Killing The Killer, Before the Killer Kills somebody, if We Can, Which We Can't

IT HAD BEEN A LONG TIME since an American mass murder. We were due, tragically. A dysfunctional society will produce dysfunctional results at a rate which is probably predictable using algorithmic methods. They average, what, about every few weeks? A mass murder is defined as a murder in which at least three people are murdered. Accordingly, there is at least one such event every day in the U.S., and there is one involving dozens of victims every few weeks, or every few months. This one rises immediately to first place in killing efficiency, ahead of Pulse, Sandy Hook, and Virginia Tech. They can be expected to become increasingly frequent and deadly, as techniques are perfected, as will-be killers study and learn from their predecessors. What can we do, other than heal the anger and alienation pervasive in American culture, and either arm everyone, or disarm everyone. Your guess is as good as anyone's. Let us consider the argument that American society would be safer if good citizens carried weapons in public. Suppose someone in the Los Vegas crowd had been in possession of a weapon Sunday night. What good would it have done? Suppose everyone had been in possession of a firearm, twenty five thousand armed country music fans, ready to stop crime in its tracks, revved up by songs about pick up trucks, dogs, guns, beer, ammo, and girls in Daisy Dukes. How long would it have taken someone in the crowd, one person, a good well intentioned well armed citizen, to find the man doing the shooting, up there on the thirty second floor of the hotel next door? Probably longer than it took the killer to empty his ammo into the crowd, and kill himself. Probably longer than it will take the hundreds of injured victims to recover and return to a full and healthy life. Suppose everyone had been armed, twenty five thousand good republican conservative second amendment NRA citizen defenders. They all, in theory, would have been skinning their smoke wagons, looking for a shooter, aiming, ready to fire. They all would have seen each other, weapons drawn. Most if not all of them, hearts racing, feeling the urgent need to do something, most likely would have seen the shooter in an adjacent row, at the end of the isle, in the seat right down the row, or this person, or that person, one of them, since they all are holding weapons, making eye contact, with weapons pointed. What would likely have ensued is a shoot out the likes of which never were seen in a Clint Eastwood or Bruce Willis movie, or a video game. Twenty five thousand dead folks at the scene, the victims of mass panic, self protection, and good intentions. The real killer, looking down from the thirty second floor of his room, amazed that the crowd is cooperating so completely, doing his work for him, smiling. I reckon I'd rather go to a concert where nobody had an automatic or a semi automatic, and take my chances that the one bad guy way up above all alone with a gun will jam his weapon, miss, trip and fall, get a phone call, or spontaneously aim at himself.