XDA

Are guns the answer to guns? I hope not. What about bullet proof class room doors or a fashion line of Kevlar clothing for students. Or here’s a thought better mental health options for people. Wasn’t it in the 90’s that a ban on automatic weapons occurred,that might of had something to do with the decline. I believe the time of doing nothing is over.
 

I'm all for defending kids in school. Any suggestion should be considered. Mental Health care has been gutted. Need to re-establish facilities and not have the crazy living on the streets and maybe coming in some times to the clinic to get their medication. No ban on full auto weapons in the 90s, that happened in 1934 (kinda--things evolved). The number of murders with "assault weapons" military looking semi-auto versions of real assault weapons (full auto) were already small (less than 1% of all murders) and remained there through out the ban 1994 to 2004. The AR 15 does seem to be the weapon of choice of mass murderers lately. Agree with you it is time at last to do something helpful to protect schoolkids.

 

On the contrary, guns should be the *ultimate* answer to guns, when all else has failed. As happened in Parkland. A school staff member using his personal weapon to defend against a school shooter should be the LAST step, the least desired, the only solution remaining, to protect his charges. But that person should not be deprived by law of his license and ability to engage voluntarily as a last measure.

The argument on one side seems to be that individuals should trust that their institutions will be able to protect their lives & that of their children, and that no further means are necessary. The other side claims that we have seen exactly those institutions fail time and again, so we should double down & surrender our ultimate means of self-protection to them even more completely?

This is another issue that should not be national law/regulation: making it national stretches too thin the accountability for spending and results.
Given that there are so many demands on limited resources (funds, staffing, etc.) & that each school district has different physical facilities and security priorities, there should be a sober, objective evaluation by each state & school district of what measures are realistically available, and the individual cost v. benefit (measured effectiveness) of each.

It seems to me that the Parkland shooting falls under the "Black Swan" theory popularized by Nassim Taleb: a series of apparently unconnected events and decisions that result in a catastrophic event, but when examined in retrospect one sees that if the chain had been interrupted at any point it would have had different results. (Maybe not better, but different.)

The multiple failures of the FBI and Broward County multiple entities should serve as a reminder that you can institute all the processes that sound good on paper, but the human execution of those is typically the determinative factor in success or failure. Thus, responsibility should be borne by those closest to the affected population.