
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?


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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.

