Increasing security as a defense against mass shootings

[True Dough]

That's the reactionary, and somewhat understandable, position that some involved in the video game industry are taking in light of Sunday's shootings in Jacksonville:

Gamers plead for more security after deadly Jacksonville shooting

“It’s time esports events (large and small) double down on security for everyone in general and players specifically," the CEO of an esports team tweeted

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gamers-plead-more-security-after-deadly-jacksonville-shooting-n904016


And that's exactly what's happening at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, site of a mass shooting in February:

Stoneman Douglas will be patrolled by 18 security personnel in new school year

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-sb-stoneman-douglas-security-20180808-story.html


We know that having an ex-deputy as a school resource officer/security person didn't prevent the 17 people from dying in the Stoneman Douglas shooting despite him being on the scene...

Link to tweet

We have mass shootings now in schools, in churches, at video game competitions, from hotel windows into crowds at a music festival, in shopping malls, on the streets. Are there enough security guards to go around? Do we need to live in a permanent police state?


Here's a reasoned alternative, but it doesn't get traction, of course:

I went to a huge conference on school safety. No one wanted to talk about gun control

The most obvious solution to school shootings is the one nobody wanted to discuss

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/30/17518970/school-shooting-solutions-safety

[zipplewrath]

1. Chicken and the egg

The problem here is actually not gun control per se. The problem is we are a violent society/culture. Gun control won't happen until our culture realizes that violence is not, and should not be the primary solution to conflict. Once we accomplish that, gun control won't be the political issue that it is. The problem of course is that in the mean time, our culture creates violence which then convinces us that we need to be prepared to use violence in response. So then people want to be able to own guns so as to feel they are prepared and protected.

More security guards isn't the answer. It is an interim response in the context of believing that violence will be a solution and a preventative of violence. Violence isn't the solution to our fears, it is the cause of it.

[KCDebbie]

2. The increased security measures always eventually

Call for the purchase if MORE guns!