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There's a conjecture I hear bandied about every now and then after a mass shooting: that the shooter(s) never planned to live through their killing spree, that in essence they intended it to be a "suicide by SWAT", with SWAT standing for whoever responds. I've never actually seen it taken seriously, but now an associate professor of criminology at Hamline University has suggested that having armed responders on the scene as standard operating procedure may actually attract these killers. At the same time the research behind this conclusion points to a desire for revenge, to strike back at people they perceived as treating them badly not just occasionally but consistently over time.
Of course the mental health issue gets touched on, with mention of a need for psychologists in schools. But the U.S. has something like 135,000 school districts, so a psychologist in every district, assuming a salary of $60k, would mean an added cost for education of over $8 billion dollars. Yet it isn't just any schools; shooters are predominantly high school students, and out of 135,000 school districts there are only about 26,000 high schools (including over 2,000 private ones) and around 40,000 in the middle school or junior high school category, for a total around 66,000 schools, so if we just focused on individual schools the cost drops to a total just under $4 billion.
An article that has most of this information is here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/27/stopping-mass-shooters-q-a-00035762
One thought about the point that most school shooters are intending to achieve "suicide by SWAT" is that if true then the only thing that any armed responder can do is grant that wish before the shooter attacks more students, so armed responders don't do a thing to deter, they actually serve as a point encouraging the would-be killers. That suggests that the better option would be these:
It may look like some steam-punk heat-ray weapon, but in actuality it's a net gun -- not for shooting the internet, and not what's left after you eliminate the gross guns, it's a gun that shoots a net, or to be accurate it shoots three to five (usually four) projectiles that spread and drag a net, and when the net stops once it has hit the target the projectiles serve to wrap the net around the target. This eliminates mobility, is likely to knock the target over, and makes holding or pointing anything a problem for the captive. If he knows he's going to get netted and not shot, a would-be shooter might just decide that would be too humiliating.
There are a number of brands but they all look pretty much alike. They generally use a standard small CO2 cylinder, the type easily held in one hand and used for some air pistols. The cost is about $2 if you buy bulk, which makes them a little bit expensive to practice with -- though so is real ammunition, and you don't need ear protection with these!
There's at least one brand that operates off a shotgun round (without the shot); it has greater range pus at equal ranges more "capture power". I've heard of one that uses four .22lr cartridges; the idea strikes me as depending too much on a mechanism to make sure they all go off at the very same moment (though it turns out to be the cheapest in terms of cost per shot for practicing).
All of them in the size meant for animals our size launch and fly faster than anyone can run, so even if a would-be shooter decides he doesn't really want to kill people after all and tries to flee, one of these will catch him.
Though for taking down a high school student, this compact job ought to suffice:
It's meant for stray dogs and other animals, but works on humans and it's easy to carry.
I have mixed thoughts about the idea, though on the whole the notion of taking away a killer's "going out in glory" away is appealing all by itself.
BTW, they're not cheap; the one I used for an illustration runs over $3k US, but then it's meant to be able to take down full-grown elk. Its 'baby brother' is meant for deer, coyotes, wolves -- things human-sized, so probably the better model for this purpose, and its cost is between about $700 and $1k, comparable to a good deer rifle.
Of course the mental health issue gets touched on, with mention of a need for psychologists in schools. But the U.S. has something like 135,000 school districts, so a psychologist in every district, assuming a salary of $60k, would mean an added cost for education of over $8 billion dollars. Yet it isn't just any schools; shooters are predominantly high school students, and out of 135,000 school districts there are only about 26,000 high schools (including over 2,000 private ones) and around 40,000 in the middle school or junior high school category, for a total around 66,000 schools, so if we just focused on individual schools the cost drops to a total just under $4 billion.
An article that has most of this information is here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/27/stopping-mass-shooters-q-a-00035762
One thought about the point that most school shooters are intending to achieve "suicide by SWAT" is that if true then the only thing that any armed responder can do is grant that wish before the shooter attacks more students, so armed responders don't do a thing to deter, they actually serve as a point encouraging the would-be killers. That suggests that the better option would be these:
There are a number of brands but they all look pretty much alike. They generally use a standard small CO2 cylinder, the type easily held in one hand and used for some air pistols. The cost is about $2 if you buy bulk, which makes them a little bit expensive to practice with -- though so is real ammunition, and you don't need ear protection with these!
There's at least one brand that operates off a shotgun round (without the shot); it has greater range pus at equal ranges more "capture power". I've heard of one that uses four .22lr cartridges; the idea strikes me as depending too much on a mechanism to make sure they all go off at the very same moment (though it turns out to be the cheapest in terms of cost per shot for practicing).
All of them in the size meant for animals our size launch and fly faster than anyone can run, so even if a would-be shooter decides he doesn't really want to kill people after all and tries to flee, one of these will catch him.
Though for taking down a high school student, this compact job ought to suffice:
It's meant for stray dogs and other animals, but works on humans and it's easy to carry.
I have mixed thoughts about the idea, though on the whole the notion of taking away a killer's "going out in glory" away is appealing all by itself.
BTW, they're not cheap; the one I used for an illustration runs over $3k US, but then it's meant to be able to take down full-grown elk. Its 'baby brother' is meant for deer, coyotes, wolves -- things human-sized, so probably the better model for this purpose, and its cost is between about $700 and $1k, comparable to a good deer rifle.
