A lot of proposals made, most of them not very realistic or socially or economically acceptable, other than emotionally. My wife and I were talking about this last night and concluded that one single small action that would "harden the target" signficantly would be having classroom doors that automatically lock such that they can be opened from the inside, but could by opened from the "outside" or hallway side with a key. That's not very expensive, and it doesn't save everyone's life, but it would keep a classroom full of kids from being targets. So it could save a significant number of lives if and when an intruder comes into a school to shoot.
There you go again...
You are saying thoughtful things, again.
We need to look at this problem from multiple levels, if there were one quick fix we would probably have done it , and would quite possibly be wrong. Be wary of unintended consequences.
Other questions arise: Do we know where his mom stored these weapons? Did she have a safe? Did she think he was a danger? Why did she have these weapons available readily in the first place? Not to blame the mom, she is a victim, too. But does anyone think that mental illness on the part of the shooter had NOTHING to do with this? My nephew has Asperger's and there is NWIH that I would trust him around anything dangerous. He just does not have the judgement or restraint piece in place, and at 34 years old, he probably never will.
This episode has caused such pain in the American psyche that it is almost unbelievable, a truly incredible (non believable) event that leaves all of us stunned and grasping for solutions, Many of us have kids and we want to guard and protect them, and if we don't have kids, we still have a sense of protecting our "tribe."
A common theme here is doing things that will work to keep this from happening again. What is our desired outcome and how do we get there?
Best,
Rick