Immediate Solutions to Help Prevent School Shootings

My son is a Freshman at the local high school. These last school shootings in Florida have made me finally realize we can no longer afford “business as usual” if we want to protect further murdering of innocent people in public schools.

A great deterrent – armed guards at schools

So, I called my local school district administrator and offered to be a part of the solution. How can I help make our schools safer today? Temporarily, I am pushing for a police officer to be stationed at the entrance to the school in the mornings and afternoons, when campus access is freely open to the public. An armed officer stationed at the school for just 30 minutes in the morning when students arrive, and 30 minutes in the afternoon when they leave, could help deter a shooter since they’d encounter resistance from an armed officer. A temporary, one-hour-per-day staff cost of an armed officer is worth the potential lives saved.

I called my local school district administrator and offered to be a part of the solution. Click To Tweet

In the long term, the district administrator is going to place me on a facilities committee to see how we can make the high school safer. I would suggest that eventually we hire a permanent armed security guard and install metal detectors. I realize these things are expensive, but what is the cost of a child’s life? I would not mind paying more taxes to hire an armed guard to help protect our children. Bottom line—if we want the right to own guns, there is a cost to that, and it should not be at the cost of innocent lives!

Here are four more solutions we can consider to help reduce random shootings:

  1. Must be 21 years or older to purchase a firearm
    a) We don’t let people under the age of 21 buy a beer, but they can buy an assault rifle?
    b) We have graduated driver’s licenses for young people, right? We recognize cars don’t kill people, but we know in the hands of youth, the risks are higher that a terrible accident involving the loss of life could occur. Why then do we allow gun sales to youth?
  2. Background checks
    a) Better screenings for mental health
    b) Background checks must happen at ALL places that sell guns (besides a gun store)
    c) Checks should include those expelled from schools for disciplinary reasons, etc.
  3. Parents with Guns
    a) If a gun gets in the hands of their children and that child kills with it, strict penalties should incur on the parents who failed to keep their guns locked up
  4. Tougher Laws on illegal gun sales
    a) We should make the punishment more severe for those caught in the illegal selling and manufacturing of guns

These are just four ways to potentially reduce shootings without restricting the right to bear arms. (Personally, I think the sale of assault rifles should be limited, but I am not holding my breath on that changing anytime soon.)

Parents—you need to be a part of the solution in your school district. If more parents (and students) got involved in developing local solutions, perhaps the number of random school schoolings would decline. I know that we can’t prevent all attacks, but the disturbing trend of an increase in attacks must be reversed.

Don’t wait for the legislators to do something for you. While we’ve been waiting for them to act, more kids have been murdered. I don’t want to see my son be one of those statistics. (I am sure you don’t want your child killed just for going to school, either!) We need to do something right now… waiting is not an option any more. Contact your local school officials – for the sake of your children – be part of a local solution.

 

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6 Comments

  1. Alice Crittenden February 17, 2018
    • LisaQAuthor February 17, 2018
  2. Mario Quintana February 17, 2018
    • LisaQAuthor February 17, 2018
  3. Richard Mackenzie February 17, 2018
    • LisaQAuthor February 17, 2018