School Shooting Update – How preventable were 2019’s school shootings?
Bottom Line: It was May 21st last year. Nearly a year ago, in the wake of the Sante Fe Texas High School Shooting, that I analyzed all of the grade school shootings for the year across the country and sought to find a potential solution that’d make the biggest overall impact for school safety. There was a clear answer that still applies. In reviewing my research, I found something else that was interesting. Data from the Pew Research Center regarding what students themselves thought would make their schools safer. The best current answer, that’s still generally missing, was provided.
#1: Preventing those with mental health issues from legally owning a firearm
#2: Improving mental health screening and treatment
#3: Metal detectors
#4: Additional gun control
#5: Allowing armed school staff
In the past year there’s been only one meaningful change in policy, and it was one of the suggestions of the students. Allowance for armed school staff. A year ago the Stoneman Douglas School Safety Act was already law in Florida, but the expansion of the Guardian Act just took place in Florida.Which of those five provided the only clear opportunity to potentially stop school shootings last year that still holds true today? Metal detectors.
The recent Colorado school shooting helps illustrate the point. The guns used weren’t legally owned and at least one of the shooters had been diagnosed and treated for mental health issues. There have been five grade school shootings in 2019 that are applicable to our overall concerns regarding school safety. Only metal detectors had the potential to prevent all of them. It’s clear that if we want to genuinely do what we can to protect our schools – we'd add metal detectors ASAP. Here we are more than a year after Stoneman Douglas and the test program that was supposed to start with the new school year isn’t even seemingly a priority of the Broward School District. When will we demand them? It’s time to advocate for metal detectors again in advance of the 2019-2020 school year.