There are a lot of dangerous people walking around. Not all of them are malevolent, of course. I've known a few former SF and SEAL guys who could kill me just as soon as look at me without any remorse, but they weren't interested in doing so because I wasn't a threat. They're dangerous, but not malevolent.
But malevolent people are inherently dangerous, and one just got caught before he could do anything.
How? That's pretty simple. Most people planning something violent don't just go about their lives perfectly normal until the day they decide to kill everyone in a given place. They do things that often raise the eyebrows of those around them.
The issue is that most people don't want to think someone they know is capable of that kind of evil. Yet, when they do, things happen for the better, as appears to potentially have been the case recently.
Police in Northern California say a possible school shooting was prevented due to a tip line that led to the detainment of a student who shared questionable material online.
Police in Menlo-Atherton received a tip from its "Say Something" tip line on Sept. 10 that indicated a former student at an area high school had posted concerning content to Instagram referencing the high school.
Police locked down the Menlo-Atherton High School campus in addition to a nearby middle school for an hour until the student was located and weapons were recovered from the home. The investigation is ongoing, police say.
"Say Something" is an anonymous reporting system created by Sandy Hook Promise, a Connecticut-based organization that advocates for solutions to gun violence in schools. The organization said the Menlo-Atherton incident is the 19th "credible planned" school attack nationwide" the system has prevented since its launch in 2018. About 5,000 school districts partner with the organization and tips are accepted via a mobile app, text, phone, or through a website.
Now, Sandy Hook Promise is an anti-gun organization, so I'm not exactly the biggest fan, but this is something they got right.
Over the years, I've covered a lot of potential mass murders that were stopped simply because someone saw something funky and reported it. It was investigated, and the would-be killer was stopped before anyone could get hurt.
Having an easy way to report these things that's pretty easy is useful.
Of course, no one has to use their tip line. You can just inform the police, and they'll look into it. If they don't, they know it's their butts if a mass shooting happens, so they're likely to take it seriously.
Or you live in Uvalde.
Keep this in mind the next time someone starts telling you how we need red flag laws to stop these killings. We don't. We just need people to report the behavior that precedes these shootings. We need better education on exactly what kind of behavior--other than buying a few guns, mind you--precedes these horrific crimes.
People need to know what to look out for, then take action when they notice things.
It's no different than calling the police when you see some creep hanging out near your neighbor's daughter's window. You call and let the police look into it and see if there's anything to be concerned about.
But you also make sure you have the means to do something if that creep starts trying to hurt the girl when her parents aren't home.
Mass public shootings don't have to happen. It's the one thing I agree with anti-gunners on. The problem is that they keep ignoring the people carrying these things out, when that's exactly where we need to focus our attention. It's just too bad they keep getting all of the attention with their nonsense.
