When all the sheepdogs are gone.
In case you haven't been paying attention to the daily news, there was a terrible incident at Virginia Tech this morning. While I am still processing the impact of todays massacre - the lack of details about the killer, the seemingly inaccurate death tally, and the general flakiness of the reporting...
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"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon
the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
Mahatma Gandhi
The response from the politicians and concerned citizens is likely to be the usual "ban this and ban that" type of non-sense which doesn't address the fact that you can't "Ban" stupid or "Ban" crazy and how the hell does one go about policing someone who is already breaking the law? The short answer is that you can't. While you can't "Ban" criminals or psychopathic behavior, however you can employ risk management practices and other active measures to prepare for the hopefully unlikely scenario you may face.
Why do people freeze in critical moments such as when someone walks into their classroom and points a gun at them? Plain and simple - their OODA loop short circuited - they observed, and from there they went into a rigor mortis-like shock. There was no loop, they simply derailed. They curled up in a ball under their desks and cried if they had that much sense. In sum: Game Over. Since they had never considered the possibility, they were completely unprepared for dealing with it. In a perfect world, why should they run through such scenarios and mental gymnastics? They shouldn't. However, this isn't a perfect world which is proven by the fact that we have militaries, LEOs, prisons, and laws.
let me delve into some more random ramblings.....
LAW is a passive deterrent to crime. The only weight LAW has, is the value individuals in a society assign to it. What happens when said individuals do not assign value to a societies prescribed doctrine? Typically bad things, as witnessed in Virgina this morning, and Utah several months ago. BTW - Panopticon style monitoring systems fall under the category of passive deterrents. They don't stop the murder, but hopefully they capture the perpetrator on film. Unless he is wearing a ski-mask and gloves. Perhaps banning ski-masks is a solution, but I digress....
Psychopath: A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse.
How much value does a psycho assign to a law unless it's being enforced? Usually, not much! This tends to spin off into the fact that many crimes in our society are crimes of opportunity...no opportunity, no crime. If the psycho does not see any victims, there isn't anyone to victimize. Thank you next target please.
Time to jump to the other side of the fence:
A SWAT team is an active deterrent. When facing a SWAT team with MP5s in hand, most criminals are deterred due to the fact that there will be an instant and severe repercussion to their action. A group of estate guard dogs is an active deterrent. An electric fence is an active deterrent. An armed citizen is an active deterrent..
A mark/target who fights back is not a victim, and usually no longer a target. Why do animals not F*@! with the Tasmanian devil? Because the moment they interact with it, they find themselves lacerated, unhinged, and bleeding to death. An armed (and aware) target is not prey worth pursuing.
Suddenly the discourse changes; active security measures trump passive techniques. Actions can intercept other actions. Period. Rules, laws and notification systems are for all intents and purposes post-postmortem (after an incident has occurred) technologies. That's why Police responding to gunfire fall under a method of study called "Incident Response" - not "Incident Prevention." Passive security concepts such as rules, regulations, burglar alarms, metal detectors, and motion sensors are meant to be complementary to active security systems like razor-wire, guard dogs SWAT teams, and armed citizens.
My heart goes out to the victims of todays crime and I find it repugnant that such an atrocity can happen in the United States - land of the free and home of the brave. A long while back, I read a wonderful story (click the link for a version of story, but the comments after it are even better) about a group of sheep. These sheep lived with sheepdogs who guarded them from the wolves in countryside. One day the sheep decided that the sheepdogs were too vicious to have living amongst them and therefore banished the sheepdogs. Some time went by peacefully, and suddenly the wolves struck and decimated the flock of sheep. So it goes....
It is ironic that one student or faculty member with a weapon could have limited the scope of the murders today - but due to the politicking of Virgina Tech they were left completely unprepared.
I would implore any readers to consider the fact that bad guys fight asymmetrically - meaning they don't play by the "rules", they don't care about what you consider psychopathic behavior, and they only understand one thing - Force.
Why do people freeze in critical moments such as when someone walks into their classroom and points a gun at them? Plain and simple - their OODA loop short circuited - they observed, and from there they went into a rigor mortis-like shock. There was no loop, they simply derailed. They curled up in a ball under their desks and cried if they had that much sense. In sum: Game Over. Since they had never considered the possibility, they were completely unprepared for dealing with it. In a perfect world, why should they run through such scenarios and mental gymnastics? They shouldn't. However, this isn't a perfect world which is proven by the fact that we have militaries, LEOs, prisons, and laws.
let me delve into some more random ramblings.....
LAW is a passive deterrent to crime. The only weight LAW has, is the value individuals in a society assign to it. What happens when said individuals do not assign value to a societies prescribed doctrine? Typically bad things, as witnessed in Virgina this morning, and Utah several months ago. BTW - Panopticon style monitoring systems fall under the category of passive deterrents. They don't stop the murder, but hopefully they capture the perpetrator on film. Unless he is wearing a ski-mask and gloves. Perhaps banning ski-masks is a solution, but I digress....
Psychopath: A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse.
How much value does a psycho assign to a law unless it's being enforced? Usually, not much! This tends to spin off into the fact that many crimes in our society are crimes of opportunity...no opportunity, no crime. If the psycho does not see any victims, there isn't anyone to victimize. Thank you next target please.
Time to jump to the other side of the fence:
A SWAT team is an active deterrent. When facing a SWAT team with MP5s in hand, most criminals are deterred due to the fact that there will be an instant and severe repercussion to their action. A group of estate guard dogs is an active deterrent. An electric fence is an active deterrent. An armed citizen is an active deterrent..
A mark/target who fights back is not a victim, and usually no longer a target. Why do animals not F*@! with the Tasmanian devil? Because the moment they interact with it, they find themselves lacerated, unhinged, and bleeding to death. An armed (and aware) target is not prey worth pursuing.
Suddenly the discourse changes; active security measures trump passive techniques. Actions can intercept other actions. Period. Rules, laws and notification systems are for all intents and purposes post-postmortem (after an incident has occurred) technologies. That's why Police responding to gunfire fall under a method of study called "Incident Response" - not "Incident Prevention." Passive security concepts such as rules, regulations, burglar alarms, metal detectors, and motion sensors are meant to be complementary to active security systems like razor-wire, guard dogs SWAT teams, and armed citizens.
My heart goes out to the victims of todays crime and I find it repugnant that such an atrocity can happen in the United States - land of the free and home of the brave. A long while back, I read a wonderful story (click the link for a version of story, but the comments after it are even better) about a group of sheep. These sheep lived with sheepdogs who guarded them from the wolves in countryside. One day the sheep decided that the sheepdogs were too vicious to have living amongst them and therefore banished the sheepdogs. Some time went by peacefully, and suddenly the wolves struck and decimated the flock of sheep. So it goes....
It is ironic that one student or faculty member with a weapon could have limited the scope of the murders today - but due to the politicking of Virgina Tech they were left completely unprepared.
I would implore any readers to consider the fact that bad guys fight asymmetrically - meaning they don't play by the "rules", they don't care about what you consider psychopathic behavior, and they only understand one thing - Force.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon
the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
Mahatma Gandhi
posted by /dn at 17:23
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