Nobody ever stopped a murder by carrying a Concealed Rope in his pocket

It's impossible to be a caring human and not wish that the continuing plague of The Slaughter of Innocents would ... just ... STOP!!!

I don't know what the answer is.  

The easy, and most obvious solution is just GET RID OF ALL THE GUNS!

If just getting rid of all the guns would solve the problem of The Slaughter of Innocents, that might something that we should consider as a nation of conscientious people.

After San Bernardino shooting, we need more empathy, fewer guns (opinion) - CNN.com:

The murder of teacher Karen Smith and 8-year-old Jonathan Martinez, one of her students, shines a spotlight on at least four of the major correlating factors that increase the risk that a person will suffer violence: disability, domestic abuse, race, and guns. As we think about each one, we need to keep our empathy. We can't ever let ourselves get comfortable with this kind of slaughter. Then empathy must drive us to act by raising awareness about domestic violence and violence against people with disabilities. But most of all, as Karen Smith and Jonathan Martinez are laid to rest, we must first imagine, then act to create, an America in which there are fewer and fewer guns.

But it wouldn't stop The Slaughter of Innocents,

What it would stop is the ability of people to protect their own against the mad men.

There is no easy solution here.

"The only thing that can stop a Bad Man with a gun is a Good Man with a gun!"

Trite, and easily disdained by men of narrow vision, but there is an element of truth in it.

I have grandchildren in schools across this nation and in other nations, and I hope that they never find themselves in the horrifying situation where a monster intrudes upon their scholastic day with mayhem on his mind.     I don't know whether I could deal with the grief, sorrow and anger if any harm should come to these innocent boys and girls.

What I would like to do is to offer a simple, logical and easily implemented solution that would (with the stroke of a pen) completely eliminate the possibility that sad, lonely, angry, disenfranchised men would impose the consequences of their empty lives on my children, your children .. any child, anywhere.

I don't have that answer.  And the answers that have been presented are obviously inadequate; I have a nightmarish image in my mind of  Karen Smith and Jonathan Martinez .. he hiding behind his trusted teacher, only to join her victimhood as bullets rip through her body into his.

Even the most noble efforts to protect our children, however well intentioned, are too often in vain.

We cannot stop the bullets.  We cannot stop the guns.

What we need to do is to stop the gunmen.

In Minority Report, Tom Cruise played a character who had access to some kind of Weird Science which could predict when someone was about to "lose his nut".   That would be great, to be able to KNOW when some mild-mannered man is due to yield to his insane fantasies and commit mayhem.

But that was only fiction, it's a dream.  It will never happen.



In the meantime, similar madmen roam the streets and schools of our nation and every nation.  Too often they are unable to control their urges.   Surely we lack the ability to foretell who, which and when they will yield to their inner fury and express themselves through violence (guns, knifes, gasoline, cars and trucks, axes and hammers, baseball bats and cleavers and .. oh my!)

It's easy to say: "If we could just get rid of all the GUNS ....!"

But it's not that easy at all, is it.
Robin Williams died by hanging himself from a rope.  Is that justification for "Rope Control"?

No, I'm not being  facetious.  I'm just saying that when we choose one physical object to deny our society for the sake of "no child left behind", we're pissing up a rope.

It's not that easy.  You cannot stop villainy by denying their tools.

You can stop people from having access to ropes, but Robin Williams would have found another method of ending his life.   And ropes are useful things.

You cannot stop people from having access to guns, and guns, too, are useful things.

Nobody every stopped a  murder because he had a concealed rope in his pocket.