Mo Better Brooks: Republican Hero of the Day

Mo Brooks wins my nomination for the Most Inspiring Republican of the Day (MIRD or Merde, as the French would say). Somebody rated him only the 75th most conservative in Congress, which must be something of a slap in the face  for a representative from the 5th District of Alabama, to be told there are 74 members of Congress more conservative than he is.

Famous for identifying the "War on Whites," which is a scheme concocted  by Mr. Barack Obama in 2008. Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and now Mr. Brooks, all discovering undeclared, sneaky wars which might have escaped our notice, were it not for the vigilance of the Right: the war on Christmas, the war on Terror, the war on Drugs. These Tea Party types just find wars under every haystack.

Apparently, Mr. Brooks uncovered the secret memo from Mr. Obama and dutifully exposed the nefarious plot:

: "Well, this is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party... And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It's part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, creed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things."  (Wikipedia)

"All those kinds of things,"  that's Alabama for "and all like that," just to cover anything he couldn't think of at the time, which, you know, is bad. 

Mr. Brooks wants to send all the illegal immigrants home, or at least just get rid of them somehow.

But today he wins special distinction because he wants to impeach Hillary Clinton. It may be Mr. Brooks has not heard that Ms. Clinton has not yet been elected, not to mention nominated. But if she is, day one, Mr. Brooks will introduce a resolution of impeachment  because of her ill behavior related to emails or something related to putting Americans at risk at Benghazi or somewhere in Libya--the details are cloudy but the general principle is hard core.  This would be a historic move: impeaching a President for offenses committed before she ever reached office--retroactive high crimes and misdemeanors. If that doesn't work, he might try "conspiracy" to commit HC&M, because, you know, she must have thought about it. 

Mr. Brooks opposes stem cell research, abortion, Ombama care, Social Security (which he says people ought to be able to convert to investments of their own choosing, because you know the average citizen of North Alabama is way smarter about money than those liberal bureaucrats in Washington) and, although nobody seems to have asked him, you just know this has to be a man who fears fluoridated water.

He also would like to call out all the "socialists" in Congress who he knows are skulking about but he cannot yet identify specifically. 

As is true of many Southern Republicans who rail against socialism and government regulation and the heavy hand of government, (that federal government which first swept down into Alabama with Sherman, Grant, Hooker, Sheridan and all those nasty invaders,) the federal government, it turns out,  is the largest employer in Congressman Brooks's district. 

Before 1933, the Northern Alabama counties were characteristically poor, white and rural. The Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) arrival changed much of that, slowly transforming the demographic towards technical and engineering employees. The second major project was the space and rocketry programs includingRedstone Arsenal in Huntsville where the first large U.S. Ballistic missiles were developed. Additionally, NASA built the Marshall Space Flight Center in the Huntsville-Decatur area during the 1960s. In the late 1950s Northern Alabama came to be dominated by the high-tech and engineering industries, a trend which has continued up to the present. In recent years, the United Launch Alliance has located its research center in Decatur. As a result, Huntsville has become the second largest and fastest growing metropolitan area in Alabama.(Wikipedia)

So Rep. Brooks's  constituents have been suckling at the teat of the federal government avariciously for decades, while sending to Congress their man to complain about out of control federal spending. The Tennessee Valley Authority! Wasn't that a plot by that Socialist, Franklin Delano Roosevelt to electrify rural areas or something? Wasn't that part of the pinko, commie New Deal plot?

Apparently, all federal spending is bad, except what the government spends in Alabama. If socialism is a form of centralized government which provides the income and support for its citizens, there is likely no more socialistic society in the United States than the 5th Alabama district, where the centralized, socialist,  federal government is the largest employer. 

No wonder Mr. Brooks is sensitive about socialism. 

And he's the first to tell you:  All this spending and borrowing is sending us straight to bankruptcy, except when it happens in Alabama, mostly in the 5th District.

And this is a college educated man, who is making this argument:  He graduated with high honors from Duke University, something Duke will eventually have to answer for. 

To his credit, he thinks we should have pulled out of Afghanistan the day after we killed Osama Bin Laden, which, I am guessing, he credits to the heroic Navy Seals who acted despite  withering interference of that ultimate of federal government officials, President Obama. 

I'm now searching for who the 74th most conservative member of Congress might be. Ought to be a doozy. If he is half as interesting as Mr. Brooks, it will be well worth the time to listen to what he has to say.

Why Should New Hampshire Go First?

Hampton, NH 

Finally reached the point in "West Wing" where Jimmy Smits gets to New Hampshire, as he starts his campaign to be President. He is immediately confronted with an 8 year old quote, when he said what so many others have said: New Hampshire is about as unrepresentative of the rest of the country as any state can be; why should our elections, our choice of candidates emanate from here? The state is overwhelmingly white. It's biggest "city" is Manchester, little more than a recovering mill town. It is legal to walk on to  any property in the state, including private yards, as long as you have a gun and can claim to be hunting, unless the property has "no hunting" signs posted. You can shoot across any road in New Hampshire (save eight specifically named exception--including I-95) if you are shooting at a deer on the other side. There is no income tax and no sales tax and the biggest newspaper is the Manchester Union Leader, made famous by the reactionary William Loeb.

Of course, this creates good moments of dramatic tension, as the much offended New Hampshire voters react to this Hispanic from Texas telling them they are irrelevant and possibly anomalous. 

I have not yet seen how this plays out, how Aaron Sorkin resolves this, but that doesn't stop me from fantasizing about how I'd like to see it play out.

Smits complains he is wasting his time sitting in living rooms with these whitebread citizens, when all he wants to do is give speeches to big arenas about big ideas, like the idea the federal government should focus on and guide a restructuring of American education, beginning with lengthening the school year from 180 to 240 days (as Japan and Russia have done) and eliminating tenure and security for school teachers.

Ice Pond, NH

The first couple he meets resists both ideas: The man says he was educated well with the 180 day school year and his wife says her sister is a school teacher and she is underpaid but at least she doesn't have to meet a quarterly earnings report, so that keeps her in the profession.

Smits begins to answer the question but never says what I'd love to hear him say, which would address, in stages the two big questions here:
1/ What is the value of retail politics as opposed to wholesale politics?
2/ What about our educational system makes it a federal concern and a national priority?

Plaice Cove, Hampton, NH

The answer to the first is to show how the candidate, who thinks he knows the answers is changed when he has to defend his ideas one on one, as you might with your tutor at Oxford. In Washington, if "West Wing"  is correct, politicians engage in constant debates with their staff and with their colleagues about issues like education, but the direction and perspective is always "what will win?"  In New Hampshire, the voter does not care whether or not he is representative. He cares about how a new idea will work in his own life. 

If I were writing "WW," Smits would be told the expedient of counting the number of days in class may be an easy metric, but it is meaningless unless the time in class can be shown to be better, educationally, than the time in the hammock during the summer, when kids of a certain socioeconomic status actually learn a great deal, arguably more than they learn in class during the school year. 

Winnacunnet Street, Hampton

Personally, I read Huckleberry Finn, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, The Iliad and The Odyssey, Little Women, A Stillness at Appomattox and many others, swinging in the hammock by Lake Winnipesaukee.  I didn't realize I was learning anything. It was pure pleasure, but for reasons I did not understand at the time, my parents never bothered me to do chores when they saw me immersed in these books.  My friends learned how to change a carburetor or to wire a room during summer breaks. A lot of learning went on, I would submit, outside the classroom. 

Of course, I imagine, some kids spent their summers selling drugs on street corners and dodging bullets and would have been better off in school. But some lucky rich kids accompanied their parents to Rome, London, Lisbon, Berlin. Some toured Auschwitz or the Louvre, or saw Ann Frank's house in Amsterdam. They were not wasting their time, educationally.

As for the idea of eliminating dead wood among the ranks of teachers, Smits reassured the wife that her sister would do better once tenure was eliminated because good teachers would be rewarded. Why protect all those dullards who seek teaching positions because they are secure, and then just bide time until retirement, protected from ever having to improve or to really challenge their students?

I certainly saw teachers in the distressed schools of Washington, D.C. and even in the affluent and blessed schools of Bethesda, Maryland who fit the description of "those who cannot do, teach." These were the adults teaching and judging our children and it was a testimony to the power and effectiveness of highly motivated families that these kids managed to learn and achieve despite their public school teachers, rather than because of them. 

President Obama's idea, that we can judge the effectiveness of teachers by the performance of their students on standardized exams is very likely wrong, especially in current practice. What the performance of the students reflects has less to do with the effectiveness of their teachers than it has to do with the drive of their parents. 

The Walt Whitman High school in Bethesda, Maryland has for 50 years sent 95% of it's graduates to college, 40 out of 500 graduates to Ivy League Schools, another 60 to Duke, Stanford, Swartmore and that ilk, with mean SAT scores above that of  the freshman classes at most Ivy League schools. Ruthless competition, tiger moms and dads, the place made the Bronx High School of Science look like Romper Room.  Faculties changed over this period and, from all reports, the faculties which passed through the school over that time had its stars, but, for the most part, was decidedly mediocre. Few of Whitman's teachers had degrees from schools as prestigious as the schools where their students were headed. (Not that the brand name on your diploma means that much, but when you are talking about academics, it may be relevant.)  

North Hampton, Along Rout 1A

But, in President Obama's scheme, the teachers at Whitman would have been highly rewarded for the success of their students, where the teachers across the District Line at Wilson High School would have been fired. And the fact is, Wilson HS had many very fine, dedicated, imaginative teachers, who had to deal with kids from broken families where just getting the kid out of the door in the morning was a success, and nobody did much homework when they got home. The teachers at Whitman could have gone on a three year sabbatical  and their students would have done just fine, scored high on their SAT's and aced every other standardized measure. Their parents were paying for Kaplan SAT prep courses and tutors. 

If all that could be thrown at the Jimmy Smits character, then the value of having his ideas challenged and the change it wrought in him would be fun to see.

And he might say that even though the New Hampshire voters lack diversity, they make up for that in engagement and thoughtfulness.  Better to have a white bread electorate who really care about politics and public policy, who talk about it at the hardware store, the Dunkin Donuts, and the dump than a diverse group of voters in Texas who care more about Friday night football and NASCAR.

New Hampshire voters understand that 180 days of school in 1965 might have been fine before the economy went global, but now it's a different world and economies which depend on factories may be left behind by economies which thrive on programming and innovation. 

Exeter, NH

In 1957 the world changed for American kids. The Russians stunned the world by putting a Sputnik satellite into space. Some Americans scoffed at this as a "stunt" of no practical significance. What good were satellites? The Russians still could not build automobiles or pave roads. 

Can you imagine our world today without Satellites and all that flowed from them:  GPS and the internet? 

Government policies in the United States changed on a dime, after Sputnik. The Soviets were pumping out more engineers and scientists every year than we were and science curriculum and faculties at universities doing scientific research were the beneficiaries.  That Sputnik was the best thing that had happened to American education that century. 

Beach Bungalows, North Hampton, NH

There is no such headline today, but politicians, as they tread through the snows of New Hampshire can make their case town hall by town hall and get the conversation started. Hard to do that in a diverse and more populous state like Maryland or Pennsylvania or Texas.  A state like New Hampshire can be the laboratory for national ideas.

Politicians cannot justify taking time off for a year at Oxford thinking critically about policy, but they can justify the Rhodes scholarship surrogate which is the experience of defending their ideas to the skeptical, admittedly homogeneous, rooted, irascible, polite, subversive, engaged citizens of New Hampshire. 

Relishing the Hatred of Enemies

Last night, I read the speech FDR gave in which that famous line, "I ask you judge me by the enemies I have made," comes up, at the very end of his remarks. 

It is a little eerie reading that speech today, because it was delivered in 1932, 73 years ago, and yet it is so current--it could be given, almost for the same reasons, today.

He was speaking in Portland, Oregon about efforts to make the electric companies into utilities and he was laying down the justification for the creation of utilities and the concept of utilities.  When you think about it, the idea of a utility is sort of an anti capitalistic thing. You are taking a private company and saying, "You can produce your electricity, you can run your railroad, you can provide your water to the public but you cannot charge whatever you like and you will be controlled and regulated by the government."

What a socialistic, communistic idea! Donald Trump would be turning crimson. Rush Limbaugh would be fulminating and frothing at the mouth. The very idea! Here you have that highest of all economic forms, the private corporation being told it cannot charge what it likes for its products and services. 

Roosevelt begins by going back to King James of England and his problem with ferry services at English rivers. Roads at the time of his reign ran to the river's edge but then a ferry was needed to allow travelers and commerce to proceed. The service of ferrying was vital to the economy and to functioning of the people.  But the ferry services constituted a monopoly, just as, in 19th century America, the railroads did. The land the railroads traversed was sold to oligarchs at fire sale prices and then the railroad barons had the American traveling public by the throat.  So the railroads were, eventually, brought under control of anti monopoly, anti trust law.

Now, Roosevelt was arguing, electricity was in the same position. He pointed out that in Canada each household used three times as much electricity as in America because the people in Canada controlled access to electric power but in America progress was being thwarted by the strangle hold the electric power companies held to control the costs, delivery and development of electricity and the electric grid. He argued that whenever the interests of the many came into conflict with the interests of the few, the principle should be the greatest good for the greatest number.

Bernie Sanders, who Donald Trump calls a "communist" is arguing the same thing. He is a direct descendant of  FDR.

Roosevelt carefully constructs his argument, about something which seems so self evident today--that the good of the whole is more important than serving the narrow interest of the few--you wonder why he even needed to make the point. But, as someone once said, if you are going to lie, the big lie is easiest to sell. So if you are Rush or Donald, you say it's more important, on principle, to mold your rules to the benefit of the upper 1% than it is to serve the interests of the lower 90%.  This is, after all, a matter of "playing by the rules."  

Of course, as Bernie Sanders has noted, the rules are rigged. Rigged by the rule makers who are bought and owned by the 1%. 

Liberals now call themselves "progressives."  But oh, how little progress we have made, when it comes to thought.

Fortunately, FDR persuaded the nation electricity was too important to be left in the hands of a few rich men. Can you imagine what our nation would be like today if FDR had lost that argument?

Can you imagine what America will be like in 73 years if Donald Trump or any of the Republican bullies wins the argument today?

Enemies Lists: Finally We've Got Warriors

Iranians, Republicans.

"I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made."
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt


When Anderson Cooper asked the candidates which enemies they were proudest to have made, he clearly caught the five off guard. Lincoln Chafee had the misfortune to have to answer first and he stumbled but gamely proposed the coal industry.

The Coal Industry

Martin O'Malley had a moment to collect his thoughts, while Chafee stammered, and he came up with a decisive simply three letter answer, "The NRA."  It was part of O'Malley's strong performance, characterized by clarity and decisiveness.

The NRA

Bernie Sanders said he'd made enemies of the oligarchs on Wall Street and he was probably correct and he was echoing Roosevelt who had made the same enemies and was considered a traitor to his class.  Earlier, Sanders had claimed he was the only one on the stage who was not a billionaire and nobody challenged that, which got me thinking.

Wall Street Tycoons

Jim Webb trotted out his lame red neck answer that he was proud to have made an enemy of the Viet Cong who had lobbed a grenade at him but that Cong was no longer around, thus claiming the mantle of tough guy pick up truck Joe Six pack frat boy. 

A dead Viet Cong.

Hillary answered, the NRA, the Iranians, the pharmaceutical industry, the health insurers but ultimately, "the Republicans."

Haven't seen the Fox bimbo/hyena reaction yet, but you know they are going to gleefully invoke the umbrage taken by the enemies of Richard Nixon who inveighed against a President compiling a list of worthy American citizens who he considered "enemies."  No American President should consider his loyal opposition as "enemies."  Other Americans, enemies. How outrageous.

Yet Roosevelt relished the notion.  "I welcome their hatred," Roosevelt said of the tycoons who reviled him. He did not mince words. He was a warrior and he knew he was in a battle. 

Until now Democrats, Hillary included, have been too timid to admit politics is a blood sport. Now she's come alive and she seems to enjoy the battle. I hope she does not back down when this gets thrown at her in the upcoming Republican hearings.

"Ms. Clinton, do you consider the Republican members of this committee enemies, to be lumped into the same category as Iranians? Do you consider insurance company executives as loathsome as Iranians?"

Here's my fantasy for her answer:

"I was asked whose enmity I had no regrets about, and the very existence of this farce of a committee hearing, this witch hunt,  should be ample evidence that I have been treated as an enemy. Your own Republican majority leader has admitted these proceedings have nothing to do with seeking the truth but everything to do with deflating my own poll numbers. That is not the behavior of a loyal opposition. That is the behavior of a group which has vilified me, which has treated me as an enemy. I am only acknowledging a self evident fact. And yes, I welcome your hatred. You are my best advertising for what is wrong with your pathetic party which has lost its soul to the Tea Party." 

Oh, would you not love to see that?  And, after last night, seeing the fire in her eye, I would not put it past Hillary. 

You go lady. 

Democratic Debate: And Then There Were Three

The best debate ever. Well, maybe the best debate since the  Lincoln-Douglas debates, but I wasn't around for that.

Surprisingly, after all the glitz and attempts at glamour and jazzing things up by the CNN designers, when Anderson Cooper finally started zipping questions at each candidate, the debate lurched ahead full throttle, as electric as a championship fight. It was as riveting as Ali-Frazier and nearly as bloody, but clean punches and well fought.

The guys on the periphery (Webb and Chafee) remained on the periphery, and deservedly so, and may not have been treated fairly, but they did not help themselves--Webb in particular, when asked who the enemy he is proudest of having made went for the Viet Cong who threw the grenade at him, and Chafee sort of fizzled, naming the coal companies, but Martin O'Malley got in the straight right to the jaw with "The NRA" and Hillary laughed and said there were just so many to pick from,  and after rattling off a few set up jabs she landed a right cross with "The Republicans."

Oddly, much as I love Bernie and love listening to him, after 2 1/2 hours of listening and watching, I realized much of what Bernie says becomes repetitive and Hillary is actually the one who does not grow old but simply grows stronger and she can punch toe to toe or dance and bob and weave and she is someone I can imagine her standing up to Trump and I can see her as President--a little harder imagining Bernie in that role. I'd love to see him as Treasury Secretary and Martin O'Malley is my pick for VP.

They were all, as Hillary noted, each and every one,  so much better than even the best Republicans.

It was exhilarating, absorbing, gratifying. We do have good people out there willing and eager to sit behind that desk in the Oval Office. 

I'm not sure I'm up to manning a phone bank for Hillary, but I'll work for her in the general election. 

You got to love Bernie for coming to Hillary's defense when Cooper tried zinging her about her emails--Oh, come on, this is a media story nothing anyone out there in the real world cares about. Talk about something that matters and there's plenty of that to talk about.  

Hillary was prepared for the questions about not supporting Glass-Steagal  and she admitted she was the Senator from New York representing Wall Street but she said we have to go beyond regulating banks to regulating all sorts of financial institutions beyond banks. Bernie will be there to hold feet to the fire, but Hillary hung tough.  She is smart and savvy and as she observed, she was in the middle taking flak from all sides, but she would give no ground.

These were Democrats who know how to throw punches, the very thing Democrats have lacked lo these many years. Let's have some warriors.  Take it to Mr. Trump and Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Cruz and Ryan and Rubio and all those idiots.

As Hillary said, whenever you want to fund some worthy idea, the Republicans wail we cannot afford it, and say that's too much government. But when they want to take down Planned Parenthood, Oh, we don't have nearly enough government. 

A bracing night. A good night for Democrats. May there be many more.

A Fresh Face: Donald the Trump

After 8 years of a sleazy, albeit effective, jowly, perspiring President Nixon, voters chose his opposite: the sunny, grinning, toothy, boyish  Jimmy Carter who kept his promise never to lie to the electorate and ultimately alienated them by telling them what they did not want to hear, that the country was afflicted with "malaise." They replaced him with the optimistic Ronald Reagan who told them it was "morning in America."   After 8 years of the historically dim witted George W. Bush, voters were ready for his polar opposite, the cerebral, cool and analytical Barack Obama, who saw nuances which eluded others and who spoke in complex sentences and who assumed his listeners were intelligent, reasonable people who could handle complexity.

Now we have the Donald, who has taken H.L. Menken's advice to heart: Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

I listened to Donald Trump this morning, on my treadmill and came away surprised:

1. He is fun to listen to--not at all agonizing like George W.   He simplifies to the point of incomprehensibility. He told us we have a lot of "stuff" underground, enough to make us energy independent and I thought he was talking about untapped oil and I think he was, for a moment talking about oil,  because he mentioned we just haven't gone looking for "it. " But then he said we have more coal than China and I wound up thinking he was talking about making us energy independent by going back to coal, as if all the problems coal has caused for the environment have never been a problem. Coal for Mr. Trump is a competition thing. The Chinese will use coal for the next 30 years and we should not allow them to beat us at using coal. All the world's a game, for Mr. Trump.

2. He is all for compromise, which in the era of the Tea Party is wonderful to hear coming from a Republican. Of course, he says the way you negotiate is to ask three times what you want and when you get 1/3 you've got what you wanted. He would use this tactic to be tough but smart negotiating with the Chinese, who presumably would never see it coming.

3. He wants to protect Social Security because this is all some people have. Hearing this from a Republican is very refreshing. Of course, the only way he mentions saving social security is for billionaires to refuse accepting their pay outs from Social Security which would save Social Security at least $100,000 a year. 

4. He is still crowing about the crowning achievement of his life in public policy--the building of the Central Park ice skating rink after the mayor of New York, Ed Koch, cried out for help. Actually, Mr. Koch resisted the idea of Trump taking over the project, which had languished for 6 years, but when Koch offered to do it with his own money, if he could have the profits from the adjacent restaurant public pressure mounted and Koch relented.  Trump took over the project which had squandered $13 million of taxpayer money and got a $3 million dollar budget and brought it in under budget complete in 3 months. Trump uses this as the prototypical example of how government cannot do anything but private enterprise can do everything. 

It is true the project had been politicized--the fuel used to refrigerate became a political football; equitable bidding rules  thwarted efficient subcontracting; there was much incentive to milk the project for profit by contractors but Trump had the incentive of making this a poster for his own potency.  It remains, to this day, the only example of his accomplishing anything for the public in the world of civic endeavor, as opposed to building a tower for private profit.


Well, there is one other example:  His other great coup was building a golf course in the South Bronx, across the river from Manhattan, which he extols as just what the South Bronx needed. A golf course. 

There is great appeal to Mr. Trump's vagueness and simplicity. He says Mr. Obama was on TV last night and "bombed" when he talked about ISIS, Syria, the refugee problem. I did not see Mr. Obama last night, but I can imagine in Mr. Trump's eyes Mr. Obama would always "bomb" because Mr. Obama is inclined to see complexities when complexities exist, but for Mr. Trump every knot is a Gordian knot--you have only to draw your sword and slice through it to unravel the knotty problem.

I have not spoken with Nate Silver yet, but I suspect if Mr. Trump ran against Hillary Clinton, he would beat her soundly. The only Democrat who would walk away from a debate with Mr. Trump victorious would be Bernie Sanders. 

Now that's a campaign I'd love to watch. 

And here, Heaven Help me, Maud forgive me, I have to say I have entertained the thought:  I'd rather see President Trump than President Marco Rubio, or President Bush or President Carson or President anyone Republican. The man has the potential to be another Richard Nixon: someone you can despise and dismiss but someone who, if he surrounds himself with a Patrick Moynahan or, Heaven Help Us, a latter day Henry Kissinger, he might actually stumble toward getting some good legislation passed. 

You would think, in a nation of 300 million we could find better choices than what we've got now.

Gun Violence in the United States: What to Do?

Only used once or twice in the past 12 years in mass shootings

Used three times in mass shootings 

The real threat. This is the gun most often used

President Obama expressed the frustration of liberal Americans when he said the latest shootings at the Oregon school were horrifying precisely because they have become so ordinary--oh, just another dozen students and teachers shot at a school or a playground. Oh, hum. What else is new?

 Of course, beheaded bodies by the dozens appear on the streets of Mexico daily but we never see those on CNN. Among well developed "civilized" nations, America stands alone as the home to routine mass murders by psychopaths wielding guns.

The problem is, nobody has any good ideas about how to stop this.  The President has suggested, vaguely, there oughta be a law. John Boehner, predictably blames the lack of a solution on the President--won't it be good to be rid of Mr. Boehner?  Democrats talk about more extensive background checks.  Republicans say we need to arm school teachers.

In medicine, when you have an epidemic, an outbreak of disease, you do epidemiological studies to identify patterns to understand how the disease is spread in hopes of figuring out what to do about it. Actually, the New York TImes did something like this recently, printed out each mass murder since 2013 and showing the guns used and noting when or if the shooter had shown evidence of a psychopathology and whether or not the guns used were obtained legally. For the most part, the guns were acquired legally, would not have been denied to the shooter by current law and the shooter had not eluded psychotherapy but simply was not identified as a likely mass murderer.

So, it appears none of what we have in place works well enough to reliably predict who will "go postal" and nothing works very well to prevent it. 

There are so many guns floating around America--estimates are 250 million guns and 1/3 of all homes have guns--it is hard to imagine we can keep guns out of the hands of maniacs, because all they have to do is break into a neighbor's home if their own home doesn't have a handy supply.

The Tea Party types say it's simple--just arm everyone and soon shooters would be too frightened to start shooting.  Trouble with this is you are dealing with psychopathology and many of these shooters shoot themselves in the end, so fear of the other guy with the gun is not likely to be a deterrent and, in any case, the shooter is likely to do what bank robbers do--they look for the guard with the gun, use surprise to draw first and take out the guard. 

The other argument against the armed population as the best deterrent is there has never been a case, or at least there are only rare instances, of an armed citizen intervening to save his fellow citizens from a shooter.  We have an armed population, and we have lots of guns but they never seem to be in place to save lives when the shooter starts shooting. One of the things shooters seem pretty good at is the element of surprise. They look around to be sure nobody present can stop them before they pull out their guns.

As I've mentioned before, the Army is very controlling when it comes to bullets. If you send a soldier to the firing range for target practice, he gets twelve bullets and he must return with 12 spent casings. If he comes back with 11 then hey may be planning to shoot his drill sergeant and he is in trouble and likely headed to the brig.

If only we had such a system for the rest of American society. 

But, the fact is, we do not have a working system. Nobody, not the Democrats in Congress, certainly no the Republicans or their benefactors, the NRA, nor the courts, nor the social workers nor the psychiatrists have any good ideas. 

We have traffic laws and yet we lose, what? Fifty thousand lives a year on the highways?  We just cannot control human behavior down to the lone wolf with the pocket full of Glocks.