Mass killings do not require guns. In 1927 America’s deadliest school massacre happened in Bath Michigan. 38 of the 44 people killed were students.
As revisited in 2017 by Lorraine Boissoneault at SMITHSONIAN.COM, not only was the school targeted with explosives, but a secondary bomb was set off by the only shot fired killing school officials, rescuers, and the suspect. The suspect in this massacre was suspected of having mental illness, which is in common with recent school massacres.
Look back in history and you will see that if someone wants to, anything can be used as a weapon. Today you can take away guns and they will use bombs; knives; cars; gas and any other number of things that are and will stay legal in this country.
In my opinion, protection of our children while in school should be number one and the only way for that to happen is to secure them. Plan to stop it before it starts, and make it easier for first responders to locate and eliminate the threat when needed. Our ancestors protected their loved ones with forts; castles; armor; and high ground. This may sound a little extreme today, but any person that has ill will against our students will be able to get to them. That means more mass killings will happen.
Securing our schools will take money that officials don’t want to spend. If that wasn’t true, schools would be many times safer today. So what would it take?
There is not one school in our area that has made it hard to get into the yard area. Some school fences are only 4 feet high. So to start with we need secure fences that are hard to climb and cut; bullet resistant reinforced street side walls and high windows; classroom doors that can be locked from the inside (a big problem with many doors with no inside key slot in areas of California); camera systems with alarms that can track a suspect; lockdown areas where a suspect can be held similar to Fire Doors at hospitals that can be closed and locked at a push of a button; self-defense sprays for school staff and continuous training updates for our school resource officers and first responders. These are just a few things that can be done. We have to start getting serious if we really want to protect our children.
At least one school was in the news recently that has increased security with installed cameras viewable by first responders; marked classroom floors that show a safe zone where a suspect can’t see anyone; smoke dispensers that can blind a suspect and panic buttons worn by teachers.
It will take money and time, but so would laws to change. And remember 1927.
