Marketing Into The Teeth of a National Tragedy

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by Richard Dennis

It's not just a tragedy. It's a national tragedy. It's riveting. It's 100% incomprehensible, unexplainable, and depressing. It's an event that none of us will ever forget. Ever.

Hi Richard,

The thoughts you've shared are absolutely true, I agree with you 100%.

Let me share a short, personal story...

My late father was near a shooting on a university campus in 2002, where he worked as a professor. The gunman, who was a university student, killed two people, and also shot and injured five others.

My father's office was located in the same building where the gunman shot his victims. We were so worried when we heard about this on the news, and hadn't heard from my father, who was at work when the shooting happened.

Luckily, it turned out that my Dad was okay.

One of my brothers happened to have been a classmate of the student who did the shooting, though he wasn't there when the shooting happened (and my brother didn't know him well).

The gunman was later found to have had psychiatric problems.

(I didn't post about this on Sowpub at the time, since, as you can understand, my emotions were still pretty raw...)

So I know something about what it feels like first hand, at least in that period before you find out your loved ones are okay.

(Here is the Wikipedia page about the shooting I'm referring to - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monash_University_shooting )

In my opinion, I think if someone is determined to commit a mass murder, there's probably not much you can do about it - except for police to try to discover the plan before it happens, and stop it early.

However, the cases that really break my heart are the cases where a young, innocent, naive kid gets hold of a gun, then accidentally shoots his brother, sister, or himself. (From what I can tell, it seems to almost always be boys who do the shooting, rather than girls.)

Some (very sad) examples...

https://www.google.com/search?q=boy+accidentally+shoots

Other very sad cases are where a man accidentally shoots his own kid.

https://www.google.com/search?q=man+...lly+shoots+son
https://www.google.com/search?q=man+...hoots+daughter

But what can be done about it? How can we prevent these from happening?

Some good news is that the gun homicide rate in the USA over the last few years has been improving...

However, regarding gun accidents, I have found there are some things that can be done.

I stumbled over this gun safety equipment. It's a modification which can be made to a handgun, such that...

...the gun can only be fired if the person holding the gun is wearing a magnetic ring on his or her finger.

If someone gets the gun, and is not wearing a magnetic ring - the handgun won't fire.

That means that...

• Kids can't grab the gun and accidentally shoot it.
• Nobody else can grab the gun and shoot it, unless they are wearing the magnetic ring.

Here's where you can find out more about it...

http://www.tarnhelm.com/magna-trigge...ty/magna1.html
http://www.tarnhelm.com/magna-trigge.../magtkudo.html

Some further info is available here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Gun

Innovations like this can help reduce some of the tragedies we hear about...

(And yes, there could be business opportunities here - which will also help to save innocent lives...)

Best wishes,

Dien