This daily hubbub about North Korea is getting kind of ridiculous. Is there really nothing else to sensationalize in the world? No circus trials? No elections? Nothing?

News media seems to think that war from North Korea is inevitable, if one is to believe the continually-escalating scary reports we’ve been subjected to of the escalations happening there.

In this NBC News story they say, “North Korea’s standing military, according to the best U.S. and U.N. intelligence assessments, is the fourth largest in the world, at 1.1 million members.” I’m assuming this is supposed to scare us into thinking they could actually do some serious damage in an invasion. We’re to imagine wave after wave of men pouring over hills, screaming, shooting, blowing up everything in their path, perhaps like going “over the top” in a World War I charge.

I’m not a military expert, but I’m pretty sure wars aren’t fought that way any more. In fact I could easily imagine a U.S. commander looking at a field full of charging men with rifles and cackling gleefully about calling in airstrikes to wipe out the entire enemy army all in one afternoon.

I think nowadays the men in an army mostly serve to operate the vehicles and machinery of war. And given North Korea’s desperate poorness, I doubt they have much of that. If they do, it’s all old hardware, and we saw (twice) how Sadaam fared with old military hardware against a modern military.

Speaking of which, does anyone else remember similar statements about Iraq’s military before the Gulf War? I’d swear I remember we were told they had a frightening million-man army back then, too. Let’s just say it didn’t really work out for them.

I while back I saw that the USPS is going to stop Saturday delivery. It doesn’t say when it will stop, but I think that’s awesome. Now they just need to work on stopping mail delivery Monday through Friday, too.

Because I personally have no reason to receive paper mail anymore. I barely even look at what comes out of my mailbox before dropping it into a recycle bag. I think it would be awesome if I could opt-out of mail service entirely. If someone needs to send me a document, they can send an email. If they need to send me a package, they can UPS or Fedex it.

Here are a few more subjects that require commentary, beyond Meaningful Action and Sigh.

First I want to mention Thinking The Unthinkable, the widely circulated article that you may know better from its alternate, more SEO-friendly title, I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother. It’s a beautifully-written essay that vividly portrays the problems of raising children with mental health issues.

But.

I didn’t share it or comment on it because I am skeptical about it. Nobody, I mean nobody, asked the simple question, “Is this story actually true?” It was widely reported in fairly mainstream publications, and nobody made the slightest attempt to contact that author to do even a cursory verification or get more information. I read some of the other blog posts on her site, and noticed rather quickly that her latest post was quite different from the others. I would have thought that this author would have mentioned her troubled son at least in passing before. So I am waiting on a Snopes investigation on that one.

That aside, I think the article makes an extremely valid point, but I don’t know what the answer is.

This just in: Apparently she was on Today today in a carefully-controlled interview. So I guess it really was a real person and a real post. Now she’s in a Mommy Blog War with other moms. God help her.

The rest of this post is about how to solve this issue once and for all so it never happens again. (Spoiler alert: We can’t.)

I get that everyone is outraged and frustrated. I get that everyone thinks they have the perfect solution, but chances are, you’re not thinking straight and not thinking long-term. I know this from 20 years of software development experience. If you have an idea and just jump in and do it without thinking it through, you’ll probably run into a brick wall somewhere down the line and end up having to start over.

And yes, software development and dealing with the problems of modern society are exactly equivalent. Exactly I say!

On armed civilians: “This tragedy wouldn’t have happened if there had been armed civilians in the school.” This argument comes up after virtually every shooting, even though it’s quite rare to find accounts where armed civilians actually made a difference in mass shootings. (I can think of none offhand, but I vaguely recall an incident where someone got a gun out of their car and did something useful.) Now I don’t know anything about the layout of this school or the exact circumstances of the shooting (as far as I know, there has not been any comprehensive non-speculative report on what exactly happened) so this is pure conjecture. But suppose for a moment that one of those teachers had a concealed carry permit and had a loaded revolver at the ready. (I’m pretty sure that’s not legal in CT, but I might be wrong.)

I’ll grant that it’s possible this hypothetical teacher could have stopped the shooter at some point. This hypothetical teacher wouldn’t have known to do anything until the first shots were already fired, so of course s/he couldn’t have prevented all casualties. He or she would have had to have had the presence of mind to run toward the shooting, line up a shot–at relatively close range, under fire, from a semi-automatic rifle–and pull the trigger one or more times. And keep in mind the shooter was reportedly wearing a bullet-proof vest, which, if true, indicates he had considered the possibility that he might encounter resistance. True, a shot to a bullet-proof vest is probably going to hurt and maybe knock the guy down, but our hypothetical teacher would have then had to have had the sense to run up and shoot him in the head, because this guy is probably just going to get right back up and keep shooting. Again, it’s possible this hypothetical teacher could have stopped the shooter. But it’s far from the certainty that people would like to think. Unless our hypothetical teacher happened to be a combat veteran, I would guess that he or she would not have had the training and experience necessary to act coolly in a terrifying fog of war. The whole event took place in about fifteen minutes, if reports can be believed. And don’t forget it’s also possible our hypothetical teacher could have shot another teacher or a child by accident in the confusion.

Again, it’s possible an armed civilian could have stopped the shooter – but is it likely? I’m unconvinced.

And to be clear, I still think I should be able to buy a gun.

On armed guards: “This tragedy wouldn’t have happened if there had been armed police or security guards prominently on display in the school.” Okay, yes, this is much more likely to be true than the other argument, but the shooter probably would have simply moved on to another target. Which is great for the school, but not so great for whoever didn’t happen to be surrounded by armed guards for protection. And consider this: If the shooter meant to attack that particular school for whatever reason, remember he was prepared for resistance. Reports indicate that he was an intelligent person, so he might well have scoped out the exact positions of the guards, their patterns, their weaknesses, etc. He could still have caused quite a bit of damage. Any person determined to do harm is probably going to find a way to do some harm.

Okay so we agree that armed guards probably would have stopped it. Now let’s discuss the practicality of having armed guards at every school. Where are all these people going to come from? Sure, maybe it would provide much-needed jobs to a bunch of unemployed people (something I actually overheard), but do we really want to hand a bunch of loaded weapons to people who can’t otherwise get a job? And who’s going to pay their salaries? Hint: You and me. How much will we need to raise taxes to pay for that? Where are these weapons coming from? Who’s going to train them? We’ve already seen how the federal government handles a nationwide security project in the TSA–do we want to see them try to do that in schools? Besides, this is probably more in the jurisdiction of the local school boards anyway. Those people can’t even agree on a curriculum–you think they can agree on the logistics of armed guards?

And on a more philosophical note, I’d like to comment on what it would be like to live in a police state where armed guards need to patrol every elementary school in order for everyone to feel safe. Well, no, actually I don’t want to comment on that.

By now you probably think I’m for more gun control. But do I really think more gun control laws would have prevented this tragedy? Nope. No law can prevent people from being flawed human beings, and no law can eradicate every source of guns, like the black market or private traders or criminals.

Speaking of flaws, I do wonder if the shooter’s mother (who allegedly owned all of the guns) had these weapons properly secured. Most of the gun owners I know keep their arsenal in some kind of safe. But still, you need at least one gun out and loaded for home defense emergencies otherwise it’s kind of pointless to have them at all. In any case, we don’t know any details yet. It probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. This wasn’t a random act of opportunity.

By the way, I overheard that gun stores are swamped again by people buying up stock before some possible new gun laws come into effect. I live in a virtual Wild West when it comes to guns, though, so it’s probably not like that everywhere. No, actually, it probably is. Remember the Twinkies?

I was pretty disappointed when I read reports that Obama had called for “meaningful action” following the shooting tragedy Friday. If you’re not familiar with the lively debate over the Second Amendment in this country, those words mean that he is planning to push through tough new laws to take away our rights to arm ourselves. It was disappointing to hear him say that, because I have always enjoyed giggling when I hear fear-mongerers misguidedly ascribe a radical left-wing communist agenda to the Obama regime.

I particularly enjoyed giggling when everyone sprinted to their local gun store to stock up on handguns after he was first elected, fearing he would ban all firearms on his first day of office. I’m pretty sure this happens whenever a Democrat is elected. As it turned out, he passed no radical left-wing gun control laws in his first four years, which is not very surprising since presidents can’t make laws. I expected the same for the next four years, but this talk of “meaningful action” disturbed me.

Until I finally sat down and actually watched the president’s brief news conference from Friday. As usual, the headlines gave a rather inaccurate portrayal of what he said.

First of all, Obama looked like hell. What a sucky job it must be to be president.

Second of all, the exact words he (or his speechwriter) used were, “…these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children, and we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this regardless of the politics.”

That is a classic example of a statement from a politician that can be interpreted fifty thousand different ways and ultimately makes no promises or commitments in any direction. If you’re against guns, you could hear that and think, “Yeah! More guns off the streets!” If you’re for guns, you could hear that and think, “Yeah! Armed men in every classroom!”

Ultimately, I doubt there will be any meaningful action from the president. As for Congress, though… who knows?