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Reducing Gun Violence


President Obama’s 23 proposals to curb gun violence sparked an obvious thought. In the minds of sane people, the President is trying to curb gun violence in sensible ways. As many commentators have pointed out, banning assault weapons or other types of guns will not get them off the streets. There are almost 300 million (give or take a couple of million) in the hands of Americans.
This post is focused on getting guns off the streets in ways that are legal and consistent with American values. So, I just gave you a challenge and two rules for what counts as a good idea. Yes, I know “getting guns off the streets” does not seem like a valid approach to many people.

I’m going to address that challenge with a lateral thinking tool called provocation. Provocation just represents a way of forcing us out of our normal mode of thinking, with the hope that new ideas will emerge. Several methods of provocation exist. I am just going to use the basic random word type of provocation. Turning randomly to a page in the dictionary, I find the word “mop”. Here then is a creative thinking challenge: Getting guns off the streets po mop (po = provocative operation)
I had the following thoughts about mops:

1. Old-fashioned way to clean the floor

2. Mops and buckets are messy and gross

3. Wooden handles

4. School janitors use them

5. Sold in most grocery stores
6. Cleaning up wet and (some) dry spills

 Take a minute to think about each thing on the list. Do you get any ideas on how to get guns off the streets?   Give it a try; the sillier your idea, the better. The third item makes me wonder if guns could be exchanged for muskets and flintlock pistols. Some enterprising philanthropists could fund a program like this.
Item 1 made me think of an old-school approach:  Police could search anyone known to be barred from owning a gun. This would only happen if the person were being investigated for some other reason. The person’s car and home could be searched as well. This idea raises civil liberty concerns, but could be used in some way. Or, police could get suspects to rat out friends and relatives who have illegal guns. There could be a reward offered. 

Yeah, I realize those ideas need work. What did you come up with?

And one last thing: What if gun owners could barter for other, non-lethal personal protection items like alarms, pepper spray, and stun guns.
I could have used a list of words like the one in Michael Michalko’s Thinkertoys or a list of activities.
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  1. hoiMay 31, 2017 at 5:03 PM

    I stumbled across your blogs by googling and I'm very impressed! Great posts you write with good tips :)

    ReplyDelete

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