U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday announced aneffort to prevent mass shootings through new tactics such as court-orderedcounseling and supervision of potentially violent individuals.
The effort, announced in a memo to federal prosecutors and lawenforcement officials, follows dozens of deadly mass shootings in the UnitedStates this year, including a massacre of 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso,Texas and another just one day later in Dayton, Ohio, in which nine people werekilled.
The FBI has at times struggled to identify these home-grownthreats, which often develop with little advance warning.
Lawmakers are considering whether new laws are needed to helpinvestigate those who are motivated by white supremacy, anti-Semitism and otherextreme ideologies that are protected by the U.S. Constitution's free-speechsafeguards.
Others, such as the gunman who killed 59 people in Las Vegas inOctober 2017, do not appear to have any particular ideological affiliation.
Barr said a training conference at FBI headquarters in Decemberwill present "proven models for engaging extremely challenging individuals"and consider new ideas to face such threats.
Among those, he said, are enlisting psychologists and communitygroups.
In one successful case, Barr said, the FBI worked with parentsand social-service workers to get court-ordered supervision and mental-healthtreatment for a young person who was the subject of a threat investigation.
