The Great Debate: Solutions Part 3

Before getting into other suggestions for solutions to the issue of school shootings, I would be remiss if I did not point out how the most recent incident at the Sante Fe, Texas happens to show the stupidity of the gun-control narrative.  No semi-automatic rifle was used.  The punk used a sawed-off shotgun (as I understand it) and a revolver.  Now the gun-control buffoons must admit they want to ban all firearms, because neither of these can be classified as military grade weapons.  They are not semi-automatic, don't have large magazines and don't look like M-16s.  The weapons were stolen from the punk's parents.  They were not purchased from a gun show, or through a straw purchase.  As such, no background checks were possible. 

And again, adults failed to see the warning signs, but thankfully, school resource officers were there to confront the punk and limit the carnage.  A teacher with a concealed carry permit might have done better were one on sight.  Thus, we again see that a punk felt relatively safe attacking people in a school with little fear of return fire. 

We also see that when we consider the weapons used, the means by which such a punk might achieve his goals is dictated by circumstance.  He didn't need an AR15 because he could get his hands on a shotgun and revolver.  With those, twenty took hits with half of them dying.  This means that banning rifles like AR15s is a worthless move and meaningless if other forms of firearms are accessible.  What's more, the reports stated that explosive devices were part of the plan as well, so no firearms wouldn't have mattered anyway, were his lethal intentions intense.  So still, guns aren't the problem.

So what other solutions might have made prevented this incident?  One that I encountered in a previous job that brought me to a number of schools is limited entry.  The fewer doors through which people can enter, the easier it is to monitor who comes in.  In several schools I had to regularly visit, I had to get buzzed in.  I'd ring a bell, a person from the office would speak to me over an intercom and, as I was expected, I was allowed entry.  More often than not, my entry was directly through the main office before I could access any other part of the school.  Some schools also had cameras at the main entrance so that a visitor was seen as well as heard.  (Other co-workers visited city schools --Chicago-- were there were security people who not only watched out for you, but for your vehicle as well, while protecting the school, too.)  Anybody that looked the least bit suspicious would not be granted entry.  This doesn't even require armed guards.

This one simple strategy acknowledges something that feo-for-brains gun control people don't:  the issue is protecting students from attacks by those who will find a way to do harm no matter what weapons are denied the law-abiding public.  By monitoring who comes in (listen up defenders of illegal immigrants), those in charge can regulate entry to those deemed safe for admittance.  Thus, the means by which an assailant intends to do harm...what tool chosen for the task...doesn't matter.  One who has no legitimate reason for being there isn't allowed entry in the first place.

I recall back in the early 70's, a friend and I drove another friend for his last day of summer school.  We sought to wait the four hours until school was out and drive the dude home.   We attempted to plant ourselves in the cafeteria where vending machines and a jukebox would make our wait enjoyable.  The administration denied us, simply because we had no legitimate business being in the building...waiting for our friend not considered legitimate business.  I have no doubt that the thought that we might be armed and intending to shoot up the place never crossed their mind.  It was simply a natural and reasonable attitude that those with no legitimate business could not remain in the building, particularly when classes were in session.  We were escorted out.

But let's get back to the Sante Fe shooting.  Would this suggestion have made a difference?  No.  The shooter was a student in the school.  But limited entry would help make this trench coat wearing kid stand out.  A hot day and one kid is overdressed.  Might that not be a good reason to approach the kid?  It was his practice and while I don't know if he was so attired on the day in question, had he been then perhaps he was planning this, or something like this, by setting the precedent of always wearing the coat.  How much intelligence is required to suppose that such fashion statements might be used for ill and thus it might be best to dissuade the kid from so dressing?  In another flashback to my yoot, a group of us was attending a school dance (live music from local bands populated with other friends was common back then).  Entry was limited through one doorway.  At the post was a couple of school staff, including the school cop, with whom we were each personally acquainted for one reason or another.  The officer had no moral issue with plunging his hand in the coat pocket of my buddy, wrapping his hand around an ounce of weed.  Knowing we were more rascal than criminal, he released his grip and warned us to stay out of trouble.  It would have been an easy bust, and had we been more than mischievous a ride to the station would have been in my buddy's immediate future.  The point here is that true monitoring was common then and that single point of entry resulted in an awareness the authorities couldn't have had with multiple avenues of access.

This school security thing isn't complicated.  Some of it, like single point of entry, has been implemented in many schools for some time.  Why it isn't universal is a failure of the adults who aren't using their heads.  It doesn't require denying weapons to the law abiding to implement in order to make schools that much safer.  It can be enhanced with metal detectors for those schools who want to go that far, as one school I visited now and then had upon passing through their single point of entry.   It can be enhanced by a cop, a volunteer or any member of the school staff with a concealed carry permit.  And it stands as one more point on a larger list of solutions that would actually reduce the ability of assailants to achieve their fatal goals, and which gun-grabbers with their heads up their feo's lack the intelligence to recognize is reasonable, practical and easily doable.