Still No Solutions In Place to Save "Just One Life" contact: Dennis L. L. Santiago P.O. Box 3349 El Segundo, California 90245 Tel (310)676-3300 Los Angeles, July-9-1993 - It's happened again. A disgruntled stranger bent on an irrational murder-suicide came into the supposedly "safe" environment of a San Francisco high-rise. The offices of a professional services firm no less. People, not unlike you and I, were killed and injured for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We've see this before. There was Stockton, California where the sanctuary of our schools was violated. There was Killeen, Texas where the notion of safety in public was exposed as myth. Now San Francisco, California where the thin veil of corporate rules, building management policies, and municipal codes was exposed as nothing more than a pile of paper. The pattern has been the same. One person out of 250+ million people in the United States succumbs to the stress of a combination of personal and societal problems and tragedy occurs. This person is by definition both mentally disturbed and operationally resourceful. Prior to the incident, this person is for the most part unknown to or very low on the priority list of trouble makers of law enforcement agencies. A bit of a misfit by the standards of political correctness perhaps; maybe not. Probably a fellow down on his luck one way or another. But otherwise pretty ordinary. It doesn't take much to reason that there are more of these walking time-bombs out there. Certainly, the economic times aren't helping alleviate any stresses. Conventional law enforcement is next to useless for dealing with this type of crime. Notwithstanding the myth of the government as an institutional nanny, the fact remains that law enforcement is neither equipped nor empowered to actively monitor or pass judgement on the mental stability of 250+ million Americans. Yet this is the massive level of intrusion that would be needed to locate these very rare individuals out of our population actually in the process of preparing to commit a murder-suicide. It's a needle in a haystack problem. The cost would be prohibitive to say the least. Then come the civil rights implications. Even if the data collection process were successful, U.S. law's presumption of innocence means that nothing can be done until an overt act of aggression occurs in any case. On the interdiction side of the equation, conventional law enforcement is not very effective either. Response oriented agencies are simply not designed to interdict this type of crime until well after the bulk of the damage has been done. These are crimes that require active intervention in the first few seconds if loss of live is to be truly minimized. The only way to do that is to have an authorized person able to provide such interdiction in position at the moment that the threat emerges. This isn't controversial theory; after all, it's the protective strategy afforded to high public officials. Realistically, no amount of investment in a conventional police force can cost- effectively provide such coverage to the aggregate population. So what does one do about the threat of infrequent irrational attack by a basically undetectable perpetrator? How does one go about implementing policies which stand a reasonable chance of saving "just one life"? Let's look at what's been tried. Post-Stockton Analysis The Stockton incident prompted action using the restriction of access approach to threat reduction. This resulted in the registration of so-called "assault weapons"; using the media style guide definition as opposed to the formal ordnance terminology definition. The crime prevention theory behind this approach basically contends that, in the long run, a decrease in the number of weapons in circulation will eventually result in a reduction in crime incidents. This form of public safety management is particularly favored by non-gun owners, who by definition bear a zero personal cost for such policies; and particularly opposed by gun owners, who by definition bear a high personal cost for such policies. The real question though is does it do any good. In the case of random victim irrational attack, such policies are basically useless. These types of crimes are infrequent enough that the amount of aggregate social costs in terms of legitimate uses of firearms that must be impacted in order to even begin to scratch at affecting the incidence rate would require a fundamental shift in the definition of social equity and the relationship between citizens and government itself. This approach is far from cost-effective by any measure of merit. In the specific case of California's Roberti-Roos package, sadly, it did not deal with the random attack threat of at all. Nothing in the process of registration assists the process of locating potentially dangerous individuals. In fact, the people who registered weapons under this Act are probably the least likely to ever go over the edge. Therefore, the preventive impact is nil. Similarly, nothing in the legislation package enhanced the probability of survival of persons in the line of fire of an individual committing an irrational random murder- suicide. It's interdiction effect is therefore also nil. No one is safer from this type of crime because of this law; as recent events have proved. In it's best light, the Roberti-Roos legislation may have temporarily slowed an arms race between the police and street criminals. Unfortunately, it's beginning to look like while the police and law abiding citizens abided by the new rules, the criminals didn't. (Surprised?) Since passage of the law, the criminal element's tactical margin over society may actually have been widened by policies promoting decreased access to firearms rather than narrowed. Parity is certainly not a word to describe the capability relationship between law abiders and violent law breakers in California at the moment. Overall, California's "assault weapons" statute shouldn't be thought of as a behavioral deterrent to crime. Sensational irrational crime is really the product of a small population of disturbed and resourceful individuals. It would be naive to think that legal statutes are anything but irrelevant to these people. Street crime is really more of a function of risk versus profit on a per incident basis and one of a lack of more favorable alternatives on an aggregate basis. It follows the rules of rational economic transactions. The disparity of capability between criminal and victim actually enhances the economic attractiveness of crime and eases the planning difficulties of irrational violence. We are seeing undesired side-effects manifest themselves in the form of bolder more violent offenders. Interestingly, a similar proposal currently in the California legislature concerning high capacity magazines seems, to this analyst, to be headed for the same types of undesired long term negative effects; although, to be fair, it's sponsors are seeking more input to structure this proposal so as to have an operational crime deterrent impact. It remains to be seen whether the final design helps to narrow the capability gap between all law abiders and violent law breakers. Post-Killeen Analysis Killeen, Texas created a different form of response. Following this incident, grass roots public sentiment demanded the exploration of substantive options which would increase the interdiction capabilities of the public to respond to a random irrational attack. The public outrage no effective method exists to guard the public against the excessive loss of life at Killeen resulted in the advancement of a concealed carry weapons (CCW) weapons permit bill, Texas H.1976 patterned after similar legislation in Florida and Oregon. The basic concept of this public policy approach is to provide people with a means to legitimately defend themselves during the brief time period between when a life threat emerges and the arrival of authorities. In the case of Killeen, Dr. Suzanna Gratia was almost in position to stop the attacker thus cutting short the murder process. One of the victims of Killeen, she was within fifty feet of the handgun that could have saved both her parent's lives and the lives of others. It was in her car, legal in Texas, because she obeyed the law that prevented her from taking it with her into Luby's Cafeteria. Both of her parents shot before her eyes. Her mother as she shielded her dying husband's body. The lost opportunity to have saved more than "just one life" is undeniable. Bear in mind that the right of legitimate defense is a fundamental principle of Texas law; however, at Killeen there was no way to get to this right without first violating some other intervening regulatory statute. The same condition exists in California both in terms of the existence of the right of legitimate defense and of structural impediments. Creating a well structured pathway to this right was the objective of H.1976. As of this writing, H.1976 has been killed by Governor Ann Richards despite popular support from both the public and the Texas legislature. Governor Richards' stated position for opposing this public policy alternative stems from a lack of confidence in the individual responsibility of the people of Texas; a concern that does not seem well founded given the positive experiences of similarly structured CCW laws in other states. The net effect is that Texans aren't any safer against irrational random attack at this time either. At least their grass roots solution was targeted at the problem at hand. Post-San Francisco: What Now? It's California's turn again. Third time around for us if we count the early warning we got years ago at that MacDonald's in San Diego. Are we ready to start dealing with this yet? The people of Texas, like the people of Florida and Oregon before them, have at least been open enough to consider all alternatives. It's time California was bold enough to do the same. After all, if it can save "just one life", it's worth it. Isn't it? *************************************************************** Dennis Santiago is a Southern California resident and businessman. He directs the "Crime Deterrence Modeling Project"; a private effort to adapt US strategic deterrence policy analysis methods to deal with domestic issues.