SCHOOLS: Keeping shooters out

Who’s the most culpable actor in school active-shooter violence, the perpetrator or the school district? If someone constantly leaves the doors to their house open, and a crook finally waltzes in to steal stuff, who’s primarily responsible, the thief or the owner? When industrial espionage is successful, who should take the knock, the spy or the CEO?

With schools it’s the same: if opportunity knocks, evil walks in.

Parkland was just another active shooter situation that happened because the school had not been hardened, by district authorities, against a potential evil doer. The first goal must be to keep potential perpetrators out of the school. Physical, procedural and personal barriers can make the schools uninviting targets. Properly securing a school removes opportunity, the key security element.

Obviously, arming teachers would be the least expensive alternative. But arming the staff is invisible to the potential active shooter, so it’s not much of a deterrent. And the odds are that no armed teacher is going to act before shots are fired. Does it make sense to risk having to explain to the parents of dead kids that the school district chose to let the perpetrator into the school rather than spending money to keep the shooter out? That defense could easily send district administrators to jail for malfeasance.

So, have the local district administrators investigated whether or not current barriers and procedures will actually keep an active shooter out of their schools? Has opportunity been removed? From personal experience I think not.

JAMES STRONG

Hayden