Attorney General Barr launches effort to prevent more mass shootings

U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Wednesday he was launching an initiative aimed at identifying troubled individuals to prevent them from becoming future mass shooters. The new effort, announced in a memo to federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials, follows dozens of deadly mass shootings in the United States 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 were killed.

Barr said that in December, a training conference at FBI headquarters will present "proven models for engaging extremely challenging individuals" and consider new ideas to face such threats.