Businessglitz.com by Alan M. Dershowitz 8/6/2019
President Trump's proposal to "red flag" potential mass shooters is well-meaning. If we could prevent a mass killing in advance by identifying and disarming the potential perpetrator in advance, it would be worthwhile. But do we have the tools to do so, and at what cost to our constitutional rights?
I have studied, taught and written for half a century about the difficulties of predicting violence. My first scientific article, in 1970, was entitled "The Law of Dangerousness: Some Fiction About Predictions," and a subsequent book was titled "Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways" (2006). Research shows that any group of people identified as future violent criminals will contain many more who will not be violent (false positives) than they will (true positives). More true positives mean more false ones. Such groups also fail to identify many future violent criminals (false negatives).
We do not currently have the predictive tools needed to increase the number of true positives while reducing false positives. We may one day develop such tools, but how many false positives are we willing to tolerate until then to reduce the number of false negatives? Put another way: How many law-abiding people are we prepared to steal weapons to prevent another mass shooting?
More:
https://businessglitz.com/us/a-yellow-light-for-red-flag-laws/
