The conversation about school safety and gun violence has been reignited after the most recent mass shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas. After each of these heartbreaking atrocities, every school assures their students and staff that the safety of their constituents is their number one priority. However, is that really the case?
If the safety of students and staff at school is the number one priority, then why have there been minimal steps taken to actually prevent events like this in the future?
Here are four real ways to prevent school shootings, that most people on both sides should be able to agree upon:
1. Red flag laws
Red flag laws allow people to make a judge aware of a possible threat, and let the judge temporarily confiscate firearms from the possession of the perceived threat. Laws like this are being pushed bipartisanly because people on both sides of the gun control debate can agree that it should be a priority to pass legislation that gets guns out of the hands of dangerous people. Red flag laws are designed to do that, without infringing upon the rights of law abiding citizens.
It is common thought that if a law such as this was present in Florida, then the Parkland shooting could have been prevented. An extraordinary amount of people knew that the shooter was a threat, and it can be assumed that somebody would have spoken up.
2. Limited entrance points
This solution aims to make it harder for a shooter to actually enter the interior of a school. When there are fewer points in which a person can enter a school, it becomes easier to protect the school. For example, if there were 12 entrance points at a school, it would be far more difficult for security to be aware of what’s happening at each of these entrances, than if there were only two. Security cameras can only do so much. Spaces needed to be patrolled, and with fewer entrance points, the remaining points of entry can be more effectively protected.
3. ID checks
Any person, armed or not, can easily get into schools if they want to do harm. Any young person can walk into any high school without having to show identification. We saw this in Parkland, where a shooter who was formerly a student walked into the school, pretending to still be enrolled, without any question. If every person was required to show, and scan a school ID, the Parkland shooter may have failed to enter the building.
4. Armed security at school
If schools implement clamp down on the amount of entry points and enforce ID checks, potential shooter situations would decline. However, this still requires someone to approach and engage a shooter who shows up, without ID, at a highly monitored entry point. Armed security should be the one to handle such a situation.
There have been numerous cases in places, such as Maryland, where armed security have stopped a shooting before matters escalated even further. Having armed guards acts both as a deterrent to possible shooters provides a sense of security to students. It is highly beneficial to have a gun seconds away, rather than minutes away.
Despite the polarizing debate on this issue, little movement has been made to secure our schools for those in the classroom right now. It is important that our lawmakers, and our schools, start implementing bipartisan legislation that will actually work. It won’t be long until another tragedy hits, and if we are doing nothing to solve this issue together, as a nation, then we are doing everyone a disservice.
