The Texas shooting that occurred Tuesday was a terrible tragedy. A madman killed little children. Many people respond to these incidents with calls for gun control. I don’t know if gun control would’ve prevented this terrible tragedy from happening. I do know that even if you ban every gun in America tomorrow, people who want to use weapons to harm people will find a way to do so. It is against the law to commit murder. By definition, criminals don’t follow the law. So what else can be done?
My father was a school security officer. He was also one of the founder members of the Cleveland Metropolitan Police Department. Asa Coon shot two students and two teachers before killing himself at Cleveland’s SuccessTech Academy. The school district and political leaders at the time responded by installing metal detectors in all schools and hiring more CMSD security and police officers. There has not been another major shooting incident like this in a CMSD school since.
I believe this is what should be done throughout the country. Every school across the nation should have trained security and police officers. Consider the size of the school and the number of students to determine how many officers will be needed.
All major city school districts should have police departments. For school districts in suburbs, rural areas, and small cities, the state should handle those responsibilities. Every school should have metal detectors and surveillance video. And it should be mandatory. No armed guards? No funding from the federal government. No metal detectors? No funding. No surveillance video? No funding.
We must mature enough as a nation to understand that not all municipalities are able to provide security measures. It may be necessary to increase our budgets in order to do this. Low funding shouldn’t be a reason to not protect our children and others’ children, school should be a safe place, not a place where parents have to worry about their child being the victim of a mass shooting when they send them to school in the mornings.
There are some who say that schools have not spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the COVID relief that they received. I am not opposed to schools spending those dollars on security. It may require changes to the law because there were restrictions attached to what you can use COVID funds for. But regardless, we must find a way to make sure that every school is protected. Money can not stand in the way.
Some believe teachers should be armed. I do not disagree with this belief. However, I think schools should have officers and guards to protect their schools. Let teachers concentrate on their teaching. If the school needs to be protected, teachers should be the last resort.
Some people believe metal detectors and police officers would turn schools into prisons.
We need to focus on the task at hand and not get distracted by our political agendas or fight with each other. Although it won’t prevent all of these tragedies from occurring, it will significantly reduce the likelihood of them happening.
It is anarchy. Laws are not enough to fix the heart. Martin Luther King Jr. stated that man cannot save himself because man isn’t the measure for all things and humanity isn’t God. “Man is bound by his sinful nature, finiteness, and requires a Savior”.
My thoughts, prayers, and condolences go out to the loved ones of the victims. We should all pray for them and pray that something is done to avoid such tragedies.
