False Sense of Security

False Sense of Security

Whenever we hear of a school invasion, or the anniversary of a significant school shooting, people literally get up in arms.   With the 20^thanniversary of the Columbine shooting, these events are in the news again.  Of course, there will be calls for more money to be spent on more school resource officers (SRO) and debates over just how armed these people should be.  But does any of it do any good?

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on school security.  A whole industry has been born marketing devices that promise to protect our students and staff.  A new extensive study reports that there is NO evidence that any of this works other than to provide a false sense of security.

Researchers at the University of Toledo and Ball State University reviewed 18 years of reports on school security.  After the review of practices from 2000 through to 2018, the researchers failed to find any program or practice that reduced firearm violence. The Naval Postgraduate School keeps a record of k-12 school shootings.  The record includes every instance a gun is displayed or fired on a campus if a bullet hits school property for any reason.   There were 94 such events in 2018, the worst year since records have been kept. The conclusion of the study is that the most effective way to prevent school firearm violence is to keep guns away from students.  

 Unfortunately, the ability of young people to have access to guns is rising at an alarming rate.

One of the reasons an SRO is not likely to be effective is that the events happen VERY quickly and the likelihood of the SRO being in the right spot at the right time is very low.  The school security provisions include installing video cameras, bulletproof glass, metal detectors, requiring students and staff to wear badges, installing a schoolwide electronic notification system, limiting access to a school, active shooter drills and conducting police patrols.  One of the desperation efforts has been to arm teachers.  Such methods have not been shown to stop any active shooter.  

This is a real example of why these prevention methods do not work.  In the morning of January 3, 2018, a 15-year of white male walked into Marshall County High School in Benton Kentucky. He had a Ruger 9mm semiautomatic pistol. Within 10 seconds of shooting he killed 2 people and wounded 14 schoolmates. Armed school personnel would have had to be in the exact same spot in the school as the shooter to significantly reduce the level of trauma.

Schools are not the place for a shoot-out.  Nor are they penal institutions.  We can go back 20 years to Columbine for the answer.  The shooter then and the shooters now feel disenfranchised and unseen by the school.   Can you imagine what good could be done if all that money went toward counselors and teachers?  Then perhaps our sense of security would be real.