If you really care about saving children's lives then after reading this short explanation you'll support this policy proposal.
If you don't support legalizing mortal combat in the United States after reading this, you obviously don't care about children dying and their blood will be on your hands.
Is that a little extreme?
Naaaah.
It's not extreme enough...
You probably even relish in the thought of children dying if you don't support this policy proposal, you filthy-souled sith-spawn of hell from whence you came, you reactionary obstructionist piece of human trash.
That's more like it.
No. I'm just kidding.
Feel free to criticize this idea or help me develop it, but I think I might be on to something that could strangely make the world a nicer and more barbaric place at the same time, but where everyone wins.
Here's the idea:
The U.S. should legalize mortal combat.
There should be a government operated mortal combat league, like the MMA, but each fight is to the death, so really more like the awesome spectacle of ancient gladiatorial combat, renewed for the 21st Century.
One theory for why some of these rampage killings happened is that they were motivated by the extensive media coverage of previous rampage killings and the desire for fame.
If we think of rampage killers as members of a very tiny evil social movement or a murder-suicide cult, then all the mainstream media coverage is free publicity for recruits.
That's why some experts have recommended that national news media report when these events happen, but lay off the extensive coverage and leave that to local and state news media, which should also be very thoughtful and exceedingly careful about how and how much it covers these events.
But if fame can tip the scales for a violent and desperate psychopath with no qualms about massacring innocents to actually do it, then society should offer fame to such people on its own terms, on terms that don't involve a single death of anyone who didn't volunteer to take the risk of dying.
If we legalized mortal combat and made it a spectator sport, it would attract all the most violent people in society with the most murderous natures to kill each other– willing participants– instead of innocents.
It would remain a grim spectacle, but it could make happy, innocent people going about their business more safe.
We should take all violence off the battlefields (which are too often neighborhoods or too close to neighborhoods) and put it into the arena in an organized professional blood sport with advertisers and big ticket sales and merchandise and everything.
Violent psychopaths who want to make a name for themselves as killers will be drawn to the opportunity for fame, glory, and money... and instead of killing anybody who would rather stay alive, they will just be killing other psychopaths like themselves.
And they could all kill each other off, rapidly winnowing out the most violent and sociopathic and reckless people.
Each fight is to the death, so after every fight, there's one less murderous psychopath on the planet to endanger we meek ones.
Every gladiator is undefeated, because a defeated gladiator is a dead gladiator, so what counts is how many duels, melees, or battles a gladiator has fought in.
The one who's won the most fights at any given time will be the champion and command the highest fees for battles.
Each battle is unique, negotiated by the participants, and approved by the league.
Weapons and arenas will vary from fight to fight based on the negotiated terms of the participating fighters.
Society can experience the catharsis of human violence and destruction, but only with fully consenting participants who understand that they are engaging in mortal combat.
If they're already suicidal, instead of letting that be a potential threat to the rest of us, we can use that to lure exactly the type of people who would do a mass shooting into a short, but glorious career in mortal combat.
Now the danger in this is that it will be a way for violent psychopaths to become wealthy and have lots of power, but they will not abuse it because their glory, money, and fame will come from doing violence in the arena.
Which they will die in soon enough.
