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Ask HN: How can we use technology to prevent domestic mass murder?

9 points by notoriginal ↗ HN
Instead of the oft-discussed political and sociological solutions, how can we as engineers use technology to minimize the damage of mass murders or prevent their occurrence, in a way that respects individual freedoms?

Edit: Remember that guns aren't the only medium through which these acts are carried out.

25 comments

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gmuslera
You are asking for precrime. Is ripe for abuse, and will be badly abused. Less technology (as in "weapons", the availability of lethal ones and the culture about having/using them) is more probable that have an impact.
notoriginal
I am not necessarily asking for thoughtcrime, if that's what you mean. Technology is ripe for benefits and abuse. It's all about the manner in which it is used. For example, can we use sensors and networking on mobile devices to create a distributed system to reliably detect traces of bomb chemicals in the air?
gmuslera
Pre-crime, like in Minority Report, predicting somewhat that someone "will" commit a crime and jail him before it does. Even if he wasn't going to do it, or was just incriminated.

Regarding bomb chemicals or helper devices, most mass killing were using guns that god forbids if you complain about someone having the right to have them. And you can make bombs with common household items (i.e. cleaning products) and use i.e. pressure cookers as devices. The possibility of false possitives, or even discretionary false possitives is too big.

And still will remain the problem that you are giving even more power to the ones that do that control. No one watches the watchers.

duncan_bayne
"Instead of the oft-discussed political and sociological solutions, how can we as engineers use technology to minimize the damage of mass murders or prevent their occurrence, in a way that respects individual freedoms?"

Well, there are several problems with handguns that lead to people being reluctant to carry them:

- weight

- size

- expense

- safety (esp. accidental discharges, collateral damage, over-penetration)

- lethality (as separate from stopping power; imagine the ideal as a fictional gun that always stops an attacker but almost never kills him or her, like a Star Trek phaser set to stun)

I'm not sure how many of those are amenable to fixing. But if you could come up with something akin to a phaser, at a good price, that could be safely carried by a large subset of the population I think you'd be on to a winner.

"What does your startup do?"

"We're the Tesla of handguns"

:)

saluki
This would be a great option, non-lethal stopping force, that is small, less expensive, safer to carry, repeat shots, integrated so 911 is alerted so police can come to the area right away to sort things out provide assistance.

teslaguns.com/phaser

duncan_bayne
Alerting is a great idea. Unless you've set the device to 'range' mode, it automatically contacts emergency services with GPS-determined location, 30 seconds after firing.

30 seconds gives you time to switch it to range mode if you're at the range and forgot :)

Plus a camera, streaming. Starts uploading video and audio the moment it's out of its holster.

duncan_bayne
You could put a bunch of smarts in it too. RFID reader to prevent use by someone other than the owner. Maybe even geo-fencing to prevent it from being fired somewhere it shouldn't be.
duncan_bayne
Re. 'non-lethal', though, bear in mind there's no such guarantee. I think 'less-lethal' is the term of art.

E.g. assuming the thing is somewhat like a Taser, good luck if you shoot someone with a weak heart, or a pacemaker. Or maybe your target falls badly and dies from a head injury. Or falls off something. Etc. etc. etc.

This is why self-defense is a moral imperative. There is no way to employ force against someone without risking his or her death.

insoluble
If technology were employed (carefully) to enact more thorough and appropriate justice for all citizens, there may be less of the type of anger that leads to violent crimes and other social problems. The current justice system focuses too heavily on after-the-fact heavy-hitting crimes -- where an individual is harmed a great deal in a short period of time. But what about all the micro-crimes that many people commit over and over, hundreds or more times over the years? The justice system is, for the most part, completely oblivious in this respect. After all, how can you try a person for micro-crimes?

If instead, there were some God-like technology that watched for micro-crimes and compensated the victims in micro-payments (or something to that effect), it could really help to make reality more fair and just. Naturally the micro-payments would be funded by the perpetrators.

On another note, many mass murders are committed by people who have been essentially outcast from society in one way or another. If these people had someone to talk to about their problems or perceived social issues (real or otherwise), it could probably do some real good. An intelligent AI could serve this role. In fact, good AI friends might be sufficient alone to prevent many such murders.

Now, this is not to say that such a technology is anywhere near possible at this point in time. Nevertheless, I feel it is callous and completely inappropriate to look at things like mass murder without considering the sociological circumstances that lead to such events. The same type of thinking that makes people disregard murderers as non-humans is exactly the type of thinking that can lead someone to murder. There is a fine line to hypocrisy here.

codeonfire
People should carry weapons with them. Engineers can make smaller, lighter, safer, and less lethal weapons. It has to have the stopping power of a gun, capacity to be useful in a long firefight, and it needs to be readily accessible. The problem is not much is going to match a gun. Schools could install gun detectors or have armed guards, but they will cheap out and not do anything. People need to learn to defend themselves. In most mass shootings, anti-gun people want to blame availability of guns. But what about the ability to walk into a school with six guns unchallenged?
forgotpasswd3x
I'd like to think we can progress as a society to a point where a person doesn't have to carry a weapon at all times to protect themselves.
codeonfire
Yeah, it sucks being alive, but having to sometimes defend oneself will always be a part of it. The only society where no one has to carry a weapon is one where everyone is physically separated all the time.
stephenr
In all mass shootings pro-gun people blindly ignore that first world countries with gun control are proof that it's a sound approach.
miguelrochefort
The vast majority of mass shootings take place in places where guns are not allowed. This seems to indicate that guns are actually good at preventing mass shootings.

Finland and Norway have restrictive gun control, yet they're responsible for far more mass shooting fatalities per capita than the USA. How do you explain that?

drugsAreBad0001
Do you really think someone who's prepared to DIE gives two shits about your laws? Did you also forget that murder is already illegal? You want to criminalize the criminal so he doesn't commit a crime? That worked so well for drugs, nobody ever uses those anymore...

Laws only affect those willing to follow them, and guess what? Criminals by definition aren't.

Also can people stop acting like 'the black market' is this foreign place that you have to know a secret code to get in? For christ's sake, it's 2015, you don't even have to LEAVE YOUR HOUSE to buy an un-registered, unmarked, illegal firearm, but sure, the people buying them legally are the problem.

Bad people will always have guns, suggesting a ban is basically telling everyone who has defended their own life with a firearm (myself included) that they deserve to be dead, and well, my response to that would be pretty vulgar.

seiji
possesses a cranial weapon implant (known as a "skull gun"),
LarryMade2
Probably some method to help the people before they get to the point of doing violence. Many of which are experiencing some sort of distress that has not been addressed.
tmaly
changes to HIPPA laws in the US would go a long way towards making data available to predict potential issues. In many states, purchase of a weapon requires that you state you are not clinically depressed. Due to HIPPA laws, there is no way to verify this. Also, there was a story on HN recently about the results of studies on certain psych meds that were hidden by the companies producing the medicines. If a medicine causes a violent reaction, it would make sense to know if someone on the medicine is trying to purchase a weapon. Again the HIPPA laws in the US prevent this.
DanBC
Most perpetrators of mass shootings (more than 4 people shot) do not have a diagnosable mental illness. Certainly most of them are not taking psychiatric meds.

Have you looked at each perpetrator of the nearly 300 mass shootings in the US this year?

tmaly
kid from Newtown was on meds
DanBC
That's one person. How about the other 293 (real number, not an exageration) mass shootings this year?
matt_s
I think that is the point tmaly was making, there isn't a data source anyone can use to actually verify or assess the 293 because of HIPAA laws.
duncan_bayne
"Most perpetrators of mass shootings (more than 4 people shot) do not have a diagnosable mental illness."

It's almost like there's an unwillingness to use the E-word to describe them.

"No sane person would do that."

"No, no good person would do that. Sane mass murders are evil."

matt_s
How about RFID chips (or something like that) in all firearms? And long range scanners that can detect said RFID-like chips. Make it embedded in a crucial part of the firing system (firing pin or something) so that if that part is removed then the gun becomes a doorstop. As you can tell, I don't know if this is technically feasible but hey its an idea.

Have long range scanners put into public areas susceptible to these types of attacks - schools, malls, movie theaters, etc.

Automatic notification to police when a scanner picks it up - noting the distance from the scan location, make/model of weapon and direction weapon is travelling in. Maybe scale the notifications - dispatch only for 1 weapon, if 2 or more are detected in same vicinity then direct notification to all patrol and to dispatch?

For example if it is a college campus, it could detect the firearm(s) a few minutes before a malicious minded person gets to where they are going to start something. If that few minutes allows responders to get there in time, then it could be prevented.