If Black Panther is the Target of a Mass Shooting in 'Merica...

Here’s a thought based on no specific knowledge or evidence. It is not a threat. It is a preemptive observation based on an established pattern of behavior.

There will probably be a mass shooting in a theater somewhere in America during the Black Panther opening weekend.

This thought might be depressing, but it will not be shocking in light of the political, social, and cultural environment we exist in. The ingredients are all present. The mood is ripe for a violent backlash in pop culture. It would be more surprising (but a huge relief) if the weekend passed without a racial attack at the movies.

If there is another episode of mass murder in ‘Merica, and I hope there isn’t, we know what the responses will be and how blame will be handed out. We will blame Marvel for making the movie. We will blame the theater for showing it. The people who went to see it will receive the most blame from the powers that be. How dare they create such a dangerous situation? We will pretend to be shocked. We will avoid the real discussion. The terrorists will be taken alive and characterized as disturbed loners or misunderstood men who had their whole lives ahead of them.

Debates will rage about the threat this type of film poses. Questions will be raised about whether or not it should have ever been made, or if the sequel should be canceled, or if anyone will go out to see it the following weekend.

Here is another thought based on nothing more than my own distorted view of reality. On the second weekend, more people will go to see it than the first. We will pretend to be shocked. It will be seen as a rejection of hate and a triumph for America. But that won’t be the real message. We will avoid the deeper discussion.

I’ve been wrong before. I hope I’m wrong now. If we are attacked again, I know what I will do. I’ll repost my advice for escaping a mass shooting, the same way I’ve done for most of the high profile terrorist attacks. (See What to Do When the Bullets Start Flying). I will tune out the false disbelief and misplaced blame. And then I’ll go and see the movie again and again, even if it’s horrible.

I hope you will too.

Have fun.

G   

2016 Is Our Year of Brutality

By Gamal Hennessy

There are only a few days left in the year, and for many of us the end can’t come soon enough. Members of my generation have seen our icons fall in film and music. The wider world is bracing for Brexit, the Trumpocalypse and ongoing bloodbaths in Syria, Yemen and South Sudan. The most sensational brutality of the year might be a recent phenomenon, but the cruelty that has faded from the headlines and mainstream consciousness is embedded in the fabric of ‘Merican culture.  Police brutality and violence against people of color had a prominent place in the public consciousness this year, but not much has changed on the ground.

From Anton Sterling to Jessica Williams to Philando Castile to Korryn Gaines to Tyre King to Terence Crutcher to Taiwon Boyd to Levonia Riggins to Keith Scott to Alfred Olango to Deborah Danner we find a pattern.  The gender, age, and geographic location might have been different for each victim, but the outcome was the same. Our police use our funding to murder us and face little or no consequences for their actions.

And all this occurred under the administration of an arguably progressive, feminist, black president. Do we have any reason to believe police brutality will decrease under Trumpzilla? Is there any chance the motivations of police will change? What is the likelihood that people will stop labelling us as criminal simply because of our race? Our society shares several characteristics with the slave ships of the Middle Passage. Those similarities are likely to deepen once we replace Obama with Trumpzilla.

None of us are fortune tellers. We don’t know what 2017 will bring, but it’s safe to say some of us won’t make it to see 2018. All we can really do is listen, learn, fight, work, create and love the people who are important to us.

Good luck to everyone who reads this. Remember the Moscow Rules.

Have fun.

America's Mass Shooting Crossfire (Part 3: Responding to Reality)

by Gamal Hennessy

This is the third and final installment of my essay on mass shootings in America. If you’d like to read parts one and two, you can find the links below:

Part One: The Pro-Gun Side

Part Two: The Anti- Gun Side

If more guns aren’t the answer and fewer guns isn’t the answer and ignoring the problem isn’t the answer, then what is the answer?

We have a training model and technology that can protect unarmed civilians without plodding through the mire of gun control law. The answer for schools, malls and businesses of any kind is creating and supporting a rapid evacuation program.

What is a Rapid Evacuation Program?

If a school catches fire, we do not expect teachers to put out the fire. We teach them to get the children out of the school safely. In offices, hotels and public buildings, we don’t leave fire safety to chance. We have professionals in place that monitor systems, drill the population and coordinate with first responders. I am simply suggesting expanding the fire prevention program to cover mass shootings. My idea includes the following parts:

Each school would have an evacuation professional whose job included: 

• Creating and updating the evacuation plan
• Monitoring the evacuation systems,
• Patrolling the area to ensure exits, barriers and security screening systems are in place,
• Periodically training everyone with evacuation drills to ensure information is distributed,
• Leading an evacuation in the case of an emergency,
• Coordinating with first responders and managing the media

Each school would also be connected to a central monitoring system similar to ADP. This system could remotely monitor the school and the surrounding area with cameras and other devices to aid the evacuation professional on the ground and coordinate with first responders in the event of an emergency

The schools would conduct regular evacuation drills that differ from fire drills because they take into account the specific skills needed for dealing with an active shooter. This will reduce the likelihood of a fatal loop in the OODA cycle because the children and teachers will know what to do.

Finally, the evacuation professional should have non-lethal tools and deterrents (tasers, smoke grenades etc.) in the event that he or she has to engage the killer to ensure the evacuation of the children. But the primary duty would always be removing as many children as possible from the danger area.

What a Rapid Evacuation Program Can Do

Rapid evacuation can be useful because it deals directly with the issue of protecting people from mass shootings. 

• It does not require an excess of political will to alter laws or society’s attitudes about a contentious subject. 
• It does not require extensive money to alter or fortify institutions. 
• It can be implemented in malls, schools, churches and buildings of all kinds. 
• It uses the same training model we are already used to and modifies it for an increasingly frequent problem. 
• It can be used to help move people out of a dangerous area in the event of floods, earthquakes, or violent individuals. 
• It doesn’t make assumptions or ignore the reality of American society. 
• It can deter mass shootings and reduce the death toll when and if the deterrence fails.

What It Can’t Do

Of course the difference between dealing with fire and dealing with a killer is the human variable. Fire conforms to certain predicable, natural laws while a killer can act in ways that no evacuation program can anticipate. I’m not suggesting that rapid evacuation is the last word in dealing with mass murderers. It is likely that law enforcement and potential evacuation professionals will have to improve and adapt their methods as killers alter their attacks. But that struggle would be minor compared to the devastation that we have to endure when people are gunned down at random. Rapid evacuation programs can protect our children while the war of words surrounding guns continues. 

Best
Gamal

America's Mass Shooting Crossfire (Part 2: The Anti-Gun Problem)

by Gamal Hennessy

This is the second part of my three part essay on mass shooting in America. For a look at the pro-gun problems, please click here. 

I have seen many anti-gun proponents suggest that changing the gun ownership laws would take guns out of the hands of people who want to kill. They go on to cite other countries that have little or no private gun ownership and the correlation between the lack of mass shootings and the absence of guns. While this concept might be a viable long term solution, it cannot protect unarmed civilians now or in the near future for a variety of reasons including:

• The debate over gun control taps into emotions of fear, anxiety and control on both sides. Any attempt to change the law would create political and legal conflict that would rival recent debates about abortion, gay rights and health care.
• Any change to gun ownership laws on a national level could require an amendment to the Constitution. That means a two thirds majority in the House and the Senate and ratification by thirty eight states. In the modern political climate, that kind of bi-partisan cooperation is almost unheard of.
• Even if an overhaul of the gun control system could be put in place, it would not eliminate the 200 million privately owned firearms in America. Even if the law was passed, it would not alter the mentality of gun owners in the same way that changes to women’s suffrage hasn’t changed the mentality of many men towards women in more than 90 years and the civil rights movement hasn’t changed the way minorities are treated in America more than 50 years later.
• During the long debate and struggle to alter the gun laws, many more guns would be purchased. There is a chance that a dramatic increase in firearms purchased could occur as people stockpiled as many legal weapons as they could before the laws changed.
• Finally, the focus on changing the laws in the future does little to protect unarmed children in the present. 

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Why Ignoring Potential Gun Violence Isn’t Helpful

I have seen many people express shock, condolences and grief when faced with the latest mass shooting. Feeling helpless, they attempt to ignore or avoid the subject, hoping it will go away or at least hoping that it will not impact them directly. While the chances of being a victim in a mass shooting are still relatively rare, this course of action is not helpful to anyone involved because

• The number of mass shootings has steadily increased in the past thirty years.
• The variety of locations shows that there is no protected space or safe haven that is immune from mass shootings. Schools, businesses, religious buildings, malls and movie theaters are equally vulnerable.
• While prayers, condolences and expressions of emotional support are comforting after a crisis, they don’t do anything to help a community learn from that crisis and take steps to prevent and deal with the next one.

Now that I've touched on some of the concerns I have about the pro-gun, anti-gun and majority solutions to mass shootings, I'll turn my attention to my potential solution in my next post.

Gamal

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America's Mass Shooting Crossfire (Part 1 The Pro-Gun Problem)

by Gamal Hennessy

“If my intent is to write something useful that people can understand, then it’s better to write about the way things are instead of what we imagine them to be.”

— Niccolo Machiavelli: The Prince

The latest school massacre has once again separated online America into three camps. On one side, the anti-gun camp uses the deaths of children as proof that we need stronger regulation on all types of guns everywhere. On the other side, the pro-gun camp uses the same mass murder as proof that concerned citizens need more guns to protect them from lunatics. In the center, the majority of the country is shocked for a moment, frightened for a time and then complacent as they go back to ignoring the problem of gun violence in America. Everyone takes their position, using the dead children as a weapon in their war of ideology.

The sound bites from all three camps often ignore certain realities of mass shootings and the greater legal, political and social environment that impact their positions. I’d like to point out some of the obstacles to the most extreme positions and then offer a solution that I think will protect more people without waiting for the war of words on gun control to play itself out. 

I am not offering this idea as an authority figure, expert or pundit. I am simply using my legal background and my studies on violence as a writer to offer ideas not tied to any other position on this issue. 

Why Giving Guns to Teachers Isn’t Helpful

I have seen many pro-gun proponents suggest that arming more civilians would create a deterrence effect that will eliminate shooting sprees. Some of them go on to say that if the killers are not deterred, the armed civilians will be in a position to protect themselves and the children around them. There are several potential problems with this concept that will occur before, during and after a violent incident. Taking the guns in school example, consider that:

Before a killer walks into a school: 

• Many teachers have an aversion to guns and will not carry them, and they may refuse to work in an environment that requires carrying or using a weapon. This will decrease the already limited pool of qualified teachers in America.

• Many parents would refuse to send their children to a school where the teachers were potentially armed and would be in a position to sue the school board or the state for creating an unsafe environment for their children.

• Liability for potential gun related accidents for the school or the school system could be substantial.

• The risk of gun related accidents or incidents between students or involving student theft of the weapons can create unintended consequences

• Most importantly, deterrence is a powerful incentive for a rational thinker to take or avoid certain actions. Recent mass shootings have involved killers who were not rational. To assume that an irrational person will think rationally and be deterred could be a severe mistake.

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When a killer walks into a school: 

• Even if teachers or school officials wanted to carry firearms in school as a deterrent, many teachers who are overworked, stressed or distracted may not have the gun readily available in the critical moment.

• A person confronted with sudden violence is likely to freeze because of a fatal loop within the OODA cycle (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act). That freeze can prevent them from ever using their gun even if it is in their hand when the killer arrives.

• Many people have a natural aversion to killing other people, even to save their own lives. Many soldiers on the battlefield, who were trained to fight, have failed to fire their weapons at an enemy that was actively trying to kill them. There is a very real chance that a teacher faced with a killer might not be able to shoot even if they have a gun.

• The accuracy of an average person who does not have substantial training with a firearm is extremely low. If the teacher did have their gun and didn’t freeze in the face of a killer, there is a high chance that they could hit one of the children instead of the killer.

• If two or more people are exchanging fire in an enclosed space and other teachers or officials arrive (because they are also armed), if could be very difficult in the smoke, noise and adrenalin boosts that everyone is experiencing for the new teachers to hit the right person. More children could be inadvertently killed by the people who are trying to help them.

• Any teacher who is killed without using their gun for any of the reasons listed above is providing an extra potential weapon for the killer.

• If the teachers are focused on attacking the killer then it will be difficult for them to focus on removing the children from the situation which leaves them in greater jeopardy as the killer closes in.

After the shooting has stopped

•  In the same way that other teachers in the school might be confused about what is going on and who the real threat is, first responders will arrive on the scene without knowing who is a killer and who is a teacher. While they are trying to sort through the chaos teachers could be mistaken for killers and inadvertently injured or killed. Killers could be mistaken for teachers or victims and escape. There could be an extended delay for EMS to help the children because there are so many live weapons in the area.

•  After the incident, there will be significant civil and criminal liability for the teacher, the school and the school system if any parent decides to go after the school because their child was injured or killed by a stray bullet.

•  Finally, the support and comfort that communities display after a violent massacre that help everyone move on can be twisted into a force that tears a population apart if people start to feel like their loved ones were killed because of the failure of the teacher.

In my next post, I'll try to explain why the anti-gun movement can't achieve the goal of protecting children in the short term with stricter regulations or bans on guns.

Gamal

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We Are the Enemy

By Gamal Hennessy

As pundits debate the utility of the Department of Homeland Security, it might be helpful to consider the actual threats to American lives since 9/11.

I'm sure several plots have been deterred or stopped due to the efforts of American intelligence and law enforcement. But when I compare terrorism deaths to firearm deaths over the past ten years, I think we're focusing on the wrong thing.

• Number of Americans killed in domestic terrorist attacks, 2002-2011: 30
• Number of Americans murdered by firearms, 2000-2011: 115,997

In America, we are more likely to be killed by an angry neighbor or a police officer than a member of ISIS. Children in America are more likely to be gunned down in a school shooting than kidnapped by Boko Haram. Maybe we shouldn't be discussing disbanding Homeland Security. Maybe we should use all that money and manpower to deal with the real threat to American lives.

Have fun.

Gamal