How To Make Schools Safer

The tension between the gun community and people who think "guns are the problem" for these terrible events continues to rise, and it seems like no real solutions are being brought to the table. Let's face it, mass shootings and general safety in schools are complicated subjects to tackle at the moment. Pistol braces, magazine capacity, and the length of available barrels aren't the reason these things happen; everyone fails to bring up the way our schools handle their security and mental health in America. So what's a simple solution we could implement until we have a nationwide reform of these systems? Let me describe it to you.

The Plan

Like almost every family home in America, my house is equipped with internet, and for $100, I bought a ring from Best Buy. A ring is a doorbell with a wide-angle camera on the front of it. With communication from the ring app on a phone or tablet, you can see through this camera and communicate with the person at your front door. I think a bit of common sense can see where I'm going with this, so let's lay out a situation where this process would be used.

Example Use

I'll review a non-threatening case and a case where someone intends to enter the school to harm people. For clarification, all the school doors would be locked on the outside at all times of class, with no exceptions. This process must help keep the wrong people out but not hurt the flow of innocent people trying to get things done efficiently.

Let's say a mom or dad wants to bring their kid's lunch since they forgot it that morning. The parent would bring their lunch to the door and ring the doorbell. The receptionist would look at the phone or tablet and communicate with the person outside. They can ask their child's name and why they need to be let in. Since this doesn't rely on any automation but is an actual conversation between the two, they can get very descriptive on what they want to know/see from the other person before they think it's safe to let them in. The receptionist would then call down that student and have the student identify them before letting the parent in to give their child their lunch.

Now let's say someone wants to get inside the school to harm the students. All the doors would be locked, so any forced entry would give enough time to initiate lockdown and call the police. Sneaking into the school would be challenging with the ring alarm brought into the equation. Getting firearms into the school wouldn't be entirely impossible, but it would be a much more difficult and slower task.

Conclusion

This fix shouldn't be treated as the final solution for these tragic events but instead as an easy step to lower the number of casualties until our elected officials focus on children's lives. There are some obvious flaws that I'll get out of the way. Students who intend to hurt their peers are hard to confront or control. Clear bags might be considered an option, but I think this wouldn't want to be followed by most students. Also, mornings could be hectic enough that students would be able to blend in with the crowd.

Simply put, the issue with solving school shootings is that there's no one way to solve school shootings. Let's end things on a more positive note.

PLEASE VOTE

Our responsibility as parents and citizens is to try our best to make the lives of our neighbors and children safe and secure. If the current elected officials for school boards are giving poor solutions or maybe none at all, please research and find out who's running for any point of political power that wants to take the same measures as you do. Go to school board meetings and PTA's. Keep your eyes peeled for any obvious flaws in your children's schools. If we all do this well, make a better future for those younger.