The simplest step that likely would have stopped the murder of four and hospitalization of nine more at the recent mass shooting at Apalachee High School in northern Georgia would also have been the most disruptive. And yet it may become the way of the future, including in Cincinnati.
No, I’m not talking about identifying mentally imbalanced people. Or arming teachers. Or putting a police officer in the school. All that was available at the school. Even better, the school staff were recently equipped with state-of-the-art badges with buttons that immediately alerted authorities of a lethal emergency, and one was used. And two armed police responded who did prevent higher numbers of horror.
And no, assault rifles like the one used in this situation are not going to be banned, especially in Georgia, where gun laws are as wispy as a morning breeze.
The fact is the 14-year-old murderer had been previously identified as a threat because he’d been reported for online threats to shoot up a school, and his father was interviewed as well, who followed up by buying the same son the assault rifle used in the shooting only months later.
None of the usual fast fixes spouted by the naive right wing worked here. And conservative politicians have refused to put a permanent ban on assault rifles even though they’ve become the preferred shooters’ choice in the most deadly school shootings. Nor have they required background checks.
The only thing that might have prevented the Georgia shooting and a number of others would be daily, total metal detector screenings and bag checks for virtually every individual entering a school. And as someone who worked his entire professional career in schools, I can tell you that would be a massive undertaking.
The model is entrance into, say, a federal court building or a TSA line at an airport. Picture it. Children, staff and visitors waiting every morning in any weather waiting their turn to be screened individually as they enter. And the searchers must be trained, alert and held accountable. And the screening equipment must be calibrated and regularly checked. And there can be no exceptions. And what about the times I found doors leading outside my schools propped open by students with a rock, book or rolled up paper for various devious reasons. That would have to be checked constantly.
Yet, no doubt if that Georgia school had done all this, that shooter would have been thwarted. As of this writing, no one has said how he got his assault rifle in. But I assume he broke it down at home, put it in a book bag, want to a hiding place inside the school, maybe a bathroom stall, reassembled it and returned to the hallways to kill. And the only way he brought the weapon to school was straight through the front door concealed or through an unsecured outer door.
But where metal detectors become the massive chore is the daily grind, year after year. Busses pulling up and then standing lines snaking around the parking lot, sometimes in the pouring rain or cold, even with small children. Remember, the FBI interrogation of the shooter happened the year before when he was in middle school when he was only 13. And some school configurations are first through eighth grades. And teachers stuck in those lines might miss getting classroom doors open in time for entering students. How long could society sustain such a daily drill? Yet it’s seems to be the only process that might have saved lives in numerous celebrated school shootings.
Daily use of entrance metal detectors in school is currently the exception in American schools with the loudest complaint being it creates a prison atmosphere. But it’s the surest way to block weapons from entering. But regular drills teaching children to dodge bullets or fight off murderers in their classrooms is even more traumatizing. And until my country actually grows up and changes its constitution to put rational controls on the love of guns, even controls countless public opinion surveys say the vast majority of Americans want, what are we left with? The massive undertaking of daily, boring entrance screening. Lives require it.