
Show HN: Don't Name the Shooter - ajiang
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dont-name-the-shooter/ldipcbiihbfjonainibmoiggbolhgodo
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williamle8300
I get the "sexinesss" of denying the person the attention they wanted, but it
doesn't help society. We need to delve into the "whys" and "hows" of the
shooter whenever stuff like this happens.

If we don't know the person's name, or the context of the person it makes us
objectify the person, and as much as we would like to do so... it actually
doesn't help us strengthen the collective wisdom of society to prevent this
from happening again.

Say the person's name.

Get to know his family.

Get to know the years before they became radicalized.

Understand why they believed this was right as perverse as their rationale is.
This is the only potent defense we have against terrorists and their ilk: Grow
your mindfulness about the human condition.

~~~
x1798DE
Why would you need any of this? These kinds of events are sad for the people
involved, but probably not worth spending time trying to figure out, as they
are exceedingly rare and not particularly dangerous compared to other more
mundane ways to die and become injured.

~~~
jmknoll
"These kinds of events are sad for the people involved, but probably not worth
spending time trying to figure out, as they are exceedingly rare."

These events aren't exceedingly rare. Quite the opposite. In fact, the San
Bernadino shooting wasn't even the only mass shooting in the US on December
3rd. IIRC, there has been one mass shooting, on average, every day since the
Sandy Hook shooting in 2012.

More info: [http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2015/12/03/458321777/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2015/12/03/458321777/a-tally-of-mass-shootings-in-the-u-s)

~~~
x1798DE
Number of people killed this year by mass shootings, according to that article
this year: 462

Car accident fatalities per year according to this article[1]: 30000 (500+ per
week) .

Low end estimates of flu deaths per season [2]: 3000

These latter two are not anything you would worry about significantly (they
are not particularly likely to kill you). Why should I care about being killed
in a mass shooting?

[1] [http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-
statistics/fatalit...](http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-
statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview)

[2] [http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-
related_deaths.h...](http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-
related_deaths.htm)

~~~
pnt12
Yes, if the people and governments were less emotional, we could probably
avoid lots of deaths. However, let's not forget this isn't a matter where you
can have only one thing. Researchers can improve cancer tratament while
mechanic, civil and traffic engineers can reduce accidents. I'm not sure who's
more qualified to reduce shootings, but we should also look into that.

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guelo
The reason streaking at sports spectacles is not a thing anymore is because
sports broadcasters refuse to show the streakers on TV or even talk about it
when it happens. It's a form of censorship but it has worked, streaking is
very rare at sports events nowadays.

I think the same effect could work for mass shootings, If all the media
organizations refused to broadcast any info about mass shootings it would
probably reduce the number of incidents. Unfortunately it seems unlikely that
the news industry as a whole would collaborate and agree to censor themselves
in this way, especially since there is a legitimate public danger while the
incident is ongoing. Government is prohibited by the constitution from getting
involved in media censorship so it would have to be done by the media
companies themselves. And of course nowadays we have social media so it's even
harder to enforce any kind of censorship.

~~~
dragonwriter
Streaking in general has become less popular than at its height, even when not
done in contexts that would involve medias attention. I suspect that the drop
in popularity in all contexts is because it was a passing cultural fad that
burned itself out, and that the degree of media attention specifically in
public events with a media presence (which also tends to have large audiences
that aren't viewing through a media filter) had minimal, of any, impact.

~~~
awakeasleep
It didn't help streaking to take it from a harmless prank to something that
can easily put you on the sex offender list and ruin your whole life.

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bm1362
I don't really agree with the value gained from not naming alleged criminals,
it seems like a trivialization of a complex issue.

~~~
caffeinewriter
While I understand and partly agree, some (many?) spree shooters are looking
to live on in infamy, and this is some small form of taking that from them.

~~~
jamesrcole
...and removing an incentive for prospective shooters.

~~~
bm1362
This is obviously something you care about; probably more so than my dissent.
I think that prescribing generalized explanations to human behavior (see
Economics) is a dangerous gamble.

I also believe that the media has the onus to report things correctly, in
full. As a national or international spectator, it may not be important whom
commits these crimes. I was recently living in Seattle when a shooting
happened at Seattle Pacific University. My girlfriend at the time was on
campus when the shooting started and the media frenzy was actually beneficial
for the community.

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bichiliad
I like that you're trying to do some social good with your coding skills, and
I respect that. I do have to agree that it seems a little immature. Maybe
think about other ways you could use this same idea. For example, redacting
the names, rather than replacing them, could show how much attention the media
gives to these people.

~~~
joelrunyon
Agreed. Like the idea, but the execution seems poor. Redacting the names seems
like a simple, comparable and better option.

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iLoch
Interesting to see the amount of disagreement with ajiang's post here on HN.
"Giant douche"? Probably unneeded, it could just be blacked out with the
option to reveal.

With that said, I too believe there's a certain level of infamy that comes
with having your name spread across the nation. I'm sure there's a certain
level of motivation that this gives to potential shooters, and if we can
prevent that then I believe it's the right thing to do. Is it effective to
block yourself? Probably not, but just the same I'd like to be able to say
that I'm doing my part, however small it may be.

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ajiang
Replaces known mass shooting gunmen names with '[Name Redacted]'.

EDIT: Updating to replace gunmen names with something more neutral /
accessible. Japhyr and others make great points on the issue.

EDIT 2: Updated.

~~~
japhyr
You might try a more neutral term like "violent person".

This was an interesting incident to introduce this around, because this is a
rare female shooter. You probably picked that term without thinking about
gender. But now you've got a derogatory name that refers to female anatomy,
being applied to a female shooter in the screenshot I saw.

~~~
ajiang
You make a great point. I'll make an update to change the term to something
more neutral.

~~~
pstuart
Not too neutral. Insulting to the Giant Douche but avoiding NSFW.

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cat-dev-null
Probably store the shooter list in a cacheable json-p url, say hosted in a
github gist, so that changing shooters doesn't require publishing a new
extension. [0]

Right now, it's embedded in a .js file as a variable here (OS X + Chrome):

    
    
        ~'/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Extensions/ldipcbiihbfjonainibmoiggbolhgodo/0.4_0/content.js'
    
    

0: example json-p
[https://gist.githubusercontent.com/csanz/2862350/raw/hey.js](https://gist.githubusercontent.com/csanz/2862350/raw/hey.js)

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threatofrain
Unfortunately I don't believe that the costs are worth it. I'm afraid we're
very myopic about these things, and that we don't think about the processes or
structures in place that censor things. The fact that processes are sticky and
stay past their original purpose.

And like the fact that we want to only discuss, in a vacuum, whether revealing
the names of murderers might cause more murder, and if the answer is yes, then
that's good enough for us. How much more murder are we talking about for the
price of censoring all media? Should anonymous volunteers go on Wikipedia to
erase names of murderers?

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MikeNomad
How does name-calling violent, usually mentally ill people improve things?

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peteretep
Related: [http://pixelambacht.nl/2015/sans-bullshit-
sans/](http://pixelambacht.nl/2015/sans-bullshit-sans/)

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sleepstosanta
Any plans to open-source this on github?

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shitgoose
Safe place?

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srameshc
Makes a statement at least.

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andyl
The shooters in the San Bernadino massacre were Syed Rizwan Farook and his
wife Tashfeen Malik. IMHO it's important to understand their background and
motivations. Know your enemy.

~~~
rs999gti
I don't understand why it's so bad to name the shooter or their background?

