I'm Thinking of a Number - Part II
The massacre in Virginia provokes wonderment. Where was the Department of Homeland Security? How can someone with a record for mental instability buy a glock with about as much ease as buying tickets to a basketball game? And what can be done to prevent this from happening again?
As to the first question: The answer is that the Department of Homeland Security is indeed impotent. Hurricane Katrina established that. It was only public pressure that caused the department to increase border security and shipping container verification.
As to the second question: I think enough Americans believe that the Second Amendment guarantees them the right to have their kids blow off their heads that I don't think that there will be any new gun restrictions. Not even the Democrats want to play around this third rail of politics. The human mind is still largely terra incognita. and predicitng violence is at best an imperfect science.
What can be done to prevent this from happening again? While Americans value their freedom, their are stronger countervailing trends, such as the trends towards diversity, mobility, computerization, and terrorism. I predict we will see shortly a behavior score, much like the credit scoring neural nets used by credit card issuers, that will be part of an individual's existence from the day they are born or immigrate into this country to the day they die or leave this country. This number will be the focus of interlocking databases consisting of crime and psychological reports and perhaps other kinds of reports that would throw up red flags and at least communciate more information than gun sellers now get. It will be the creation of a true permanent record. From a civil liberties perspective, I don't view this as likely soon, but it is inevitable-- something that society will embrace to by acclamation. Already, we are photographed about twenty times each day, and software now exists to cross-reference and correlate face image and behavior. I don't believe the presumption for civil liberties and privacy will prevail against the demand for increased security. The United States of the future is the People's Republic of China today.
As to the first question: The answer is that the Department of Homeland Security is indeed impotent. Hurricane Katrina established that. It was only public pressure that caused the department to increase border security and shipping container verification.
As to the second question: I think enough Americans believe that the Second Amendment guarantees them the right to have their kids blow off their heads that I don't think that there will be any new gun restrictions. Not even the Democrats want to play around this third rail of politics. The human mind is still largely terra incognita. and predicitng violence is at best an imperfect science.
What can be done to prevent this from happening again? While Americans value their freedom, their are stronger countervailing trends, such as the trends towards diversity, mobility, computerization, and terrorism. I predict we will see shortly a behavior score, much like the credit scoring neural nets used by credit card issuers, that will be part of an individual's existence from the day they are born or immigrate into this country to the day they die or leave this country. This number will be the focus of interlocking databases consisting of crime and psychological reports and perhaps other kinds of reports that would throw up red flags and at least communciate more information than gun sellers now get. It will be the creation of a true permanent record. From a civil liberties perspective, I don't view this as likely soon, but it is inevitable-- something that society will embrace to by acclamation. Already, we are photographed about twenty times each day, and software now exists to cross-reference and correlate face image and behavior. I don't believe the presumption for civil liberties and privacy will prevail against the demand for increased security. The United States of the future is the People's Republic of China today.
Labels: crime
posted by My Mall and News at
5:08 PM
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