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I would disagree that surveillance is "fairly useless". Obviously, there are times when keeping a watch on potentially dangerous people is going to pay off. H

I would disagree that surveillance is "fairly useless". Obviously, there are times when keeping a watch on potentially dangerous people is going to pay off. How many times, I can't say. The problems begin when we have a process-bound bureaucracy rather than a group of smart people, each acting on hunches and excellent information. Bureaucracies can be composed of smart people yet act stupidly. Also, there are political mandates that certain minorities not be singled out, e.g. the Muslims. Thus, the fact that the three involved in San Bernardino were Muslims did not come into play until well after the shooting. The initial news articles I saw didn't even mention their ethnicities and religious affiliations; even the conservative Wall Street Journal only mentioned it at the very end, and the fact that Marquez was a recent convert to Islam didn't come out until recently.

Retric 11y ago
In fiction hunches work well, in the real world there far less valuable. In terms of mass shootings Muslims are far from the most common profile. Seung-Hui Cho aged 23 for example killed 32 people and wounded 17 in VT on April 16, 2007. Jeffrey Weise, a 16-year-old killed 10 in Red Lake, Minnesota. 21 died at Columbine. Go though: http://timelines.latimes.com/deadliest-shooting-rampages/ http://timelines.latimes.com/deadliest-shooting-rampages/ they don't really fit just 1 or 2 profiles.
- beagle3 11y ago
  Actually, there's a recurring theme among the non-muslim ones: Age 15-25 and taking antidepressants. The only reference I can find on a quick google is ZeroHedge ("The conspiracy site without the conspiracies"), but I've actually looked at some of the references in the past: It's not random. [0] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-17/antidepressants-scientifically-linked-violent-behavior-youth http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-17/antidepressants-sci...
  - Retric 11y ago
    Not really the page I linked had ~10 people age 40+: age 36 SEPT. 28, 2012 Andrew Engeldinger 6 killed, 2 injured age 43 APRIL 2, 2012 7 killed, 3 injured: Oakland age 41 OCT. 12, 2011 Scott Dekraai, 8 killed, 1 injured: Seal Beach, Calif. age 34 AUG. 3, 2010 Omar S. Thornton, 6 killed, 11 injured: Tucson, Ariz. age 45 FEB. 12, 2010 Amy Bishop 45: 3 killed, 3 wounded: Huntsville, Ala. age 39 November 5, 2009 Nidal Malik Hasan: fatally shooting 13 people and injuring more than 30 Sure, you could say it's mostly 14-45 but that's true for most criminals and not that useful. And even just on that page there is Gian Luigi Ferri, age 55 JULY 1, 1993
    - beagle3 11y ago
      Do you know why they listed these specifically? All the title says is "here are some of the deadliest ..." Even if you don't subscribe to the "more than once a day" statistic (which does include gang violence), it's still "about once a week" in 2015 for non-gang completely-innocent random victims -- and yet, this page lists only about 5 a year.
      - Retric 11y ago
        If you talking about 5 or fewer people being involved then it's not exactly a mass shooting. And at that point you might as well start looking into car accidents or even jaywalking and realize untreated depressed people are younger and simply do less stuff. So, even a successful treatment without side effects is going to look bad on a lot of violent crime statistics. something something heatmap. https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/
- blisterpeanuts 11y ago
  Mass murderers in the U.S. are typically the mentally ill. There are many markers: isolated, anti-social, history of mental illness, "neighbors considered him a little strange", family who are fully aware ("we always feared this would happen" or "he scared us"). Of course, you can't just go pick up every strange person and lock them away, or 20% of us might be incarcerated. But we can definitely have better scrutiny of sociopathic children in junior high and high school, and steer them into treatment that might help protect them from hurting themselves and others. We've gone from excessive incarceration back in the 1950s to inadequate attention to the mentally ill since the 1970s, when the flawed policy of mainstreaming became popular. The Columbine massacre was perpetrated by two disturbed boys whose families suspected something. Afterwards one of their dads said "That sounds like him." Well, if you suspected violence, why didn't you do something about it sooner? The other kind of mass murderers today are ideology-driven Muslims. 3,000 on 9/11. Dozens at a Texas base. 14 in San Bernardino. I suspect there will be many more coming. These people are quite possibly mentally ill, sociopathic, something wrong upstairs. The ideology gives them a focus for their delusions. We don't need to go after Muslims in general; we need to focus on the unstable ones who are headed for trouble. It's going to take clear heads and a lot of work, and in my opinion the very worst approach is to sweep all these problems under the carpet and simply tap everyone's phone and email. That's just an evasion and confers a dangerous sense of complacence.

Retric 11y ago

In fiction hunches work well, in the real world there far less valuable. In terms of mass shootings Muslims are far from the most common profile. Seung-Hui Cho aged 23 for example killed 32 people and wounded 17 in VT on April 16, 2007. Jeffrey Weise, a 16-year-old killed 10 in Red Lake, Minnesota. 21 died at Columbine. Go though: http://timelines.latimes.com/deadliest-shooting-rampages/ http://timelines.latimes.com/deadliest-shooting-rampages/ they don't really fit just 1 or 2 profiles.

beagle3 11y ago
Actually, there's a recurring theme among the non-muslim ones: Age 15-25 and taking antidepressants. The only reference I can find on a quick google is ZeroHedge ("The conspiracy site without the conspiracies"), but I've actually looked at some of the references in the past: It's not random. [0] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-17/antidepressants-scientifically-linked-violent-behavior-youth http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-17/antidepressants-sci...
- Retric 11y ago
  Not really the page I linked had ~10 people age 40+: age 36 SEPT. 28, 2012 Andrew Engeldinger 6 killed, 2 injured age 43 APRIL 2, 2012 7 killed, 3 injured: Oakland age 41 OCT. 12, 2011 Scott Dekraai, 8 killed, 1 injured: Seal Beach, Calif. age 34 AUG. 3, 2010 Omar S. Thornton, 6 killed, 11 injured: Tucson, Ariz. age 45 FEB. 12, 2010 Amy Bishop 45: 3 killed, 3 wounded: Huntsville, Ala. age 39 November 5, 2009 Nidal Malik Hasan: fatally shooting 13 people and injuring more than 30 Sure, you could say it's mostly 14-45 but that's true for most criminals and not that useful. And even just on that page there is Gian Luigi Ferri, age 55 JULY 1, 1993
  - beagle3 11y ago
    Do you know why they listed these specifically? All the title says is "here are some of the deadliest ..." Even if you don't subscribe to the "more than once a day" statistic (which does include gang violence), it's still "about once a week" in 2015 for non-gang completely-innocent random victims -- and yet, this page lists only about 5 a year.
    - Retric 11y ago
      If you talking about 5 or fewer people being involved then it's not exactly a mass shooting. And at that point you might as well start looking into car accidents or even jaywalking and realize untreated depressed people are younger and simply do less stuff. So, even a successful treatment without side effects is going to look bad on a lot of violent crime statistics. something something heatmap. https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/
blisterpeanuts 11y ago
Mass murderers in the U.S. are typically the mentally ill. There are many markers: isolated, anti-social, history of mental illness, "neighbors considered him a little strange", family who are fully aware ("we always feared this would happen" or "he scared us"). Of course, you can't just go pick up every strange person and lock them away, or 20% of us might be incarcerated. But we can definitely have better scrutiny of sociopathic children in junior high and high school, and steer them into treatment that might help protect them from hurting themselves and others. We've gone from excessive incarceration back in the 1950s to inadequate attention to the mentally ill since the 1970s, when the flawed policy of mainstreaming became popular. The Columbine massacre was perpetrated by two disturbed boys whose families suspected something. Afterwards one of their dads said "That sounds like him." Well, if you suspected violence, why didn't you do something about it sooner? The other kind of mass murderers today are ideology-driven Muslims. 3,000 on 9/11. Dozens at a Texas base. 14 in San Bernardino. I suspect there will be many more coming. These people are quite possibly mentally ill, sociopathic, something wrong upstairs. The ideology gives them a focus for their delusions. We don't need to go after Muslims in general; we need to focus on the unstable ones who are headed for trouble. It's going to take clear heads and a lot of work, and in my opinion the very worst approach is to sweep all these problems under the carpet and simply tap everyone's phone and email. That's just an evasion and confers a dangerous sense of complacence.