Why is this still a debate?
When was the last time you heard of a school fire killing anyone, let alone 10 or more people?
I did a little bit of research, and it turns out that it has been a rather long time since such a tragedy struck. According to the National Fire Protection Association (www.nfpa.org), it was December 1, 1958 when 95 students and teachers were killed in what is known as the Our Lady of Angels School fire (https://olafire.com/FireSummary.asp).
In the first half of the 20th century, school fires were sadly common and the numbers of dead were sizable. Extreme examples include the Lakeview School fire in Collinwood, Ohio in 1908 killed 172 students and two teachers (https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/394) and the Consolidated School fire in New London, Texas in 1937, which claimed 294 souls (http://nlsd.net/index2.html). Beyond these notably large school fires, other fires occurred with alarming regularity.
Things changed after Our Lady of Angeles.
From 2009 to 2013, the NFPA reported that about 1% of all building fires in the US each year occur in educational properties. That’s about 5,100 structure fires a year. These fires cause an average of one death per year. You read that right: 5,100 fire incidents in a year, resulting in a single death on average.
About 80% of these fires occurred in daycare centers, nurseries, and elementary, middle or high schools.
So what changed? How do you go from fire being a common, deadly occurrence in school settings to having them nearly vanish? What happened?
Simply put, people got serious about protecting their children from a clear and present threat to their lives in schools. New building codes were implemented, and old ones were enforced. Sprinkler systems were installed and are now universal. Fire extinguishers were installed and maintained in all schools. Students and teachers were required to perform fire drills regularly, to the point that they became boringly routine.
Problem largely solved.
Now we have a new threat killing our kids. Spree killers are invading our schools on a far too regular basis. Whether such an attack results in no injuries or in a large number of dead and wounded is not really the point. It is the choice of victims. Children. Kids. Students. Thanks these attacks, names like Blacksburg, Columbine, Newtown, Parkland, Ulvalde and others are permanently burned into our collective memories. The body counts grow, but as a society we seem to be locked into a spiral of disagreements as to how to fix this problem, dwelling on the details of how to move forward and what to do rather than seizing on the central issue: People are shooting children in schools.
Why is there still a debate?
What are we doing? Why have we as a society not looked at this and acted with swift, positive action? I confess to being confused about this issue. Kids are dying in schools. Mull that over for a bit. Children, our children, are going to school and are being killed by deranged classmates while we adults argue, largely about arming teachers and outlawing guns, and do almost nothing substantive.
While I support giving teachers the option of being armed (more on that later), it is only one element of hardening our schools against such heinous attacks. There are other steps, ones that do not involve bickering over whether Junior’s music teacher should carry a concealed handgun. Why are we not advancing those steps? We can debate the firearms issue at length if we must but let us have some solid action now.
Just as the successful defense against school fires involved a layered approach, so should our defense against spree killers. We must structure our schools not only with fire defense in mind but now we must consider how to thwart the mass killers when they target students. The killers have given us no alternative. We have a moral obligation, if not a biological imperative, to act. To do otherwise, to my way of seeing things, is an indefensible abdication of one of our most critical responsibilities: the protection of our young.
So what do we do? How do we tackle this problem? How do we maintain our schools as the open, inviting places of learning that we want them to be, while ensuring the safety of the children studying there?
First of all, we decide to act. We collectively make the decision to get something done now. Communities and governing bodies can then discuss details, but the first thing we have to do is decide to stop dithering, to stop fiddling while Rome burns, and get on with some positive steps to protect our children at school. What are some of those steps? I have some suggestions.
A more robust mental health and counseling capability in our schools seems like a clear requirement to me. Getting out in front of these incidents with kids who need help and solving the problem before they start shooting is the best thing to do. Obviously, it will take making available to schools an increased number of trained, capable professionals to do it.
Add required active shooters drills to the school calendars and increase teacher training around the issue. This is a step that already has some traction around the country. We already have fire drills, earthquake drills and tornado drills. Many of us remember a time when we conducted nuclear attack drills. Schools must create plans that work for their own circumstances, train all school personnel on these plans and practice them. Teachers, who are the pointy end of the spear (or perhaps the solid edge of the shield is a better metaphor) in this battle, must be trained and supported on this issue.
We need to increase our security presence in the schools, both in order to deter and prevent attacks, but also in order to respond effectively should an attack occur. Cameras, access control, hardened classrooms, strong lighting, and all the other details, active and passive, attendant to making our schools more difficult to attack must be installed immediately. This also means armed security, whether it is private or law enforcement. Unarmed security is security in name only and is no deterrent to an armed, determined attacker bent on destruction. Unarmed security guards are simply additional potential victims should an attack actually occur.
Having trained, armed and capable professionals on campus is not only an effective deterrent, it is also adds an immediate response capability in the event of an attack. Seconds count in these situations and having an armed response capability on campus, one which does not need to respond and travel to the campus, can save lives.
This may be costly, but do we really need to quibble about the price here? Is this the place to skimp and save money?
Forcing teachers to be armed when they do not want to be is a non-starter. First of all, it is a worthless, silly idea. I have a long history in my own family of teaching, including three cousins who are currently teachers. While I believe they should have the option of being armed, the idea of any of them actually carrying a firearm in order to use it to stop an attack on their students is laughable to me. They want nothing to do with carrying a gun and if the state tried to force them to, they would not, legal consequences be damned.
In my experience, the vast majority of teachers take the safety and security of their charges incredibly seriously. Most will move heaven and earth to protect “their” kids, in some cases of these mass murderers laying down their lives while attempting to do so. It is just that some simply will not, or cannot, countenance the idea of using a firearm to do so.
But some will.
Giving teachers the option of carrying a concealed firearm in school, after appropriate state-mandated vetting, training, and licensing, is another story. John Lott’s ground-breaking research, published in “More Guns, Less Crime” makes it clear that merely allowing a given population the option of carrying concealed firearms has a dramatic, statistically significant impact on incidences of violent crime. It is a layer of defense that we are foolish to ignore, yet we willfully enter into long-winded philosophical debates about it. We seem more concerned with philosophy than practical defensive measures.
Politicians seem disinclined to make immediate, substantive investments in this arena. Indeed, none have even taken this up as “their” issue. I can only conclude that it is a cynical way to motivate their individual constituents into donating money and voting for them as long as it remains an issue. If the problem is solved, the votes and money evaporate. After all, nobody is getting campaign contributions to help combat the school fire issue anymore. I suppose I can understand that, even if I find the very idea reprehensible.
Of course, this entire thing is ridiculous. The idea of putting children in schools at increased risk of death or serious bodily injury, because some people are afraid of inanimate objects, is nothing short of asinine. We have a real-world problem here and we must address it. We are no longer in a position to ignore the fact that armed, trained professionals must be stationed in our schools as part of a larger defense plan. I do not like that fact any more than anyone else, but there it is. The battle has been brought to us and we cannot simply pretend it will go away because we want it to.
We can afford mere philosophical debate no longer. We must act.
