Warning behaviors and leaked intent: Potential new avenues to prevent mass shootings

On March 12, 2018, John Laubscher, owner of AJ’s Archery in Nelson, NY, had a gut feeling and refused to sell a rifle to a Syracuse University student—disrupting a mass shooting ( https://www.syracuse.com/crime/2018/04/how_gun_shop_owner_thwarted_on_the_edge_su_student_from_buying_high-capacity_rif.html . Accessed 10 Nov 2021). Prompted by this, we surveyed the opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and current practices of gun sellers in Onondaga County, NY, in regard to safe gun sales. The primary outcome was to determine which types of “concerning behaviors” are more likely to cause a seller to intervene in some manner. Secondary outcomes included the following: ascertaining the frequency of denials of customer purchases, frequency of reporting to law enforcement, and identifying any gaps that make it difficult for gun sellers to report behaviors to the authorities. Follow-up interviews were conducted with those who were willing to speak with the authors in more depth. A response rate of 12.9% was achieved. Sixty-two percent (62.5%) of respondents had some experience in uniformed services, with specialized training in mental or emotional crises, as well as deception detection. The majority found the training helpful in their gun selling career. Reasons for personal denials were reported as: “interest in illegal fittings,” “information revealed during conversation,” and “lack of basic knowledge of using the firearm looking to purchase.” Two respondents stated that due to a lack of a “reporting protocol,” they would not report any concerns to law enforcement. The study helps inform future research in regard to surveying more sellers across NY state and nationwide.     

A War on ‘Risk’? British Government and the National Security Strategy

This article explores the United Kingdom's National Security Strategy (NSS) since 2008, considering what the NSS discloses about how contemporary Whitehall conceptualises ‘risks’ to Britain. It contends that rather than being a strategy in the Clausewitzian sense, the NSS represents a political exercise in risk management. In addressing a range of quite different problems, the NSS suggests that those in Whitehall now conceive their role as being to shield the citizen from any conceivable threat to their safety, wellbeing, and even emotional security. Yet this constitutes a highly expansive vision, and elevates the state's provision of public goods to a potentially unmanageable level.     

Race,Ethnicity, Threat,and the Designation of Career Offenders

Florida statutes allow for the application of enhanced sentences to defendants designated as “Career Offenders.” The application of these laws is discretionary and as such, prosecutors seek the designation for a fraction of the defendants who qualify. Utilizing Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling, this paper examines whether individual attributes, such as race and ethnicity, impact an individual's likelihood of receiving the Career Offender designation for 13,704 males sentenced to prison between 2002 and 2004. The second-level analysis incorporates county characteristics into the equation and tests whether these predictors have either a direct or a cross-level effect on the relationship. The broad theoretical framework that guides the present research is grounded in the social threat and social control perspective, which argues that minorities on both the individual and aggregate levels may be perceived as threatening in ways that can mobilize or enhance social controls.     

Thailand: an old relationship renewed

The relationship between Thailand and China has been both long and complicated, with periods of conflict associated with, for example, the cold war. In recent years, and especially following the Asian Economic Crisis, there has been a blossoming of the relationship, built on careful diplomacy, a renewal of interest in ethnicity and expanding business dealings and rising bilateral investment. In the contemporary period, the relationship has reached a new high. Since Thailand's military junta came to power in 2014, China has been a significant diplomatic, economic and strategic partner. Part of the explanation for this has to do with the junta's inability to deal with the USA following the coup. This article suggests that the turn to China has much to do with Thailand's turbulent domestic politics. In examining this bilateral relationship, this article addresses issues related to infrastructure, business and trade, military co-operation and cultural relations.     

Explaining United States–China relations: neoclassical realism and the nexus of threat–interest perceptions

How to understand and explain the evolutions as well as predict the future directions of bilateral relations between the United States and China has become an imperative task for both policy makers and academic scholars. Borrowing insights from neoclassical realism, this paper suggests a three-stage, perceptual model of ‘threat–interest’ to explore the dynamics of Sino–US relations from 1949 to 2015. It argues that the nature of US–China relations, either cooperation or competition, is mainly shaped by the perceptions of leaders regarding security threats and economic interests between the two nations. How to manage their perceptions regarding each other and how to find a balance between cooperation and competition are the key issues for leaders in both the United States and China to manage bilateral relations in the future. The next decade or two may be the best or the worst times for US–China relations.     

Economic Interests and Threat Assessment in the US Congress, 1890–1914

Why do some domestic actors see the international environment as a threatening place populated by untrustworthy powers, when others find opportunities for peaceful cooperation in the same conditions? Because these actors confront the same international environment, the reasons for their divergent evaluations must rest on differences in their own beliefs and interests. In this article, we consider the impact of societal interests in trade and trade protection on elite assessments of the international environment. We examine evaluations of the international environment in speeches given in the US Congress during naval appropriations debates between 1890 and 1914. The manufacturing sector’s interest in trade protection led political leaders who represented manufacturing regions to offer more negative assessments of the international environment, while those representing export-oriented agricultural areas of the country gave more positive evaluations. These effects were roughly comparable to those associated with party, as well as individual-level characteristics, such as having served as a military officer.     

The Impact of the Threat of Terrorism on U.S. District Court Decisions During Wartime

Federal courts are key actors in the U.S. government’s fight against terrorism because they adjudicate cases based on the USA PATRIOT Act, and accordingly make national security policy. We examine the extent that the terror threat influences judicial decisions in a dataset of 111 USA PATRIOT Act cases decided in the U.S. District Courts from 2001 through 2013, while controlling for other judicial decision-making variables. The results demonstrate that when a case involves a heightened terror threat, federal judges are more likely to defer to the government. Some key control variables are also significant.     

Perception and Politics in Intelligence Assessment: U.S. Estimates of the Soviet and "Rogue-State" Nuclear Threats

United States estimates of Soviet nuclear goals and capabilities and the current "rogue-state" nuclear threat reflected prevailing beliefs about threat within the U.S. government and the relative influence of agencies charged with threat assessment. This article establishes that the patterns in formal Soviet threat assessment: (i) did not reflect a uniform response to "external threat," (ii) were inevitably tied to underlying assumptions about adversary intent, and (iii) were susceptible then to perceptual, organizational, and/or political influences within government. Thus, threat assessments reflected the optimism and pessimism—and political interests and ideologies—of those who participated in the estimating process. The article concludes by examining these lessons in light of the experiences and challenges of assessing threat from small states harboring nuclear ambitions.     

议题性质、威胁认知、共同利益与“可合作安全”

通过合作促进安全的理念越来越成为国际社会的共识。但是，在当前的国际安全合作中，普遍存在“多愿望，少行动”的现象。由于安全概念的泛化，国际社会几乎在所有安全问题上都表达出希望通过合作的方式来解决问题的意愿。但实际上，很多安全问题不可合作。“可合作安全”的概念是基于议题性质、威胁认知和共同利益的一种预设的状态。对议题性质的认定是安全合作的前提条件。如果安全合作对象在议题性质的认定方面观点不一致，那么安全合作不可实现；反之，安全合作是可能实现的。在安全合作对象关于议题性质观点一致的基础上，安全合作主要受威胁认知和共同利益两个因素的影响。如果安全合作的对象彼此威胁认知越小，且在应对安全威胁方面的共同利益越多，那么安全合作越可能实现；如果安全合作对象彼此威胁认知越大，且在应对安全威胁方面的共同利益越少，那么安全合作越难实现、甚至不可合作。“可合作安全”在应对安全威胁的实践中，可以为有关部门在什么问题上合作、与谁合作等提供思路，使国际安全合作更具针对性和目的性。