American businessman Foster Friess wants to end school shootings, and he’s offering to match up to $2.5 million in donations to do it.
Friess, writing in USA Today, says the donations to the National Christian Foundation’s “Return to Civility Fund” would “go specifically to programs that improve school safety, develop youth mentoring, and promote a return to civility in our schools.”
Donors have until March 24th to have their contributions matched.
Friess believes it is important to address the core issue surrounding school shooters by attacking the problem directly: the shooter himself.
“Why not include in our possible solutions expansion of mentoring programs that target young males like these?” Friess wrote, referring to Nicolas Cruz, the 19-year-old shooter who attacked Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, killing 17.
Friess also stated that more laws on gun control are not the answer to a more deeply-rooted problem.
He cites a FiveThirtyEight statistic, saying, “They concluded that ‘broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns’ through bans would not solve the problem; instead, […] they concluded that one individualized intervention was the best solution.”
Friess sees a solution in investing in programs that promote mentorship to troubled youth, a more individualistic approach that would directly shape their lives.
“Could a future incident like we just experienced in Florida be averted by mentors taking a few hours each week to guide and mentor young troubled men? A basketball game Friday night. Pizza Wednesday. What about peer training or an app? The ultimate solution has to be changing hearts,” Friess writes.
He contends that this approach will have long-term affects on communities and troubled youth. “Most troubled young men will never go on to be spree killers who grab national attention,” Friess says.
“But paying more attention to their suffering and working to put them on a better path still makes sense.”
Disclosure: Foster Friess is an investor in The Daily Caller.
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