Reader T. von Rosen writes:
My dear state of Texas was the unfortunate site of the most recent mass murder by a student at a public school. In response to this tragedy, our Governor held a series of discussions about how to prevent such crimes in the future and came away with a list of outcomes. I would like to share the following ten ideas as ways to improve security at schools now.
1. Teach with classroom doors closed and locked
This is perhaps the easiest strategy to implement. Teaching with closed doors prevents (or at least significantly inhibits) unauthorized access to classrooms. There are many examples, both in schools and universities, as well as in countless other locations and situations, where something as simple as a locked door has prevented access by a mass murderer to a room where more potential victims helplessly awaited their fate.
2. Replace all existing door locks with heavy-duty, bullet-resistant versions
This is perhaps the least expensive school safety option to implement. All door locks should be heavy-duty, bullet-resistant designs. They should open from the outside (i.e. hallway) with a key, and from inside with the mere turn of a handle. When seconds count, the more difficult it is for a criminal to gain access to potential victims, the better.
3. Replace classroom doors
While we are replacing existing door locks with heavy-duty versions, let’s go ahead and replace the doors themselves. Stronger doors with reinforced mounting hardware will increase the difficulty of mass murderers opening classroom doors to gain access to more victims.
4. Install panic buttons (or other technology, maybe an app) to communicate a firearms emergency
Teachers and other classroom staff, as well as all other campus employees (librarians, custodians, cafeteria workers, counselors, etc.) should have access to an immediate and unambiguous way to communicate a firearms emergency — separate and distinct from a fire alarm — to school leaders and law enforcement.
5. Use simple, plain language
Cease the use of special code words or phrases in schools to communicate instructions during a crisis. For example, don’t say “code red” when the campus needs to be evacuated. Instead, say “evacuate the building!” Code words and phrases cause hesitation and confusion. When seconds count, any delay can be deadly.
6. Implement strict dress codes
Sorry, kids. Your wearing trench coats and hoodies in the summer just ended. Our leaders who are so eager in the face of school mass murders to infringe on Second Amendment rights, but they need to instead restrict a few other “rights” in order to keep weapons out of school buildings.
Freedom of expression, as reflected in dress codes, needs to be restricted. Similarly, to decrease the ability of these twisted murderers to hide guns and sneak them into schools. It may also mean using only clear plastic backpacks and random checks of cases for band instruments and athletic gear, etc.
While many liberals will (mistakenly) cry foul at the top of their lungs over this “infringement” of their children’s First Amendment freedoms, let’s turn their own argument on them. If it saves just one life…we must do it for the good of our children.
7. They are not “school shooters”
When describing persons who commit such heinous crimes, we need to call them “child mass murderers” for that is exactly what they are. “Shooter” is far too respectable a term for such criminals. Olympic firearms competitors are shooters. Members of the USAMU (United States Army Marksmanship Unit) are shooters.
To murder a child is one of the worst possible crimes – so let’s call those who commit such wicked and detestable acts exactly what they are: Child. Mass. Murderers.
8. Increase uncertainty about armed school employees
Gun-free zones are magnets for mass murderers. This has been proven time and again. Thus, our schools need a new strategy aimed at adding uncertainty in the minds of these potential monsters.
For example, we should post warning signs at every school which state that school staff are trained, prepared and ready to use any means necessary to protect their students, whether they’re actually armed or not. Consider making school board discussions, debates, and decisions about whether to permit certain employees to carry firearms on campus confidential…not subject to open records requests.
Most child mass murderers don’t want to die. We can introduce doubt in the minds of potential child mass murderers that they might well meet their creator if they decide to embark on a killing spree at schools may well reduce the possibility of their doing so.
9. Change inter-governmental relationships
This may be the most difficult strategy of all to implement, since it goes to the core of power and relationships between certain governmental institutions. We need to re-think and re-imagine how various governments (city, county, school entity, etc.) work together to increase school security and, as an added bonus, reduce overall governmental costs.
One example? Require that all high schools with more than a certain number of students (say, 2000) must include a law enforcement storefront on the premises. Whether the law enforcement agency is city, county, state, or something else, building a 24-7 manned storefront into high schools ensures improved security and safety.
A 2000-student high school is the population of many small town and burgs. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has over 3000 students. Joint funding between governmental entities, for strategies such as law enforcement storefronts, could reduce overall costs for all involved.
Offering free coffee at schools to law enforcement officers, in the hope that such will encourage officers to stop more frequently, isn’t enough. Instead, simply build a law enforcement office into each high school. When seconds count, we can’t afford to wait for officers who may be miles away to drive to schools to respond.
Similarly, every high school of a certain size should have its own mini clinic. The clinic, like clinics now in drug stores and grocery stores, should be able to handle and diagnose minor emergencies. A merging of public health facilities and public schools would decrease absenteeism (no need to leave school to get a minor issue, such as an upper respiratory infection, diagnosed), would build stronger bonds between schools and their local communities, and would serve as another possible means to identify at-risk students.
Similarly, school cafeterias could serve meals to senior citizens. This would encourage (much-needed) volunteerism and community participation by retired persons at our schools. Seniors could serve as mentors, and could build bonds with students. Retired military and law enforcement seniors could aid in assisting as school security volunteers.
10. It’s not about guns
Note that none of these strategies involves guns or further infringement of Second Amendment rights. While delicate sensibilities will be terrified by the rest of this sentence, back in my Father’s day, he and his friends regularly brought .22 rimfire rifles to school with them. The principal would hold their rifles, then return them at the end of the day, so that my father and his friends could hunt on the long walk back home. Whatever they shot, such as rabbits, would be dinner that evening or the next.
If guns were the problem, there would have been countless school shootings and murders back then. The fact that there wasn’t shows that it’s we who have changed. We need to take a long, hard, critical look at the society and environment we’ve created, and work hard to overcome the factors that may contribute to shootings at schools.
Note that the first eight of these suggestions are both actionable and relatively inexpensive to implement. In contrast — and I state this only to identify possible challenges in implementation, the devil is always in the details — consider the idea of metal detectors in public schools. When I hear that idea, I always think of the TSA and how is that working for out for us?
The TSA created a huge new and expensive bureaucracy, causes enormously long lines and many delays, and yet third-party government inspectors regularly get guns and other banned items past their checkpoints. Are schools going to be scanning every backpack and lunch bag? Where will “positive” students get patted down? Will we be strip-searching “positive” students? Are we going to ban any liquid over four ounces? How many employees at each secure entrance will we need, and how long would we expect it to take 2,000 students to file through a TSA-style secure entrance and get to class?
If you’re not willing and/or able to implement pat-downs, well, then you’re missing the whole point of installing metal detectors in the first place. It does no good to identify something a potential threat if you’re unable to figure out what tripped the scanner. And get ready for the public outcry and lawsuits if you pat down someone’s little angel.
I appreciate TTAG’s willingness to allow my additions to the discussion about improving school security, and hope that the points I’ve raised will, even in a minor way, help contribute to the safety of our children at school.
Some of these are retarded. A strict dress code with clear backpacks makes schools even more like a prison. Having a “law enforcement office” along with officers will cost a small fortune. And how exactly is turning schools into a soup kitchen for the elderly supposed to help? Think about it for a second, do we really want some impoverished senior citizens roaming school campuses?
How about instead we actually look at the mental health epidemic and the absolute collapse of two parent homes? Seems like these two factors contribute quite a bit to violence in our society.
I dunno… a strict dress code could solve a number of other problems besides the concealed gun issue: cliques that depend on its members having certain name-brand articles, young girls dressing like sluts, attention-seekers hoping to distract his schoolmates with his outlandish outfit…
It wouldn’t stop these young idiots from doing such things on their own time – but it SHOULD be on their own time. When they are in school funded by my tax dollars they are then on MY time, and I expect them to dress accordingly.
We as responsible adults are expected to dress for our jobs according to our business standards – that is a type of uniform dress code, whether we call it that or not. Why should these kids be held to such lax standards?
🤠
Having attended a school with uniforms I assure you that none of what you suggest will be “fixed” will be affected by a uniform requirement. All those things will continue to be problems.
On this point, when I attended high school (quite some time ago) we did not wear uniforms, BUT, the dress code emphasized that we were being educated for future introduction into the work force and therefore clothes had to be appropriate for an office or administrative setting.
No blue jeans, no shorts, no hoodies, no t-shirts with funny or political sayings or pictures, and the girls all wore dresses or skirts (I know I’m dating myself here).
It worked and was easy to understand and more important it was difficult to argue if you were called out for inappropriate attire.
Exactly what I have been saying on TTAG for a long time. Lets focus on the mentally ill walking the streets. There used to be less insane people shooting anyone , they were in facilities getting treatment. If you look for a place to house and help the mentally ill today , you won’t find one. There aren’t any. That’s a real problem for the government to focus their attention on. Note : mental health issues are a disease. Get them off the streets & you will see a change in violent behaviour. Or is that too much to ask of our leftarted gubernmant ? I mean governors , the ones that want to demolish the 2nd.
Who gives a shit if the schools “feel” like prisons? Caring too much about “feelings” is what got us into this mess in the first place. If parents and schools still properly disciplined their kids for a myriad of behaviors, instead of wrapping them in delicate bubble wrap and trying to be their buds, we wouldn’t have so many delicate snowflakes snapping and killing their classmates.
Ten ways schools already look like prison:
https://themindunleashed.com/2016/05/public-school-or-prison-here-are-10-ways-its-hard-to-tell.html
Yeah, let’s put even more focus on mental health, especially since the FBI report released the other day essentially said less than 25% of mass shooters have any actual mental health issues. They effectively reduced the focus from a mental health perspective and don’t think for a minute the antis aren’t going to use it to the fullest.
There is nothing wrong with any of the above suggestions, though some of them won’t be practicable in some areas.
HEY! *I* am that elderly you’re talking about, and I can tell you how that could help. U wouldn’t mind stopping by for lunch once or twice a week, and I would, in fact, be armed. You don’t even have to pay me, I’m always armed. I’m afraid I won’t qualify if you have to be impoverished.
I’d much rather have elderly folks, impoverished or not, roaming a high school campus than many of the high-schoolers themselves.
This generation lost their dress freedom privileges when they decided to shoot up their schools.
My solution is so much easier. Stop sending your kids to govt. indoctrination centers and work to repeal all taxes that fund public schools. Home school or private school should be the only option. Teach your kids how to think for themselves and how to get the education they desire. Why is the govt. in the “education”(really indoctrination) business? It’s a failed system because it is not a function of govt., period. You can protect your kids at home with guns. You can send your kids to a private school that has adequate security. By the time the govt. does something meaningful about school security there will be more school murder sprees. Do you want to risk your child’s life hoping it won’t be their life that gets taken?
Yep! Home school! You can’t “fix” what is irretrievably broken…
Yup, home school is awesome. We home schooled our daughter (mostly my wife did) and it is quite obvious when she is with others. She is much more mature, speaks much better and over all is more intelligent than other kids her own age. Adults always think she is way older than she is. Our daughter has been a Diabetic since she was three. That was the main reason we chose to home school her, as there were no nurses in the schools. The school superintendent tried to convince the school employees will be instructed on how to deal with such a special needs child. Yea, right. We dealt with it 24/7 and still had a few problems with high and low blood sugars. Plus, they didn’t allow the insulin and needles in her possession. We are real glad we home schooled, as she is a bright and conservative kid.
A-freaking-men!!!
Starts out good then falls off the rails.
4. Seems to me a clear code-word that cannot be misunderstood or used in some other context would make it easier and clearer to communicate what is happening.
5. So this easy button will never be pushed accidentally or maliscously? Maybe the sound of gunfire could be the signal something is amiss?
6. Is there any evidence previous school shooters took advantage of anonymity to enable there crimes? My understanding is they pretty much arrive on campus and get-to-it. Correct me if I’m wrong. Plus, punishing the many for the potential future actions of the few is wrong.
9. Yea, more government is the answer… How about schools focus on educating students?
11. Demand that officials do their job. When the FBI passes on 2 tips about a school shooter in Florida, write op-eds, contact your local representatives, make your voice heard. When the Air Force refuses to pass data to NICS on a problem airman, again, make the issue known (church shooter). When the Navy whiffs on an employee who hears voices (classic schizophrenia) raise heck (Navy Yard shooter).
There will be crises, this is not Disneyland. But there will be fewer if we avoid the avoidable ones. Just think if there had been 5 to 10 fewer mass shootings in the last dozen years.
Know what Comey said about the investigation into the Tsarnaev brothers? “I am proud of the work that the Boston field office did in this case, before the bombings as well as after them.” The IG refuted Comey’s rose-colored glasses assessment. But the director wanted to say that his department did a fine job.
1. Real training (the body can’t go where the mind has not been) ALICE, Lockdown, etc.
2. Real 1st Aid training for those willing to take it (tourniquets, Israeli bandage, lots of gauze)
3. Bullet shatter resistant glass film
4. Schools are NOT senior centers but could be police sub stations (preposition assets)
5. Let FASTER trained teachers carry
6. Remove students who threaten or commit violence are demonstrably mentally unstable (already legal)
Maybe you add one for making people do their effing jobs.
Nearly all of the shooters were known to the cops, school authorities, families, friends, etc and they did nothing. That kid in Florida had the cops called 36 times. WTF.
I have one for that last resort situation, let me, err, teachers carry concealed firearms at school.
It is the the defense of last result. It involves risk and people getting hurt. It sucks.
Nicy nice school administrators don’t want to think about this because it isn’t perfect.
Because guns.
Sorry, I don’t live in that perfect world.
1. Call up the local volunteer civil defense militia to patrol the school grounds.
2-10…. Unnecessary.
This is probably the best possible solution.
eliminate biden death-zone/gun-free “laws”
Who does the Recruiting? And Who pays for it? Considering “Schools” are usually “Sucking Hind Teat” in Local Government Budgets…
Get out drills? We have them for fires, but not it seems for free-fire in our schools.
Then pull the fire alarm.
Recognize that the “school shooting crisis” only exists in the feeble minds of progtard statists. Tell them to STFU and do NONE of this BS.
And yet, the screechy people won’t talk about these simple, direct, effective things we could do right now to make kids safer in schools we compel them to attend. Or about school districts that are on their own doing what they can.
It’s almost like the point isn’t keeping kids safe(r), but using them as a way to ban guns. It’s almost like the point isn’t doing something to keep kids safe(r), but finding a way to leverage that into forcing other folks to do stuff they don’t want to do, on their own. It’s almost like the point isn’t doing stuff that helps, but permitting only some to do anything at all.
This has all happened before, and it will all happen again…
For some reason I can’t stop thinking of the TSA responses post 9-11. You wanna keep whack-jobs with box cutters from flying planes into buildings: 1) secure cockpit doors, 2) change the access / hijacking response protocol in the plane, 3) random, occasional sky marshals, 4) maybe allow passengers otherwise permitted to be armed, to be armed in the cabin. Law enforcement. Military. CCW holders, perhaps.
Absent responses, I mean.
None of these requires groping grandmothers, side-tracking Senator Rand Paul when he’s trying to take a trip, or hoovering up more data points about every movement of every human in the country for the Central Scrutinizers. None of these require a few 10’s to 100’s (depending on who you ask) of billions of $ thrown to inspection-booth roto-plookers that don’t work, but happen to be built by a guy who’s friends with some deciding admini-drone. Or three. None of this requires training any and every-one who chooses to fly that “Hands-up / I surrender officer.” for a no-specific-basis search is not just OK, but to be expected.
Yet, that is what you’ll get when your Internal Secret Police Czar says out loud in a congressional hearing: “We want to know everything.” (Yes, that’s not the assigned title. If it walks like Stasi-US, and it talks like Stasi-US, and tools up like Stasi-US…) One might conclude that the guy who ran surveillance over occupied Iraq should be disqualified from running “Homeland Security” over a republic of citizens, simply because having had the prior job would give him all the wrong habits and attitudes for the second. Didn’t come up, as such. He said that out loud, and that didn’t disqualify him either. I wish this was my shocked face.
It’s almost like a few thousand citizens and their (our) guests dead became just an excuse for intrusion, monitoring and control they wanted to do anyway.
Meanwhile,in a world where the second Parkland kid shot-up helping his friends get away, finally was released from the hospital the other week … yeah, I’m for empowering him any way he wants. Phased-plasma rifle in the 40-watt range? Go for it. You need me to schlepp some power-packs for you?
And his compatriot who was never released, or rather was released immediately. Died on the scene, doing what he could. Plus the teachers. Plus the coaches. Plus the shooting club. Plus the responders from elsewhere. Plus… Yeah, no press on them. No spittle-flecked shout-y speeches demanding: “Leave our everyday heroes better options.” “The good guys who got us out, maybe didn’t have to die.” “People who choose like that, we owe better choices.”
Maybe we empower people on the scene when the poo hits; they seem to step up. Spittle-flecked screechers of “Something must be done!”, well,how about any “something” that leaves these, our betters free to do what they can. Start with that. Somehow the “something” is always a policy or a proclamation, distant paper scrawled then abandoned, that does nothing when bad bullets fly. Does plenty as careful people try to stay clear of the law and live their lives … disarms them, and leaves them that way when the testing moment comes.
I do have a modest proposal. You wanna ban people carrying their own guns in schools? OK. In cabinets on the walls, behind alarmed glass. When the whack-job starts whack-jobbing, the victims have something to reach for, more than a door to hold, or a mat to hide under. Alarmed, the rest of the victims-to-be get informed immediately to get clear of the poo-storm. Alarmed, the resource officers might be a bit more clear about what’s going on and where. Alarmed, just grabbing the free-fire extinguisher calls for help.
Will some whack-job figure out to grab from the #shootback cabinet to #shootfirst. Oh, inevitably. Leaving aside that the DGU you don’t count never counts in deciding what to do, the real question is how many stopped vs. how many started?
You don’t like the costs of stopping with force, once the force starts harming, great. With all that surveillance, how about a few fewer “known wolves.” It turns out we do know quite a bit of useful stuff from the Central Scrutinizer’s Panopticon. It does appear they more get-off on watching it all, than get on preventing, or even stopping the bad stuff. What do you expect from people who collect and trade grainy gray-tone radar-pics, of pudgy tourists.
When they like to watch that much more than do, well, there’s a name for that.
I seem to be on a rant today.
No mention of how “FIRE ALARMS” can be used BY student/child killers. Pull the alarm and wait for victims to appear in mass…like the mjshs murderer did.
This frire alarm crap needs some serious relooks nationwide. When was the last student killed in a school fire? I don’t recall any in the recent past. If a fire is actually a threat, teachers lock the students in their classrooms and wait for competent adults to lead them to safety. Same goes for any public venue. Don’t be the first victim to rush through the killsack.
Any of you fire fighters have better ideas. Lay them out for us.
There is a fire alarm system available that has smoke and heat sensors throughout the buildings, you pull the manual alarm, fine, you get an alert in the school office, police and fire roll hot as usual, BUT if none of the sensors can detect evidence of a fire…. no sirens or bells. Wouldn’t take but a couple bucks to include a false alarm alert in every classroom to put the place on lockdown. The school district that includes the Parkland school had over a hundred MILLION dollars to spend on safety, allocated from a bond measure in 2014. The school board had spent less than six million district wide at the time of the shooting. Conspiracy, incompetence, or negligence, you decide.
# 1. Class room doors have to be open from the inside to allow for evacuation.
# 2. The author watches too many action movies. You can’t shoot out a door lock.
# 3. Is there any evidence that current doors are not strong enough? Is this point more about “doing something”?
# 5. Works only for trained personnel and not for children.
# 6. The author didn’t watch 1984. This is the United States of America and not the Soviet Union, North Korea, Japan, or the UK.
# 7. Please provide a workable plan to convince CNN not to use the term “school shooter”. LOL
# 9. How about we are relocating the PD to the school? May be we should relocate DHS and the DOD facilities to schools as well.
Well, he did say “law enforcement storefront”, right? How about DEA?
I might agree with some of these, chiefly, the main problem isn’t guns. It’s our lifestyle.
Violence has been around for decades. Longer, even. So what changed? Our lives became way too interconnected. Back when my father was in school, there were guns all over schools, but nobody ever thought of using them against another student. Differences were settled with fists on the playground. Even using a knife against another student was unthinkable. There was a code of honor of sorts. Also, when school was done, whatever happened at school, stayed at school. People went home to friends, families, pets, people who cared about them. Even in my school days in the post-colombine era, mass murders were rare. Sure, we had cellphones, but they were in their infancy. Nothing was ‘smart’ and the internet was similarly primative in comparison to today’s internet. Information and news. That’s what it was used for. Nothing else. There was no Facebook, no Twitter, no social media as we know it today. People could still leave school, work, whatever, in their backpack or briefcase and come home to friends and family. Nowadays, smartphones and accounts make sure we can’t get away. Even at home, we are bombarded by opinions. Our social lives became our primary existence and as a result, the pecking order never goes away. People aren’t all socially adept and these people are the pack Omegas. They get bullied at school, at work, nothing they do can fix it. They are permanently at the bottom, and their torment never stops. Even at home, people still gossip, spread lies, and cyber bully these Omegas. Finally, like any animal with no escape, they can take no more torment and they snap. Sometimes they take their own life. Sometimes they take others. They don’t have to be mentally defective, people who are put under too much stress will always snap if they have no way out. The true tragedy, is that we do this to ourselves. We are the only species that willingly subjects itself to this extreme stress until a breaking point is reached. The solution is simple: Step Away. Get rid of the multiple accounts, focus not on the assholes in your life, but the people who care about you most, true friends, family, pets, these people care, not some dingus with an obscure username. Above all else, perspective is critical to staying sane and determining what to and what not to listen to.
1: Repeal gun free school zones act
2: Cut off federal funds for any school that doesn’t let the teachers carry. Word it in a way Hawaii, NJ and NY (and any others I forgot) are forced to be shall issue.
8 steps less. Far more efficient.
Why is the Federal Government involved in school education in the first place? We did fine without the Feds for many years.
Bring back lobotomies as a treatment for violent tendencies and behavior.
It’s a permanent fix and most loonies can be sent back home, in a somewhat zombified state. Meds don’t work because the “patient” always stops taking them at some point. The medical university in my city performed hundreds of lobotomies back in the 40’s and 50’s, before progressives vilified the treatment.
Having been a teacher, some of this won’t work.
First, it’s amazing how much movement goes on during classes. Each time you unlock the door is time away from teaching. Our school tried locking the outside doors. Three days later they gave up. There wasn’t an internal route to the gym. A couple of classrooms were outside the perimeter and the child care classrooms were in portables. Last, anybody could come up, knock on a door and a student would open it for them.
Keep in mind that the are about 120,000 public schools in the nation. Next consider the number of actual school shootings there have been. (i.e. Parkland, Santa Fe). My classroom had interior windows that looked into a common area. During drills, I was supposed to tape construction paper over the windows. When I suggested blinds or curtains, I was told it was too expensive. Seen the bulletproof shelters for classrooms? First they take up lots of space, Second, they cost $20,000 each.
See why there’s a call for more gun laws? One reason is the school districts don’t want to spend money for an incredibly rare event.
The easiest thing to do is what Florida just did.
The new law requires armed security on every campus.
It can be Law Enforcement, an armed “guardian”, or school staff who take the 132 hours of training to conceal carry in school.
The staff cannot be a full time teacher, but can be a coach, janitor or administrator.
What is this, logic and reasonable accommodations? This has no place on the internet, the only solution is to keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens.
Agree. Everybody knows that when only the government is allowed to have guns, wonderful things happen. Just look at Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China, and Kim’s Korea.
One problem, Soviet Partisans were Soviet Citizens (none Military) armed with guns. Where did they get the Guns from, if the Soviet Government were the only ones allowed to have guns…
Uhhhmmmm…get rid of government schools?
How about none of those? Remember that school shootings are exceedingly rare events.
These sorts of articles do nothing but play into hysteria.
Reality check here. While there are some things that can be done to improve safety, the impact will be slight at best. Free societies are simply not prepared for the occasional terrorist/mad man/spree shooter that goes off the rails and decides to target civilians. There are things that will mitigate the carnage and we should look into those. However, if ever there was an indicator that America and the world has an emotional and spiritual problem then this amped-up, reverse lottery we are in where 1 in every “pick your number” flips out and goes homicidal then this is it.
Criminals exist in a ratio of “one in pick-your-number” in every human society that has and will ever exist.
Also note that criminal homicides have been going down.
Moral-panickers gotta panic.
Step 1. Ban All Gun Free Zones
School doors with turn knobs or latches?
My high school, and both universities (undergrad and grad school) had push-bar doors because fire codes are an actual thing. That style door can be set to be locked on the outside while still allowing the door to be opened from the inside.
And of course they were fairly sturdy metal, because again, fire codes are an actual thing.
Not that locked doors would prevent someone from simply shooting everyone through the windows from the outside.
The first step to making them safer is to abandon any pretense that Shelter in Place is a good idea. Escape. Evade. Engage.
NO NO NO NO… there is ONLY one sure way to greatly reduce school shootings.
A National CCW specifically for schools and school administrators. Standardized training for those who want it. The law would do several things:
1) Provide guidance, training, and permitting for any school teacher, professor, or administrator of “good character.” Specifically, they can pass a NICS check to go into the program.
2) Any school that takes even one dollar of Federal or State money (if the State takes federal money), must participate.
3) Absolute zero tolerance policy for identifying the CCW holders. Make it a felony to expose these people intentionally, and a termination offense to accidentally expose them.
4) Immunity from prosecution or law suits for any good faith actions taken by the CCW holders in the course of an active shooter situation.
Now, this is not the perfect situation. The perfect situation is National Reciprocity in conjunction with this. In the National Recip law would also have to be a “no gun free zone” law… basically, prevent any place, public or private, from being declared a gun-free zone unless they have metal detectors at all entrances and armed security.
Simple, and far more effective than any other plan.
Cancel all non-educational activities at schools such as sports, glee clubs, bands, and the like, and use those funds to hire armed guards. Kids are in school to learn, not play games and such!
Chuck, the kids can’t learn if they’re not taught. Teachers at government schools don’t teach, they indoctrinate. Most, but not all, are socialists, and that’s what they teach.