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While President Joe Biden and his team hold out for an unlikely ban on AR-15-style weapons in the school shooting debate, calls from the “Just Do Something” movement are growing for quicker fixes, including installing ballistic doors in schools.
A simple fix that could thwart a shooter, or at least slow one down, bulletproof doors are fast becoming central to the debate since an improperly locked door at Robb Elementary School has been blamed for providing an entry point for the killer of 19 students and two teachers May 24.
But the White House has apparently urged top aides and Cabinet officials to shrug off solutions competing with the gun ban proposed by the president last week, drawing criticism from some school security experts.
<mediadc-iframe data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1654610058299,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000162-07b3-de22-a173-2ffbab450000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1654610058299,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000162-07b3-de22-a173-2ffbab450000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"iFrameEmbedCode":"","_id":"00000181-3e6f-df81-a381-7e7feff60000","_type":"00000161-b425-d761-a563-f7e77e270000"}”>iFrame ObjectTransportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, for example, weighed in on the debate and dismissed talk of bulletproof doors. On ABC’s This Week, he sounded the warning against school security as the answer to the school shootings debate.
“The idea that us being the only developed country where this happens routinely, especially in terms of the mass shootings, is somehow a result of the design of the doorways on our school buildings is the definition of insanity if not the definition of denial,” he said.
But Homeland Security’s own U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has urged a focus on hardened doors and door-locking policies after the Uvalde shooting.
Lawmakers, meanwhile, continue to add their names to a GOP bill to provide up to $100 million for school security. Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), for example, signed on last week and said, “Every school in North Carolina and across the country should have all the resources they need to keep our students and teachers safe. The right way to do that is to boost funding for competitive grant programs that help schools afford what they need to harden themselves from outside threats.”
And after Buttigieg brushed aside the school safety question, one maker of bulletproof doors, R2P Innovations of Goose Creek, South Carolina, called them a key part of boosting school security.
CEO Tony Deering told Secrets, “We need an all-of-the-above approach to protect America’s school children. Americans want real solutions now to keep kids safe at school. While Congress debates gun-related proposals — with the outcome unknown — we have a practical solution that can be implemented in schools today: ballistic- and breach-resistant doors. Our doors are an essential part of a multilayered effort to safeguard school children.”
Deering added, “Fortifying schools should bring members of both parties together. Despite their policy differences in other areas, Democrats and Republicans can find common ground by working to immediately harden classroom doors, a commonsense solution to shield kids from gunfire.”
Videos show that his doors can withstand 100 more bullets fired from a typical .223 AR-15. Deering, who has in the past supplied armor for military vehicles, put the price at $6,000.
