Which is More Important – Our Children’s Safety at School or Politics?

So how do the two sides come up with a solution?

No one wants another school shooting and most believe that there needs to be increased gun control. Even those opposed to the proposal don’t want another mass shooting to take place.

Does it need to stay in Congress, or do people unite and focus on the desired result?

How do we keep our schools and kids safe?

We must keep in mind that whatever is decided as the best model it won’t be foolproof. There will always be someone that will act out in malicious ways or not be in line with our preventative measures.

Even though we can’t predict how or when the next school shooting will occur, we can take a sensible approach to protect our children as much as possible..

In the United States, since 1958, there has not been a school fire that claimed the lives of 10 or more children. This matters, because in the 50 years prior, 755 children died in school fires. The implementation of fire drills, automated notification to the fire department, better equipment and having fire extinguishers made schools safer.

Similar measures can be put in place in the event of a school shooting.

Some of these might be:

• Have properly trained staff
• A safe place to hide, in the event of a shooter on-site
• Drills practiced with a shooter on the grounds, just like fire drills
• Shooter alarms (Panic Alarm), like fire alarms or what they have in banks that can be activated to notify the authorities
• Video surveillance inside and outside the school, to more quickly ascertain the situation and locate the shooter more easily
• Limited access to the school, with a door that remains locked and access is only granted to people that have a need to be in the school. Although this doesn’t help if the shooter is a student already in the school.
• Security on site, that is properly trained for armed threats.
• Metal detectors at the entrance, where everyone must enter.
• A hall monitor, someone whose sole purpose is to survey the grounds.
• Have students and teachers more comfortable in reporting potential red flags.
• Ballistic glass and ways to quickly lock doors.
• Fences around schools to limit entry points.
• Police officers be familiar with the layout of the schools in their area and even have blueprints easily attainable.

Even though these are great ideas, it would be financially difficult for a school to implement all of these or even for a community to have the manpower to do it. If the federal government funnels money to these schools to help with the initial costs and have ways to attract more police officers to the workforce that these safety measures would be feasible.

So yes, there needs to be a change since the Gun-Free School Zones Act of the 1990’s doesn’t work because it doesn’t prevent it from happening in the first place.

If we implemented security measures like at banks, sporting events, amusement parks, courthouses, and airplanes. Wouldn’t you think this level of security would protect our children?

Please comment below…