The Navy and the FBI fucked up

[alc]

61. what would it take to stop things like this? finding under 10 in over 300,000,000 people

Aurora, Sandy Hook, Boston Marathon, the Navy Yard. Not sure what I missed over the last 2 years but we're talking about less than 10 mass killers in a country of well over 300 million (there have been many more "mass killings" by definition but these seem to be a different kind). They didn't all use guns and I'd guess that if they couldn't get guns most would have caused as much death and injury in other ways if their goal was to kill.

The fact is that with 300 million people there are many sick/evil individuals. And most of them don't cause any trouble. Many other people act in a way that will cause suspicion but they are no threat and never will be.

What can the government realistically do to identify and stop 0.0000001% of the population?

How many deserving people won't get secret clearance? Or even jobs that don't require clearance?

How many innocent people will need to be stopped or detained when entering an event or building?

How many people would would never cause trouble will need to be institutionalized since they meet a profile saying they may do something like this?

How much law enforcement effort will be needed to monitor the people who "may" do something like this? What other crimes will they not be investigating?

Would "we" be satisfied to stop 2 of the 4 killings I mentioned above? Even stopping 2 of the 4 would result in 100s of 1000s or millions of "false positives" a year (rough guess based on my marketing data mining experience). Identifying all 4 before they act is virtually impossible. Every one of those false positives would need to be investigated and a large percentage monitored continually (or locked up if that's what it takes). Look at the no-fly list if you want an idea of how "tightly" they can identify potential criminals and how many false positives result.

What "triggers" in the 4 events I mentioned would you recommend the government uses to profile - background, purchases, travel, friends, other? The location, targets, methods, motives, and weapons differed to at least some degree in all 4 as well as the killers' backgrounds. Whatever you pick to identify them, think about how many other law-abiding citizens do the exact same thing every day? It may be easy to look back and say "we should have know". But looking forward to identify the next one is very different - that requires profiling, massive tracking (not just data collection and surveillance), lots of false positives, and inconveniencing almost everyone daily. If your answer is "guns" what do you do to stop the next Boston? And why wouldn't the other 3 have used crock pots if they couldn't get guns?

I'd love to stop all of these killing. But I don't see any way without significant changes to society and unacceptable power given to the government. 0.0000001% of the population committed these crimes. And 0.000001% of the population was harmed (directly). I know it sounds cruel, but I have to ask how much time and money should the government put into "fixing" this problem? How much privacy should we give up when it's all but impossible to stop every such event? And there are so many issues that affect millions of times as many people that will not get time and money if it's transferred to stopping these acts?