Utica College was placed on lockdown due to 'Credible Threat'
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say any time someone calls the cops to warn them, it's almost without exception NOT a real threat and instead just wanting to get a rise out of people.
Still, I definitely understand covering your bases and reacting as tho the threat is real. (It's better to be trolled 100 times than not act on a real thing once.)
It seems like a kind of "impossible situation" that just shouldn't be a thing, that the trolls would have this kind of leverage on law enforcement. It indicates that there's probably some underlying imbalance that's making the incentives like this.
Radical idea: Stop pretending that forcing people at schools to be unarmed is a good move.
It shouldn't even be complicated or controversial, except I guess there are people out there who don't want to give up on banning guns in general. So they don't want give up on a microcosm of that.
[Even if you want guns to be "banned" or restricted or whatever, I wish more people could admit that special "gun free" carveouts inside a general population that does have guns is the worst of everything and basically just begging for students to be in these situations.]
If you stop forcing schools to be unarmed, you take away the honeypot target in the first place, and cops can be a little less sensitive now that they know the school isn't a sitting duck any time they miss a clue or are a second late. And the equation changes to where it's a lot harder to get such a rise out of people with a phone call.
(Is there still some window of opportunity to troll the police with fake threats? Sure, but it's less, and the other incentives in play like the chance that you get caught doing it will start to outweigh it.)
There's a lot of "we're talking about restrictions and background checks, not banning guns, relax guys, sheesh" attitude out there in the memes these days. As tho it was so foolish that anyone could have gotten the idea that they want to ban them. Okay, really mean it? Let's extend this to people who happen to be inside of schools. Run them thru the background checks, and then they can arm themselves. Right?
By the by, I'm not sure "alert the news, everyone hunker down" is really the sharpest response here.
You can send in a heightened police presence or investigators, plain clothed officers etc, without announcing it to the world (you can respond without playing perfectly into the trolling).
If the threat is real, you want people to evacuate. (At least, if it's me, I'm gonna way prefer to be gone than be ducking under a table.)
It's a real half-measure of a response. You're not actually accomplishing anything with the "lockdown". If anything, their day to day natural activity seems like it would spread them out more and make a shooting spree less easy. (Seems so hard to justify how "stay in one place, but don't leave" would ever make sense.)
So you perfectly feed the trolling but not in a way that really makes anyone safer.
Why even announce to the threat that you're on guard? Game Theory 101. You should prefer he not know you're on guard so that to whatever extent the threat is real, at least he tries it while you're ready for him, rather than he knows to wait a couple weeks and do it while you're not looking.
(You should be on guard without necessarily making it known that you're on guard.)
I'd imagine the thinking is something like "ok, let's put the word out there so that it's known we're responding to it and aren't on the hook for ignoring the threat". They want the perception of acting on it (to cover their own liabilities or perceived liabilities) more than they necessarily want to act on it in the most effective or logical way.
Weird incentives that happen when everyone is so emotional and media-driven.
Yeah, for all we know this is someone who isn't prepared for a test and wants more time to study.
People are going to call me a conspiracy theorist, but I believe the left wants to create these honeypots. I just don't think they are that stupid (at the top). I mean Eric Holder armed El Chapo in the Fast and Furious scandal --which by the way, we might learn more about very soon (breaking news).
They create the honeypot, then say, "Well that didn't work, we need more gun free zones" or "We need to take the guns."
Really excellent point. It looks like they caught the guy. Maybe he's specially needs, and was easy to track immediately. Or maybe he was drunk and on drugs. For whatever reason, he didn't take measures to guard his identity. But I don't know the time table of when the police knew his identity and when they announced the lockdown.
But either way the Police definitely want the good PR, especially after the Coward County police stood down a few weeks ago. They write us tickets and interrupt our lives needlessly all the time so there should be at least perceived benefit to their existence.
I think that's definitely probably likely. And it can happen on various stages of consciousness. When people are quick to wave things off as "conspiracy theories" often I find it's because they aren't really thinking deeply about the incentives and how it evolves and how different things can happen without deliberate coordination. So they think your theory depends on like 5 guys in a smoky room planning it out, but really it can be more about how people respond in real time based on their natural incentives.
Like gun free zones are a good job security for state police. And then the fact that mass shootings would cause television media attention and can be used as a political football etc is embedded into that, and it'll naturally align a lot of different people.
I feel like it's all just kind of the reverberating effects of the state.. like the incentives all spill over to cause violence in other ways
But statists don't understand how their system naturally encourages this stuff so any time you dissect something too closely you'll eventually be guilty of a "conspiracy theory" in their mind
Right, the classic thing of butting in a little to create a problem, then blame the problem on mysterious forces and say they didn't butt in enough.
Interesting. Ya, it seems weird that they would catch him. Like you'd think they'd have their whatever techniques, but you'd think whoever called in the threat would only do it because he felt pretty sure he was hidden. So it should be uncommon that they just catch him. Maybe incapacitated of some sort like you say.
I wonder if there's any chance this is all a setup, like they faked it to make themselves look good and look like the cops are protecting us and gun free zones are fine, look at this orderly response to a threat sort of thing.
I completely agree with you. I believe there is a new law to be signed for teachers to be armed. But its still on negotiation table. It’s frustrating when you see or hear about “no firearm zone” or something like that. It’s only inviting the people who wants to do a harm.
By Constitutional law we still have the right to bear arms. If a teacher is legally allowed to carry and has proper training, then I don't see a problem with it. The reason we allow police officers to pack is because they're trained, so a civilian who's trained should have the same consideration. This would only make the schools safer and not otherwise.
Great post!
Ya! when they talk about gun bans or restrictions, at least it's like "ok, if you think that would actually be effective at stopping bad people from having guns..."
at least you can sort of almost see why they think that
But having these little carveout areas where different rules would apply.. where you basically force schools to admit that they're unarmed.. just shouldn't possibly make sense to anybody
like even if you want there to be a gun ban, you still shouldn't want people at schools to go first.. you shouldn't want to force them to be unarmed when you know the general population isn't
Damn it, imo it should not even be necessary to talk bout that haha. Guns are not making the world a safer place (and especially not schools where kids/juveniles are running "through/around" the house and nearly always act through emotions (anger, upset, hastiness,...)).
Still, you are right at many points dude! (:
Gandalf! I mean obv if you could snap your fingers and make all guns disappear, then the world would be safer. But not being able to do that, and knowing they exist and that some people will have them, do you think the world is a safer place because your forcibly STOP someone from having one?
Obv anyone who has a gun should keep it away from kids or anyone who might use it poorly, just as they'd do with their car keys etc, or they'd be grossly irresponsible and probably liable for what happens.
Of course but that is not possible anyway.
It is but I didnt say that before. I simply said that guns are not the best thing on earth concerning safety. Imo, not everyone should own a gun. And if somebody wants to have one then he has to get a license and go through a test etc. - and naturally it should be more difficult to legally get an (/a semi-) automatic gun than a pistol. But of course you can never be sure that only people with a license own a gun (darknet...).
Long story short: The less guns the better. It is not safer if everyone owns a gun; it is safer if not everyone owns a gun. (;
Yeah that is right!
I mean it definitely should not happen eg. that a five year old boy kills his even younger sister by accident (only cause their parents left a gun on the table or whatsoever). That is absolutely negligent. /:
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"Our money or our life' is a classic threat, and it is one that law is prepared to penalize. The sanction may occasionally do more harm than good, but for the most partthe law’s treatment of such serious threats is sensible. In contrast, “If we do not lower the price of that automobile we hope to buy, wewill never return to this dealership.
That's stunning. Can you go on?
Nice you post my friend
Gob job👍