Mass shootings are a design problem

Aaron Travis
14 min readOct 1, 2019

Leveraging empathy and Design Thinking to tackle an American epidemic

Author’s Note: I understand that this is a sensitive topic to cover, but I decided to write this article because I believe that designers have the power to re-frame seemingly intractable problems in new ways, and present solutions that bridge the empathy gap that divides “Us vs. Them.”

“Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
This was an intentionally divisive statement delivered by Democratic presidential Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke after he reiterated his plan for a mandatory buyback program of assault-style rifles during the Democratic Presidential Debates on September 12th, 2019. The line was met with raucous applause by the progressive audience for O’Rourke, whose website was already selling T-shirts featuring the quote.

The opposition seized on the quote as further proof that Progressives want to take away everyone’s guns. It even drew a thinly veiled death threat from Texas lawmaker Brisco Cain, who tweeted “My AR is ready for you Robert Francis.”

This interaction is the latest escalation in what I call the “Outrage / Paranoia Cycle” between progressive gun control advocates and conservative defenders of gun rights. As we experience mass shooting after mass shooting, the same vicious cycle repeats over and over again.

The Outrage / Paranoia Cycle

Steps:

  1. Someone kills a lot of people with powerful, semi-automatic firearms.
  2. Outrage ensues. Politicians talk about gun control.
  3. Gun sales go up based on fear that new, more restrictive gun laws will go into effect.
  4. The NRA amplifies that fear into paranoia that the government is about to take away everyone’s guns.
  5. People donate money to the NRA to help to defeat gun control laws and to elect gun-friendly candidates.
  6. Gun laws become more lax, allowing more people to buy powerful, semi-automatic firearms.
  7. (Repeat)

Social Scientists call these vicious cycles “Wicked Problems,” because they defy simple fixes. Originally coined by the Design Theorist Horst Rittel in the mid 1960’s, wicked problems are difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, or changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Fortunately, we have a tool that can help in unraveling wicked problems: Design Thinking.

Design Thinking

Through Design Thinking, we can break down a complex problem like mass shootings into manageable parts, and leverage empathy to understand the psychological and societal patterns that cause the cycle to perpetuate. From there, we can conceptualize solutions for breaking out of the cycle, and finally move forward. For this exercise, we’ll use the following steps:

Design Steps

  1. Empathize: with all parties involved to understand their concerns
  2. Understand the problem we need to solve, and its constraints
  3. Identify solutions that incorporate those concerns and constraints
  4. Move forward with the best solutions, and then tackle the next problem in the cycle

1st
Design Step —

Empathize with all parties involved

As a Product Designer, a big part of my job is to get inside the head of the people who use my products in order to understand the world from their point of view (i.e. their “Mental Model.”) This understanding enables me to imagine what emotions they might be feeling, and how they might react to different situations. In design terms, this is called “empathy.”

Empathy for gun control advocates

Mass shootings are an act of terrorism, meant to maximize death tolls and drive fear into the hearts of everyone who learns about them. The shooter’s motives may vary, but the results are always the same. It easy to empathize with the victims of mass shootings, because any one of them could have been us, or someone dear to us. Regardless of age, race, class, political affiliation, sexual identity, or citizenship status, no group has gone without losing members to a mass shooting.

Empathy for gun owners

After a mass shooting, at the peak of emotional outcry, it seems unfathomable to have empathy for the gun owners who continue to put their support behind the NRA, loose gun laws, and ownership of the types of assault weapons used in the shootings. However, without empathy, the “Us vs. Them” divide will continue to fuel the endless cycle. That’s why I’ve decided to focus on helping people understand the mind of the gun owner. Because without understanding, there can be no empathy.

To understand gun owners, you have to understand “Gun Culture,” meaning the sense of identity that comes from being part of proud, uniquely-American group. Gun Culture is based on 3 pillars:

The 3 Pillars of Gun Culture

Pillar #1 — Cultural Heritage

The early part of the Revolutionary War was fought largely using the militia. (Image source: WikiCommons)

To truly understand American gun culture, you have to go back to its origins in the Revolutionary War. In the beginning, Americans used their personally-owned rifles while fighting in the militia, providing the United States with its first armed forces. After some critical early defeats, General George Washington succeeded in petitioning Congress to fund a professional, standing army to confront the formidable British forces, but the milita continued to play supporting roles in a number of conflicts.

Pillar #2 — Self Reliance

After winning independence from England, America continued to expand westward into the frontier. In this vast, untamed country, it was the personal armaments of families and villages that provided the only protection during assaults from bandits, disputes with neighboring frontier folk, and clashes with Native American tribes (putting aside that particular historical issue for the moment).

Frontier family photo. Origin unknown.

In the generations that followed, guns were passed down from fathers to sons, along with the training that goes along with how to use them responsibly. This not only served as a rite of passage, but as a vital form of protection. With most of the country still located far away from any form of military or law enforcement organization, those sons would be expected to use those guns to defend their families.

It’s quite likely that the largest cause of the empathy gap between progressive gun control advocates and conservative gun owners is where they live. Progressives typically cluster in cities and larger townships that provide highly visible police forces within close proximity. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to live in more rural, dispersed areas where the police are farther away and take longer to arrive during emergencies. One of the most common phrases that you’ll hear gun advocates say is “When seconds count, the police are minutes away.”

Pillar #3 — Constitutional Empowerment

In the United States, the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution explicitly calls out the importance of civilian gun ownership. In its entirety, it states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This is probably the greatest source of pride within Gun Culture, whose advocates feel that their right to bear arms provides a vital check on the powers of the government. This is also the primary source of distress that arises among gun advocates when the public, media, and politicians begin to speak about gun control in the wake of mass shootings. Inevitably, the NRA amplifies this distress into all out paranoia by characterizing almost all gun legislation as an attempt to repeal the 2nd Amendment and take away everyone’s guns.

2nd
Design Step —

Understand the problem and its constraints

Beliefs about the 2nd Amendment

One of the most common beliefs about the 2nd Amendment is that it’s there solely to empower citizens in case they should need to fight back against the government. The problem with this interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as a check on the power of the government, is that it’s not true. Nowhere in the Constitution does it state that civilians should be fighting back against the government; an act that was referred to at the time as “Insurrection.” In fact, it specifically states the opposite… that The Congress may call upon the Militia to suppress insurrections.

But what if the Government becomes “Tyrannical?”

A term you’ll hear frequently among 2nd Amendment advocates is “tyranny.” The word shows up in the Declaration of Independence as:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

Gun rights advocates say that their arms are there to deter and protect in the case that Government becomes tyrannical. Being ruled by a far away, despotic king who offers no political representation is a pretty clear-cut example of tyranny. Today, there’s less of a consensus of what tyranny looks like, and who decides that it has happened. Let’s explore a little deeper and play out the 3 biggest possibilities:

Potential Tyranny #1:

The majority of the country views the Government as tyrannical, and wants to overthrow it.

This is the assumption that gun advocates are most likely referring to, in which US civilians want to rise up and overthrow the Government. It’s called a “Revolution.” This problem being, if we get to the point where we need an armed population to institute change within the Government, who’s to say that the same problems won’t reoccur in the newly-formed government? Wouldn’t it be better to get Democracy right the first time, rather tearing it down with guns in a bloody revolution and starting all over again?

Potential Tyranny #2:

A small group views the Government as tyrannical, and wants to overthrow it.

This is a problem that the Drafters of the Constitution called “Insurrection,” but today you might know it by its current name: “Terrorism.” In this situation, a small, disgruntled group armed with stockpiles of high powered assault weapons and an extremist viewpoint is a recipe for disaster.

Potential Tyranny #3:

Half of the country views the Government as tyrannical, and wants to overthrow it

This is by far the most disturbing possibility of them all, because we’ve seen this scenario before. It’s called “Civil War.” Considering the level of politically charged animosity in the US, combined with technology capable of sending incendiary political messages to specific targeted groups, this would also end up being the most devastating possibility.

When we discuss the people’s rights to bear arms, we must balance all three possibilities when determining the lethality of firearms civilians should be allowed to bear.

Lethality of Firearms

When looking at the weapons used in mass shootings, there are 3 primary factors behind the large body counts. The first is payload of the weapon (i.e. number of bullets held.) The second is reload speed, which for clip-loaded firearms can be 1 second or less. The third is rate of fire, meaning duration between shots.

Payload and Reload Speed

Experts have stated that large capacity magazines should be the primary focus of legislative efforts, with a number of organizations supporting a limit of 10 rounds per magazine. However, in this era of 3D printing and other forms of DIY fabrication, high capacity magazines are the simplest part of the assault rifle mechanism to replicate.

Rate of Fire

Walther P22, one of the two semi-automatic weapons used in the shooting.

Semi-automatic weapons fire one bullet with every pull of the trigger, letting the shooter fire up to three bullets per second. Add in a “target rich environment” and you have a recipe for maximum kills. However, it’s not just assault rifles that can be used for mass shootings.

On April 16, 2007, an undergrad student at Virginia Tech shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols. At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting committed by a lone gunman in U.S. history, until it was surpassed by the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting.

This information can only lead to a single, logical conclusion:
All semi-automatic weapons are assault weapons.

3rd
Design Step —

Identify solutions that work around constraints

At this point, we know that we need to find solutions that will accomplish the following:

  1. Respect the cultural heritage of gun ownership, as well as the need for self-reliance and protection
  2. Enable citizens to keep and bear arms in a way that limits the capabilities of mass shooters, but without violating the 2nd Amendment
  3. Prevent firearms that are capable of mass shootings from falling into the wrong hands

Solution 1) Build consensus by supplanting the NRA

The National Rifle Association started out as an organization promoting marksmanship and safety for hunters and enthusiasts. Until the mid 1970’s, it maintained a level-headed balance of support for both gun control and gun rights. For example, if backed the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934, and later the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), but opposed a national firearms registry, an initiative favored by then-President Lyndon Johnson. However, in 1977 hard-liners seized control of the NRA and shifted its focus toward a no-compromise philosophy on gun control laws.

What America desperately needs is an non-political alternative to the NRA that brings together support from both sides of the gun rights / gun control debate that can be the voice of reason. The goal of this group would be to:

  • Preserve the heritage of gun ownership in America for future generations
  • Protect people’s right to feel safe and empowered against danger through gun ownership
  • Endorse legislation that balances individual 2nd Amendment rights with public safety against mass shootings
  • Mend the rift between gun control and gun rights advocates to help each side understand the other

Solution 2) Ban the SALE of semi-automatic firearms

Since 1982, 82% of mass shootings were carried out using legally purchased weapons. “Legally obtained” means that they were purchased through a licensed dealer and passed through the standard FBI background check system, and came up clean.

© Statista 2019 | Source: Mother Jones

Combining this fact with the numerous examples where mass shooters have obtained or created high-capacity magazines, the only comprehensive solution for limiting mass shootings is to ban the sale of weapons capable of mass shootings, meaning semi-automatic firearms.

Note, this doesn’t impact weapons currently in people’s possession, merely the sale of them to new people. (If a future mass shooter already possesses the needed weapons, there’s no feasible way of retrieving them). The goal of the sales ban is to reduce mass shootings in the long term.

This ban would likely face enormous legal challenges based on prior case history. In Heller v. District of Columbia (2008), the Supreme Court affirmed that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to own/possess firearms in “common use for lawful purposes like self-defense” but emphasized that the 2nd Amendment is not “unlimited.” It is not a right “to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever… and for whatever purpose.” I will go into cover in an upcoming Part 2 of this article.

To prevent, or at least curtail mass shootings, civilians should be limited to the purchase of manual-action firearms, which require the operator to perform a physical action to ready the next bullet after each pull of the trigger. This slows down the rate of fire significantly.

Here are some examples of manual-action firearms:

Single-Action Revolvers

Pump-Action Long Guns

Bolt-Action Long Guns

Lever-Action Long Guns

Solution 3) Keep weapons out of the wrong people’s hands

We need to ensure that guns don’t fall into the hands of potential mass shooters. This means that ban on the sale of semi-automatic weapons must extend to all people, not just gun dealers. Owners of banned weapons would not be allowed to sell their banned firearms to anyone other than the Government through a buyback program. Otherwise, selling a banned weapon that ends up being used in a mass shooting could result in culpability for the seller.

Additionally, red flag laws, which permit police or family members to petition a state court to order the temporary confiscation of firearms from a person who allegedly presents a danger to others or themselves, can be used to remove weapons on a much more targeted basis. Red flag laws hold wide support among both Republicans and Democrats, as well as gun owners.

Finally, we need to close the gaps and errors in the federal background check system, and require them for every gun sale, including person-to-person sales. The Supreme Court (In Heller v. District of Columbia 2008) concluded that background checks do not violate the 2nd Amendment because they qualify as “presumptively lawful regulatory measures.” According to the majority, “Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

4th
Design Step —

Move forward

It would be folly to think that the solutions provided here are enough to eliminate mass shootings entirely. There will always be sick individuals wanting to execute attacks on crowds of people, regardless of the availability of semi-automatic firearms. We’ve seen these take the form of knife attacks, vehicle attacks, etc. However, by robbing perpetrators of rapid fire, easily reloaded assault weapons, we not only take away the high body counts that they seek, we also create windows of opportunity for bystanders to escape, or counterattack to put an end to the killing.

Granted, this snapshot of the problem doesn’t address other contributing factors, like Gerrymandered districts that enable extremist politics to thrive, filter-bubbles on social media that block opposing viewpoints, and a broken mental health system that leaves the mentally ill untreated. But by following the same design process, each roadblock can be overcome independently. Little by little, we can unravel the many tangled issues that make up the wicked problem of Mass Shootings, and bring this tragic American saga of terror to an end.

Conclusion, Part 1

This was a difficult article to write on many levels. As a father of a young child, the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School hit me on a particularly deep level. The process of researching, drafting, illustrating, and editing it took several months, during which time the dark subject matter weighed heavily on me. Near the end, I realized that I had too much material to cover within the article, and had to narrow the scope in order to keep it readable.

As a result, I decided to gear the article toward my design colleagues, as a way to demonstrate that the same skills that we use every day to unpack challenging design issues could be used to tackle large scale social problems. The resulting article was still quite long by Medium standards, so I had to cut much of the legal background and explanations connected to my proposed solutions.

However, I’ve been receiving responses from gun rights advocates who feel that that some of the remaining points are either incomplete or misleading, so I’ve decided to write Part 2 of this article in order to dive into greater detail.

Sign up here to be notified of Part 2:

Aaron Travis
Aaron Travis

Written by Aaron Travis

Writing about design, technology, and the human experience. Reach me at ClearHX.org(at)gmail.com

Responses (14)

What are your thoughts?

Wow. Unoriginal, unconstitutional, unrealistic. I don’t don’t know what products you have a hand in designing but they are probably as useful a banana slicer. Your grasp of the historical context of the 2nd Amendment is poor, as is your grasp the…

56

I lead design thinking workshops frequently, so the headline made me think “cool, this may be an interesting take.” I guess that’s the point of headlines. How disappointing that it turned out to be a typical regurgitation of gun-grabber talking…

57

This is just regurgitating the exact same things that people who aren’t “designers” have been saying for decades. Claiming it is a design issue is just an attempt to claim some sort of “viewpoint authority” over everyone else that doesn’t exist.

51