The friend I was meeting for dinner texted me: “I’ll be late – we had an issue today.”

That’s par for the course for a public school teacher. But what was the issue? 

One of the kids in his class got mad at a few of the other kids, and told them that he was going to bring a pistol to school and just “take care of them.”

When my friend reported this to the principal, the counselor involved asked if this student seemed likely to do something like that. My teacher friend is not qualified as a psychologist, but knew enough from seeing this kid in class to say that he is quiet, often picked on, and angers easily.

Not good.

It’s fortunate this incident was uncovered when it was, because it got the kid a thorough interview with the counselor. During the evaluation, it came out just how angry this student is on a daily basis. 

I don’t know whether the kid’s going to get help or not. 

But I do know this. It would have been quite easy for him make good on his threat to bring a pistol into school, if he had access to it.

If a kid is savvy enough, or the parents lackadaisical enough that their child could gain access to a small firearm, there is very little stopping them from bringing it to school in their backpack. 

This fact has angered me for the last 15-20 years. And every time a story like this comes up I get mad all over again because we are choosing to ignore the safety of our kids and school employees. 

Over the past decade or so, schools have done much better at preparing for the possibility of an armed intruder or active shooter.  There are more plans, preventions and contingencies.  But none of these addresses the real possibility of a student themselves being the shooter.

Fifteen years ago, during my career as an elementary school teacher, our district’s School Safety Council was soliciting input from staff and community members. I went to my principal with the suggestion that we should set up metal detectors or institute bag checks, and have every student and staff member go through them every single day in order to enter the building. 

The response I got from my principal was that he agrees, in theory, that we should do that. But he also believed that the community would freak out if we did so. He believed the community would not want to acknowledge the reality that a school in our community could be attacked by a gunman, especially one from within.

I can sympathize with that, but that doesn’t keep kids and staff members from getting shot to death in a school.

But metal detectors might. Bag checks might.

Last year there were over 300 school shootings in the U.S.  

The year before that there were over 300. 

We haven’t been under 100 since 2017.

Why do we insist on pretending that we can’t fix the situation? Why do we delude ourselves into believing that school shootings couldn’t possibly happen in our town? Why do we insist that there’s no way anybody we know or love will be affected by a school shooting at some point in their life? 

Often times when you go to a crowded nightclub, you must pass through a metal detector and/or a bag check. The same is true when you enter a stadium, arena, airport, etc.

There are many places that you cannot enter without going through security. Why do we refuse to acknowledge that the level of potential catastrophe in schools is on level with these other places that require metal detectors or bag checks to enter?

It certainly would be expensive to install the equipment necessary to get every kid through the line quickly. Bag inspections would take even longer. But I don’t believe these problems are insurmountable, and they certainly are worth the effort.

How many more school shootings will it take before we do something? 

Sadly, the answer seems to be- a great many.

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