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from the is-there-a-solution-that-is-less-bad-than-the-problem? dept.
If it seems like every week, there's another terrorist attack – well, you're not wrong. According to one crowdsourcing map, there have been over 500 attacks around the world since the start of 2017, with over 3,500 fatalities. For a period in 2016, ISIS-initiated attacks were occurring, on average, every 84 hours.
Despite improvements in methods and coordination among law enforcement agencies over the past 25 years, they're still hamstrung in a number of ways. With large public gatherings of people becoming more attractive targets for terrorists, what are the best strategies moving forward?
[...] But despite huge budgets and the presence of thousands of added security personnel, it's virtually impossible to prevent a determined terrorist, or guarantee absolute safety. While security efforts for events like the Olympic Games have escalated, terrorists today no longer wait for major events that draw global interest.
[...] The odds are in favor of terrorists. All they have to do is succeed once, no matter how many times they try. For public safety professionals to be fully successful, they have to prevent 100 percent of the terror attempts. It's a number to aspire to, but even the most experienced countries fighting terror – such as Israel and the U.K. – can't measure up to this standard.
[...] These days, it's necessary to consider any place where crowds congregate as vulnerable "soft targets" for the attackers. To better prepare for securing soft targets (and this isn't to say threats against "hard targets," like planes, buildings and infrastructure, have diminished) law enforcement agencies must improve coordination among one another, whether it's via intelligence, information sharing and training. And then there's the need for deconfliction, which refers to avoiding self-defeating behavior – from interagency rivalries and poor communication to insufficient coordination – by people who are on the same side.
[...] Given that there is no way to guarantee complete safety, and that the threat assessment expects more attacks, there are two more elements that ought to receive more attention: community resilience and community policing.
https://theconversation.com/how-can-we-better-protect-crowds-from-terrorism-78443
[Related]:
1996 Atlanta Olympic Games: https://www.britannica.com/event/Atlanta-Olympic-Games-bombing-of-1996
Secure Airport Design: https://skift.com/2016/07/04/how-smart-airport-design-can-make-spaces-more-secure/
Do you agree with this assessment of the security situation ? What do you think could be done to mitigate the effects of such asymmetric warfare ?
(Score: 4, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday June 05 2017, @12:29AM (24 children)
So, one country proves what? Is the US the outlier? Rwanda, South Africa, Syria all have guns galore, and, oh, yes, lots of deaths.
Switzerland shows how far the US has to go to qualify as "civilized"
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Touché) by oakgrove on Monday June 05 2017, @01:06AM (9 children)
Subtract the gun violence perpetrated by non-whites and the US is one of the safest countries in the world. Ahead of many European countries including places like Finland.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday June 05 2017, @03:18AM (1 child)
So, those bullets, fired by those "non-whites": do they only kill "non-whites", or are "whites" just as dead, after being shot?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @12:45PM
Take a look at the weekly crime statistics for Chicago, the majority of the violent deaths as black-on-black.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 05 2017, @06:30AM (5 children)
Is there any source on that? sounds interesting.
(Score: 1) by oakgrove on Monday June 05 2017, @09:15AM (4 children)
It's tough to find all the numbers since the doj has a habit of lumping Hispanics in as white but according to this [fbi.gov], in 2013 non-hispanic and whites of a non-determinant ethnicity (which actually overinflates the real number) committed 2,473 murders with a population (in 2012) of 197,243,423 [wikipedia.org] for a rate of about 1.25 per 100,000. According to this [wikipedia.org], the 2013 murder rate in Findland was 1.66 per 100,000.
Hopefully I got all the numbers right as I'm tablet posting in bed.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 05 2017, @11:20AM (3 children)
Those numbers speaks volumes.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @12:56PM (2 children)
I know, right?
That works out to 99.998% of whites who are not murderers. That's pretty good, right?
Ooops, my bad, its actually 99.998% of non-whites.
For whites it is 99.999%.
HUGE difference, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @01:44PM (1 child)
You are a fucking idiot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @02:37PM
Do you feel better now?
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Monday June 05 2017, @09:01AM
Where did you get that from?
1. subtract the crimes perpetrated by a third of the population in a European country, and suddenly that country is one of the safest in the world.
2. Is "gun violence" the one thing that makes things unsafe in the USA?
You'd have no worries about knives, or just about a group without weapons ganging up on you?
3. Safe for whom?
4. Wouldn't this be a reason to regulate guns?
You're arguing that guns end up in the hands of the wrong people.... the obvious fix to that is to prevent that from happening as much as possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @01:38AM (1 child)
That there is no inherent correlation between gun ownership and gun violence.
The logical extrapolation is that, rather than addressing the very beneficial practice of gun ownership, you should be addressing the problem with violence and irresponsible attitudes towards guns.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @02:04AM
The question is whether or not we're better served by having such free access to it or not and both Australia and the UK are better data points as you can compare just the effect of firearms without changes in the culture.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday June 05 2017, @02:08AM (11 children)
In the US most gun violence happens where guns are prohibited.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @03:42AM (10 children)
Lol, that doesn't even pass the laugh test.
Do you think all the gang shootings happen in gun-free zones?
Or all the shootings in commission of crimes?
Or all the suicides?
Hell, not even a majority of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones - shooters don't pick easy targets, they pick targets that are connected to their rage, typically "going postal" where they work.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday June 05 2017, @07:00AM (2 children)
You obviously haven't done any research.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @12:59PM
Are you seriously trying to convince us that robbery and gang shootings happen in gun-free zones?
REALLY?
OK. Give us ONE citation, even a half-assed practically made up citation from a super biased pro-gun website.
Go ahead.
You can't. Because not even the nuttiest gun nuts are that stupid.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @04:13PM
Another day, another workplace mass shooting in a full-gun zone. [foxnews.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 05 2017, @01:41PM (6 children)
Technically guns aren't prohibited in NYC or Chicago but mhajicek is practically correct in general.
You can draw a nice graph of "amount of gun control" vs "amount of gun violence" and they correlate pretty strongly.
For example its virtually impossible to legally own or buy a gun in Chicago its extremely heavily controlled for 3 million or so Chicago residents and crime rates are spectacular.
Yet you go north to Wisconsin with twice as many people where guns are about as easy to buy off the shelf (and conceal carry) as popcorn and despite there being about twice as many people, WI has a murder rate about a thousand times lower, and even lower if you exclude the slum areas of Milwaukee.
Generally speaking as advice to foreigners visiting the USA if its impossible to legally purchase guns and ammo where you're visiting, then its a dangerous as hell place to be and you should GTFO as rapidly as possible, but if the local walmart has bricks of .22 LR ammo on the shelves next to the soup cans and you can cash and carry firearms from the gun store down the street, then its basically a zero crime area and you probably don't have to lock your doors etc.
Its generally a truism in the USA that if the police have to enforce weird gun control laws then its a very dangerous and violent location but if there are no gun laws then the police do nothing all day but issue speeding tickets and spend all night chasing meth/alcohol users and the occasional domestic dispute (also usually alcohol inspired)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @02:33PM (5 children)
Lolwut? Wisconsin has twice the population density of Chicago or NYC?
More alt-facts, eh?
You can draw a nice graph of population density vs amount of gun violence they correlate even more strongly.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @03:05PM (4 children)
Yeah, I hypothesis that:
Population Density causes crime, including gun violence.
Gun violence induces people to "do something" which causes gun restrictions, which generally don't help much.
This would account for the high correlations observed, as well as removing any causal relationship with regard to laws affecting rates of violence (either way). Then again, it is merely my working hypothesis, and I don't have the money or time to do testing.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 05 2017, @03:26PM (2 children)
If you want to make a "new urbanist" really cry, instead of all this gun foolishness just solve the problem at the source and zone/regulate suburban level low density living for the sake of reducing crime. Obviously the problem can't be the kind of people who live in cities, the problem must be the city population density itself, so as a human rights violation we must demolish the cities. I'm down with that in theory although I like the idea of keeping cities as a "containment zone" for problematic people. Contaminating the rural areas isn't going to fix anything.
I find the density argument rather bogus but I'm willing to run with it for the LOLs.
So put a criminal in solitary confinement and they're not magically cured although they were alone which supposedly matters.
Or for that matter it implies having the family over for a birthday party somehow magically quadruples the crime rate. Well, maybe, for some families, trivial stuff like back yard noise violations if the party runs late, or parking violations because of all the cars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @04:08PM (1 child)
I find you rather bogus and I've got at least as much evidence to back up my beliefs as you do yours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @07:21PM
The difference is that VLM wants to be left alone with the means to take care of himself, whereas you want to violently render VLM and everyone else helpless (except for those pesky criminals which always seem to have ways to harm others regardless of "legal" restrictions).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @04:06PM