An open letter to President Biden

Mr. Joseph Biden
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Biden,

Your recent six executive orders addressing gun reforms are a step in the right direction, but you and I both know they do not even begin to address the gun violence crisis gripping the United States. Even if you were able to suddenly (and magically) get two-thirds of the Senate to embrace new firearms legislation, it’s already too late the horse has left the proverbial barn. There are more guns than people in the United States, and the complexity of suddenly limiting their use to only legal and peaceful purposes is beyond the reach of any legislation or law enforcement agency. 

So, respectfully, your six executive orders serve only as a symbolic reaction to the gun violence epidemic.   

But there is a way to move beyond symbolism. I propose a different approach one that can be readily implemented today, and is both progressive and pre-emptive. And that approach is this: if restricting the supply and use of guns is impossible, then the only logical answer is to redirect our attention to helping organizations keep guns out of their places of operation. Modern gun and threat detection technology makes this possible the only thing that’s stopping it from curbing the gun violence epidemic is adoption. Too many organizations take an “it won’t happen to me” approach to gun violence, too often with tragic consequences.  

To solve the adoption problem, I would direct you to a recent example of how the government has successfully promoted adoption of a technology beneficial to society: solar energy.

When you started your first job in the executive branch as vice president, solar energy was a bit of a curiosity, installed only by a few environmentalists with a lot of disposable income. But then, the government got involved in a productive fashion and provided incentives for solar adoption. This turbocharged market demand and, in 2020, solar represented 43% of all new electricity-generating capacity added in the United States.

Imagine, if you will, taking a similar approach with gun safety. What if the government provided businesses, local governments, educational institutions, etc. with tax incentives to install gun detection technology to make the places where people gather safe from gun violence? What if managers inside that Boulder grocery store could have detected the assailant’s weapons when he was getting out of his car in the parking lot, instead of when he started the shooting inside? They could have locked down the store and limited the damage done. 

Like so many industries where digital innovation has reinvented markets and delivered benefits to the community at large, digital innovation in weapons detection and threat response can provide a means for communities to “harden” themselves to gun violence. Digital technology can be used to provide a multi-layered approach to early detection, early alerting, and pre-emptive and proactive protection. These solutions scale, are always-on, are cost-effective, and can be deployed in all buildings and venues.

Providing businesses and communities with adoption incentives for these technologies is the most readily achievable way for the country to finally put a measurable dent in the gun violence epidemic and since it does not bring the Second Amendment into play, it would likely have bipartisan support. 

After a detailed analysis of the tragic and unfortunate incidents in Boulder and other locations over the past few months, I can say, with a heavy heart, that all of them could have been made less severe – or prevented altogether – if the locations where they occurred had early warnings from modern gun and threat detection technology.  

I would be very interested in scheduling a meeting with you to discuss this further. 

Sincerely,
Peter Evans
CEO, Patriot One Technologies

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