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Originally Posted by stinkeypete
"In my opinion, this armchair quarterbacking ignores the main issue: children in other countries are far far less likely to be killed by gunfire. The solution is to not “it’s inevitable, how do we minimize it”. It’s “how do we prevent this from happening.”
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It took the national shock of 9/11/2001 to initiate the founding of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA): "On the morning of September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The attacks resulted in the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, designed to prevent similar attacks in the future."
I've spent a career working with DOE to secure nuclear weapons and materials, both in the US and in other countries. Access control to nuclear materials and warheads in production is something which has evolved to very high levels over the past 40 years.
Those same physical security principles can protect schools and American students.
There will be those who will remark that in the wake of TSA's founding the process of boarding commercial aircraft has become more convoluted and time consuming. While true, literally tens of thousands of Americans go to work every day at DOE facilities nationwide that require strict access control into secured spaces and Limited Areas (LAs). The access control process can be designed to provide rapid flows to large numbers of students. It need not be so convoluted that it cannot be applied to schools.
Millions of flyers board aircraft in the US daily. The number of passengers bringing rifles on board with them is approximately zero. The technology and architecture exists to configure schools to achieve the same security. Retrofitting the physical security of public schools in the US would cost less than the last multi-billion package authorized for distribution to Ukraine.
If we have the technology, the designs, and the funding - what remains is the sociopolitical will to proceed.
The matter ought not to be left to police departments to solve, based on an assumption that such mass shootings are inevitable.