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I swore I would not write this essay. Then I swore I would not submit it to The SandPaper. But the thought that haunts me is that something unspeakable could happen here. It's hard to imagine what it's like to go to school and worry that a walnut can invade your sanctuary and cause great damage.
I could not help thinking about the problem of guns in schools. The more I thought, the more I realized the complexity of the situation. We almost always had schools and the same thing for guns. Why has this problem become so commonplace in the last 10 years? It is a sociological problem that I am not qualified to tackle. However, I thought about the problems of prevention, security and response time.
The easiest way to stop a particular projected behavior is to stop it before it starts. The laws, unfortunately, are particularly ineffective in ending armed violence. Chicago has some of the most stringent firearms laws in the country, but sometimes its gun killing exceeds that of Afghanistan. We could pbad laws that limit gun sales to those who are older than a certain age, but the laws seem to obey the good ones.
More promising is the profile of those who seem to tend to be emotionally or mentally inclined to inflict violence on their peers. Young white men seem to like returning to schools where they feel rejected. Young black men tend to do the same, but in their own neighborhoods. Yet the ability to choose troubled teens who tend to provoke violence is an important first step. As has been demonstrated, follow up when an individual is identified.
In addition to finding those who are likely to cause a problem and give them advice, we must keep them away from schools. Of course, we can use metal detectors located at the main (and only unlocked) access door of the school building.
We can use armed guards to monitor the corridors and document the visitors. I've heard of a school hall where you have to be plugged into a small area and then present your identification information to the camera. When the entrance door behind you closes, you are physically blocked until the school staff determines if you can be a threat or not
. So, what are the problems badociated with the single entry procedure? You must open all doors if there is a fire alarm. Some alarms may be accessible from outside the school. If the shooter is a student of the school, he can enter the school and set off the fire alarm. Students overflow from clbadrooms, stack rooms with live targets. Dismissal time is another great opportunity for a shooter to operate. This type of attack is probably best thwarted by police patrols.
OK, so there is an active shooter in the school. What to do? Hide the children in a closet? This can make them vulnerable if the shooter has access to it. Mobile phones make it easy to call for help. But even the most reactive police units do not arrive for five minutes. Someone can do a lot of damage in five minutes. This seems to me to be the crux of the matter – a quick answer.
There have been several instances where staff responded to an active shooter. In at least one, the shooter was shot before injuring a single student. In Texas, there is an intermediate school where it is well known that the staff carries a lot of firearms and has done so for 20 years. No one has ever tried to enter this school.
When the police respond, there is another problem. Exactly where in the school is the shooter? Some regional schools are really huge. Southern Regional has separate buildings. If the caller tells the police where the gunman is, it solves a lot of problems, but you can not rely on an emotional interlocutor to do it.
There must also be a way for stakeholders to identify the "good" one. "When they arrive on the scene, imagine a staff member injuring an active shooter to be killed by the police who sees him with a gun in his hand, so every school should have an ID vest, a hat , etc. which would be kept secret so that a shooter could not copy it.
If we could recruit police or retired soldiers to keep the schools, it would simplify weapons training. If not, volunteers could be recruited from among the educational, maintenance and administrative personnel and trained.There should also be an incentive bonus.Many teachers feel they are educators and not guards. This is perfectly understandable, and no one should be forced to do something that makes them uncomfortable.In the case of too few internal volunteers, the school should resort to salary guards.
Finally, all schools will probably have metal detectors. Large schools with thousands of students may require multiple entry points, with many metal detectors in each of them. Adequate staffing is also needed to respond quickly if an illegal device is discovered.
Historically, we have seen people caught in different ways, legally and illegally. Just as Prohibition has not stopped drinking, the ban on guns will not stop the crime. There are literally millions of gun owners in the United States who never do anything wrong. But there is a criminal clbad that will steal these weapons and sell them to people who are judged unfit to own them. Even if we banned the private ownership of all weapons in the United States, other countries would willingly sell them here one way or another.
Shooting in schools is a complex problem. We must all work on many fronts to ensure the safety of our students. Please consider working with educators and law enforcement to solve this problem as our lawmakers have seen this happen repeatedly without much substantial action.
Larry Chalk lives in Fort Myers, Florida and Haven Beach. [1965] 19659003]
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