As gun control is not possible...

^I can understand the need for protection on that level but pragmatically one can wonder if it isn't a waste to have a trained professional sit still at a school entrance to prevent something that is expected to happen on average about once in 200 years for that particular school (?), instead of patrolling and trying to stop other less significant but way more common issues.

Well that's still slanted, security in those places (in your first sentence) is a lot more active, fast and has more roles, for example in making people feel safe. These are also situations where security almost certainly is blocking the threats when they occur, while a policeman in front of a school won't even be of any help if the shooter comes in through another door or a window, or when the shooter gets a surprise shot at the officer (it's not realistic that a policeman is ready to pull a gun extremely rapidly 8 hours a day), or when the shooter instead decides to wait around the corner or go to some other place where the children usually come, and on top of that I think having a policeman at the entrance of the school will generally make children feel anxious and less safe rather than more safe (a known effect of police presence), which would also be a pity. I'm not completely opposed to the idea, but what about if you just give the principal's office a view at the entrance, like having it right next to the entrance, and giving him a gun to leave next to his desk in case of emergency?

How about making the schools more like prisons? That way you would only have to strip the kids of their weapons once, and with a thorough enough body search it would be very unlikely for guns to end up on the premises.

Catcher10 wrote: twseel wrote: Well that's still slanted, security in those places (in your first sentence) is a lot more active, fast and has more roles, for example in making people feel safe. These are also situations where security almost certainly is blocking the threats when they occur, while a policeman in front of a school won't even be of any help if the shooter comes in through another door or a window, or when the shooter gets a surprise shot at the officer (it's not realistic that a policeman is ready to pull a gun extremely rapidly 8 hours a day), or when the shooter instead decides to wait around the corner or go to some other place where the children usually come, and on top of that I think having a policeman at the entrance of the school will generally make children feel anxious and less safe rather than more safe (a known effect of police presence), which would also be a pity. I'm not completely opposed to the idea, but what about if you just give the principal's office a view at the entrance, like having it right next to the entrance, and giving him a gun to leave next to his desk in case of emergency? In general we are on the same page.....protecting the kids. My point about what the status of local police do, what they police can be changed. They should be present at all schools, there is very little to no argument as why they should not. Police are to Serve And Protect, their community, which includes schools and children.

They should, yes, but that includes an extremely wide range of contexts. You really think there might be NO argument against your suggestion?

Catcher10 wrote: If a person can enter a school thru a side door/window then that is a design flaw, fix it. All doors should be locked from the outside. Can you enter your local bank from a back or side door? I seriously doubt it.

Many schools I know have exits to areas for leisure behind the schools for example, and there are of course a sh*tload of windows which, even if the openings have to be made smaller, could easily be broken by someone with any kind of gun. Why would a shooter not pick this option if there's a cop at the door?

Catcher10 wrote: I think the majority of kids feel/think seeing the police is a cool thing, seeing their cruiser with all the lights and a laptop inside a car.....Nothing is 100%, but the right thing to do is for local authorities to protect our children at school, this is not a Wash DC thing. It should be each state capitol mandating the local police to revise patrol schedules to do such, my tax money pays for those police depts.

Do you have any idea how much extra tax money needs to be raised to organize full-time manned protection at every school? Meanwhile children sitting in class are very unlikely to be committing crimes so even other activities within the school would be a relative time waste. And surely they won't be showing off their car to all the kids habitually, instead they will simply be walking around and any cool will quickly be replaced by the discomfort of gettin watched by an armed man.

Catcher10 wrote: Children feel more anxious at school because of other kids, bullying and online bullying.

This is irrelevant, they can still get anxious about police surveillance anyways, though maybe not as much.

Catcher10 wrote: Gun control is an issue too, nobody who wants to buy a gun needs it tomorrow. The process to buy one should be a 30-60 day process to allow a full background check. You should not be able to go to a gun show and buy a gun and walk out with it.

True.

Catcher10 wrote: If you have 10 DUIs, you can walk into a car dealership and buy a car and drive it off the lot within 2 hours.....a 3,500lb weapon. So yea, buying guns needs to be revised but that is going to take a long time and serious debate. Same as applying a "mental health" issue to gun ownership, define "mental health"? Someone who has been committed to hospital? Someone who was prescribed depression medication? That's probably 80% of the population, it will never hold up. Guys we have serious mental health issues in the police dept, military, FBI, state troopers...so those people should not have a gun?? Protecting our kids at the local level is the right thing to do, not doing it is wrong. Any other solutions will take way too much time and debate, still needs to happen.

'Mental health' is a wide umbrella with many more specific subdivisions. An important hint may be that a lot of earlier school shooters were seeing a psychiatrist, some were severely depressed, some schizophrenic. No-one says anyone with mild issues should be discredited, but there are very clear limits in terms of certain diagnoses or medicines that can be set to limit the risk of shootings and the like.
I'm not sure how we're supposed to protect kids 'at national level' instead of local if that's what you imply, but yeah, ideally the local police would be in touch with the community, know the risks, know the children and they would be able to be at the scene as quickly as possible when it does go wrong, but that could be done a lot more realistically.

A few extra 100$ a year means for some family that the children will have to give up their hobby to save this money, I'sd say it's a considerable price for such a half-assed plan. Btw, you said you saw little to no arguments against this plan, not 'protecting our children', why the hell would I be arguing against that?
Yes people with mental health problems go untreated sometimes, but that's irrelevant since we already know that some school shooters WERE getting treatment and were still allowed to get a gun, which would be a very easy fix if the government would choose for it.
Finally, you can't protect a school like a bank because a safe in a bank doesn't have thousands of people walking in and out every day and it doesn't need windows, and you can't control it like an airport since the controls at airports patiently continue all throughout the day while a school needs to cram in all those people at once at the start of the day. And I seriously wonder how you want to secure a window, if you want kids to be able to get fresh air and look outside you will inadvertently have windows that can be easily broken into. It's a school, not a military base.

It seems to me that protecting schools would be a matter of having only one way in or out...and having codes to control those doors....and then have an armed guard on duty at that area. If the only way in was protected by a guard and everyone was checked before they came in....wouldn't that stop most if not all of these attacks?

When one the last time someone shot people through the windows...that seems not a viable means of access to me. All of the ones that have happened have been a shooter walking in through the 'front door 'for the most part. Or am I mistaken...?

Edited by dr wu23 - March 13 2018 at 14:36

dr wu23 wrote: When one the last time someone shot people through the windows...that seems not a viable means of access to me. All of the ones that have happened have been a shooter walking in through the 'front door 'for the most part. Or am I mistaken...

Well of course, why would they should people through windows if the doors aren't guarded yet? It's just that as soon as they are, windows are an easy way to get in, if they're not open already you can shoot through one or use a bat or something but if someone really wants to get in it's viable.

You're repeating your post like you haven't read mine, there is absoltely no reason shooters would have entered through windows before now because at least up to now they could simply choose to walk through the front door, and when you make it impossible to enter through the front door a shooter is not a mindless zombie, he can realize that he could also very easily enter through a window, which he would then do. Why would you ignore this risk if you want to protect our children, ay? If you want armed protection so badly, I'd recommend, what I said earlier, put the principal's office at the entrance and give him a gun to keep there, then give the teachers an emergency gun in a safe, fortify all the windows that lead into the hallways (as much as that would suck) and make sure that classrooms which are not in use don't offer easy access into the hallways.

I personally don't see a problem with having metal detectors or even a security guard. The argument against the metal detectors is it will hold up the students and outside while waiting in line to go through the metal detector is where another shooting will occur. I'm not buying it though. The other option is to just hire security guards. To me this is better than nothing but will make the school feel more like a prison. On the other hand it might deter bullying as a side effect which is fine by me.