School Security

     In February the country was rocked by a school shooting in Parkland, Florida that left 17 people dead. This was unfortunately not the first time this has happened. Nor will it likely be the last. Mass shootings are regrettably becoming annual news events. First and foremost I would like to offer my sincere condolences to the parents that have lost loved ones. Losing a child is a devastating grief no parent should ever have to endure. There are no words I can express that could ever ease the pain.
     The question for the rest of us is "How do we prevent this from ever happening again?" Gun control advocates immediately take advantage of such events to push their agenda. Some even naively believe that gun control would make a difference. Australia enacted strict gun control and confiscation measures after a mass shooting in 1996. In the decades since, the murder rate in Australia has been cut in half. A dramatic result? In that same time in the USA, over a million AR-15 style rifles have been sold here in the United States. The murder rate in the USA has also been cut in half. Two opposite actions, the exact same result. Guns are not the problem.
     When I was in high school, students often kept deer rifles and shotguns on display in gun racks in their pickup trucks. They never shot anyone. I once brought a shotgun to school so the band could use it to simulate the canon shots in a performance of the 1812 overture. There were a couple of interested glances in the hallway, but again no one got hurt. They were non-events. Guns were not the problem.
      The guns haven't changed; schools have. Public schools in particular have shifted to a compulsory attendance model. Families that do not send their children to school can be fined, jailed, or lose custody of their children. Districts receive funding based mostly on attendance and graduation rates, not on quality of education. The result is students that do not want to be at school but are forced to attend; students that regularly disrupt classes and get in trouble. The result is a toxic adversarial relationship between the school and those children that results in anger, animosity, and the occasional violent outburst. By the time a student displays enough bad behavior to be considered a threat and is expelled from school, the damage is done. That student already sees the school as an oppressor to be dealt with.
     At the same time, schools are now overwhelmingly designated as "gun free zones" in order to receive even more federal funding. Advertising to all that the children inside are at best poorly protected. A free-fire zone with little fear of immediate consequences for those that enter to do harm. Combined this is a recipe for disaster.
         So what can be done? Some districts are dropping the gun free zone, and are permitting some staff members to carry weapons to protect their students. Others are hiring armed security or school resource officers. This will help some, but is far from a comprehensive solution. Schools need to change. Our philosophy needs to change. Not all children belong in school. Many are better served through apprenticeships learning trades. More school choices need to be available to suit a wide variety of students, and homeschooling needs to be a recognized viable option. Efforts need to be made to remove disruptive students before they view schools as their oppressor and take violent action.
       We also need to rethink how and what we are teaching our kids. In an attempt to artificially inflate self-esteem, we are raising generations that are unable to appropriately deal with adversity. By teaching them that all their feelings are valid, important, and to be respected; they respond quite poorly when they discover that not all of their feelings and desires are acceptable.We need to stop creating the mental illness that leads to these events.
     I spent a year as an ISS supervisor, dealing with students that had frequent discipline issues. I spent 8 years teaching regular classes in public schools as a certified public school teacher. I also spent 7 years as a security officer in a public high school. I am not expressing an abstract opinion, these are first hand observations made over decades. We are failing our kids. The problem is not guns, the problem is us.