I first heard the term when Mary Schiavo, head of the FAA, used it. Nothing gets done until someone dies. Of course, she was talking about safety in the skies. But I think the term can be applied to events on the ground. There will be around the clock coverage of the latest mass shooting, this one in Virginia Beach, where the debate will rage about gun laws and how we need to do something about this type of violence endemic to America. We in Vegas have some experience with mass shooting: October 1, 2017. Here’s how we have changed. If you are a tourist to our city and are staying in one of our fine hotel casinos, and you keep the Do Not Disturb sign on your door, you can expect an unannounced visit from security to see if there’s anyone dead in the room. Not kidding.

The sad fact is that we are just not good at spotting crazy. Jeffrey Dahmer’s neighbors viewed him as a quiet guy who kept to himself. Not the crazy guy who eats his house guests. Or Ted Bundy. He apparently seemed okay until he locked the doors on the Volkswagen. But these shooters…surely there must be some tell. And how might it manifest. We need a manual. Break it down to power points.

Remember, we are operating under tombstone technology. Nothing is done until someone dies. And once a person becomes a mass shooter, there is no learning curve, no chance for rehabilitation or redemption. Just a great deal of should have seen it coming. But we didn’t.

There is no avenue for dealing with crazy in the corporate environment. If you tell management you have concerns about the mental state of another employee, your concerns are either met with derision, apathy, or a sense that you are crazy. And it is a slippery dilemma, because it’s legally difficult to act until the individual actually commits a crime. Freedom. That same freedom that says anyone can own a gun. Realizing finally the folly, we have slowly begun to place restrictions on the right to bear arms. Is it everyone’s right, equally, to possess a gun. We have increasingly decided that gun ownership is not an equal right. So now we are back to that crazy diagnosis.

There remains to be a societal shift. Much the way we came to realize that drunk driving cannot be tolerated, we must decide to change our thinking regarding guns. That obsessive “collecting” of weapons may be a sign of a mental defect. May be in this case should be good enough to draw scrutiny. But how to do it. Many argue that it’s too late, that there are too many guns to successfully curtail the supply. But there must be a beginning. Registration and restrictions on who can sell is a start. And it cannot be tied to morality. Prohibition, war on drugs, war on poverty are all abject failures.

The NRA needs to be a willing participant rather than a constant opposing force. Convince their responsible gun owning members that legal registration is the only way to ensure a step toward curtailing mass shootings. The government cannot be the “bad guy with a gun.” We are the government and we can change the trajectory of our future selves. And the time is now.