Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BC) recognized early what Frederick Douglass (February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) later told us:

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

We have yet, at least in the fields of Emergency Management and Law Enforcement, to realize that, until we greatly expand our vision of how to CHANGE (not simply manage) events such as Active Assailants/Shooters, we will still fall well short of what is possible in terms of transforming society toward one that is far less conducive to men wishing to effect violence upon their fellow human beings.

We can lock doors differently, train dispatchers differently, purchase the latest tactical go-bags, purchase all manner of gunshot detection technology, don our Police in camouflage (which apparently helps our urban police to shoot better), and create the slickest active assailant/shooter response plans. We can mitigate and prepare until the cows come home.

And still, at the same time, if something else is not consciously done with society, with boys, with girls, with men, with women, then we are just managing the situation and not really doing anything to transform it in a more positive direction, a direction in which active assailant/shooter events (and violence in general) decrease in frequency. If that’s what it is with which we’re happy, then fine.

I’m not happy with that.

There is more that can be done. And it is done upstream. Way more upstream than our current models envision.

Until later…