi-fi hotspot except instead of allowing an action (surfing the net) it prevents an action, the discharge of a weapon.  When the signal is received by the weapon, the firing mechanism is inactivated.  Yes, there are lots of technical issues to overcome and you'd need to design the system so that it couldn't (easily anyway) be defeated.  I get that, but isn't it worth it?