There are, I think, three regular commenters on Ethics Alarms who extend all the way back to Ethics Scoreboard days, or pre-2012. One of them is Tim Levier, who unlike the other two, I have actually met while I was in his state of Colorado. Tim posted the following on my Facebook page, and I invited him to cross-post here. In his post, he addresses the “do something!” lament that appears to be thoroughly rotting the brains of our leaders in both parties as they hustle to pander to the emotional responses to the Orlando tragedy. Tim wrote a younger friend about what somethings he would do, and not all of them are relevant to guns. They all, however, are relevant to building a society in which fewer people might choose to start shooting strangers.

Here is Tim’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Hero: Mother Jones Pundit Kevin Drum.“

I’m 35 and was recently talking with someone slightly younger. He had the standard call for ideas to check the “do something” box. After I did some jumping jacks to show that I did something, I buckled down and wrote some ideas.

Now, I’m usually accustomed to reading some constitutional murky stuff, so I veered a different direction. Below is my list as I wrote it to him, perhaps there’s something in it that speaks to people. My 4 ideas for improvement (not solutions, because solutions don’t exist.):

Idea #1

I’ll tell you that the #1 thing I would like to see in this country (give me some slack here, I believe everything is connected), given the state of health care…

I’d like to see a 3 tier system of medical insurance & payments. (Tier 3 will be the part that relates back.)

Tier 1: Primary Care / General Practitioners. No insurance. These doctors run their offices and clinics on a cash only basis. Drive the cost of common tests for strep and other infection down to an affordable amount.

Tier 2: Injury Care / Specialists. Insurance based. Break an arm, need stitches. Xrays, MRIs, CT scans, cancer & diseases.

Tier 3: Mental Health / Therapy Care. Government Based. Anyone at any time can seek counsel at no additional cost from mental health professionals.

Idea #2

Here’s the harder sell. I can’t organize my thoughts terribly well in a coherent way, but see if you can follow, 2 issue explanations, then 1 idea:

Issue 1: There’s been a swing away from organized religion. (Full Disclosure: I’m quite agnostic/atheist) Say what you will about religion (it’s evil, stupid, corrupt) but it certainly helps people in crisis and teaches them respect for life. We have in the last 50 years finally accepted that people don’t want religion in their lives, but we haven’t given them anything as replacement.

Issue 2: We’ve come up in quite the time, you and I. We can tell someone what a vinyl record is and we can work modern technology with easy. We’ve also seen how new technology disrupts. I’m willing to bet you’ve seen “the pattern”. With all of this new consumer technology, the pattern is essentially that we become so engrossed with it that we abuse it until a problem develops. A) Texting / Distracted B) Cable TV / TV always on C) Video Games / Detached D) Instant News Sites / Mindless, etc etc etc. Technology is supposed to enhance experiences not substitute them.

We’re leading some pretty empty lives and it’s mostly because we haven’t figured out how to incorporate an appropriate amount of resources, leaving a good chunk of it behind and enriching our own lives. It leads to people living in an echo chamber and having a disassociation from reality.

Idea: Education needs reform, and not the way a lot of people think. We put so much focus on high intelligence concepts with little focus on how to live. Practical education. We should revive Home Economics for financial planning, cooking, baking, woodworking, household repairs, how things work, how to solve problems, how insurance works, how renting and mortgages work, how retirement works, medical insurance, etc etc etc. We aren’t building functional members of society with our education system. We’re trying to figure out who is the smartest and advance them through different levels of attrition so that maybe one day, 1 person can make a difference.

Here’s the rub with this idea. It needs to include some controversial modules. The value of life being one of them. It doesn’t have to be religious in nature, but we need to communicate how petty some things can be in relation to the grand scheme. A module on firearms would also be appropriate. I think every High School has a dedicated school resource officer. I think they should team up with a firearm instructor each semester to teach a week-long class to every junior about firearm safety, maintenance, handling. The worst that could happen is that we create a society of well informed individuals who can talk on even terms to discuss the best step forward.

Idea #3

I still come back to a strong desire for better statistics and reporting. It’s easily the #1 thing we can do now with no muss, no fuss. FBI doesn’t even track and categorize Officer Involved Shootings (OIS). There’s no reporting requirements at all.

To date, this year, 526 people have been killed at the hands of trained law enforcement professionals and there’s no indication if any of those deaths were justified, if all of them were justified, or what percentage was justified.

Every single person killed by firearm should be chronicled.

1) Was it an accident?
2) Did they shoot themselves? (suicide)
3) Were they shot by LE? w/ Justified/Unjustified
4) Were they shot by a civilian? w/ Justified/Unjustified
5) Were they shot by someone they knew?
6) Were they considered bystander?
7) Were they indiscriminately targeted? <–True Mass Shooting

The inability of our society to put pencil to paper to outline these easily identifiable criteria only suggests that there will be complete inaction to otherwise impact gun regulations.

Idea #4

I’ve talked about my ideas that are indirect to firearms. Well, here are my ideas that are closer to firearms. This time though, I’m not going to offer my deep thought explanations, I’m just going to place them here and see what others find intriguing.

1) Legalize in every state and jurisdiction concealed carry w/o permit.

2) Restrict open carry in every state and jurisdiction to permit holders (generally an application to local sheriff)

3) Quit demonizing people for carrying and asking them to leave establishments. Cater to them, offer a gun check if necessary.

4) Education Education Education