Learning from the Airlines: School Shooting Solutions

Two more tragic school shootings have made the headlines and terrified each and every parent and student in the nation. While most honest coverage of these events has made clear that the attackers were not students, much of the reports have spent time on the problem of gun violence in the nation and how disarmament would help move us all to safer schools. And yet, while reports are willing to opine and wander into areas of political discourse, they are seeming squeamish at reporting another part of these two shootings: the choice of schools as targets by violent rapists.

Let us be clear, in both cases the attackers had two goals: sexual abuse of young kids to be followed by murder and suicide. Like suicide bombers, these two killers chose schools as the softest targets that held the highest number of their potential victims. The first chose a public school, the second chose an even softer target: a religious pacifist school.

In both cases the attackers entered unopposed, set up defenses, chose their victims and began their sexual abuse before the police could arrive. In both cases, negotiations were meaningless since the police had nothing the butchers wanted. The butchers had the weapons, the young girls, and time to commit heinous sexual acts before killing themselves and taking a few children with them.

Let me also be clear, these two cases are unusual and the police handling of the events seem to be fully appropriate and even heroic. In both cases they had hostage situations with armed and well-blockaded perpetrators with a classroom full of kids. In both cases they had to storm tactically difficult rooms and surely saved lives in the process.

The problem is that the police could only arrive after the attack had begun, the victims carefully selected, and the barricades put up. There was no one who could give meaningful opposition in the critical opening moments when the attackers were most vulnerable. As per the now national norm, kids in other classrooms were put into lockdown and huddled into "safe" locations until the police arrived. This helps slow down attackers, but does nothing at all to stop them. Trust me, any classroom door can be opened by a breaching shotgun (but I digress here).

Who could have reacted in the initial moments of the attack? Only those who are in the school: Teachers, Principles, staff, or visiting parents. A security guard is preferred, and a police officer is even better, but if he is sick that day or on the opposite end of a large campus, he is not going to be able to make the difference. And most schools have neither.

When it became painfully obvious that our cockpits were a soft target for terrorists, we soul searched and decided to make three key changes to harden them. First, we actually hardened the doors on the cockpits to slow the terrorists down. The "lock down" plans in most schools accomplish much the same goal. We also hired police (marshals) to ride the planes and be there to thwart attacks even though they would only be on a few flights at any one point in time. Perhaps more schools will now hire armed guards, time will tell. But the last element has been that we have allowed, certified, trained, and professional pilots to carry firearms themselves and provided them with the means to save themselves, the people on their planes, and the people on the ground. Could we not even consider doing the same for our schools?

But wouldn’t guns in schools mean accidents, hurt kids, bravado, and the collapse of western society! (Ok, that last one was over the top...)

The same was said of the pilots and yet no accidental shooting has occurred. No pilot has blown out a window while showing off his "six shooter" in a moment of braggadocio. No pilot has let a kid play with his gun and shot the family pet. No pilot has sat down, farted, and killed grandma with an accidental discharge. No pilot has helped solve a drunk and disorderly passenger situation by putting a gun in the jerk's face. And no pilot, to my knowledge, has gotten in an argument with his co-pilot and shot him in a drunken rage. Nope. Never. Not a one.

Instead, the quiet skies have been just that: quiet. Too bad our schools aren't.

So, can we please have an open and realistic debate about how we can harden our schools? Against student attackers, against hostage takers, against suicidal rapists, and God forbid, against the future possibility of suicide bombers. Schools are increasingly a target of opportunity. They are unarmed, unlocked, chaotic and filled with our most precious treasures: our children.

Hoping them safe has not worked. Making them free of any and all firearms has not worked. Disarming the entire nation has not worked (even in placed that are nearly disarmed). And expecting the police to protect us has not worked (again - no insult to the police intended).

Perhaps our schools can learn something from the airlines...