In perhaps the most simple, commonsense idea to come along in some time, this AP story suggests that the best solution to stop gun massacres — or at least reduce the carnage — such as VA Tech or Columbine would be to put locks on classroom doors versus the gun lobby’s insane idea to arm teachers or allow college students to pack deadly handguns.
Safety experts say that while school officials across the nation re-evaluate campus safety in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy, many are overlooking a simple solution: putting locks on the inside of classroom doors.
“Often it’s the simple stuff that will prevent a tragedy like this, and often it’s the simpler things that will make the bigger difference,” said Michael Dorn, a campus safety consultant and author of 19 books on the topic. “It’s not the complex systems that cost millions of dollars.”
A school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota in 2005, a shooting tragedy often overlooked, may hold some solutions and ideas to keeping students safe:
“Interior locks may have saved lives…” said Everett Arnold, principal of the reservation school of about 280 students.
Jeff Weise, 16, barged into the Red Lake school and killed five schoolmates, a teacher and an unarmed guard before taking his own life. Weise earlier had killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s companion.
Weise tried to get into several classrooms but failed because the doors were locked from the inside.
The ridiculous idea of arming teachers was proposed by gun zealots before, dating back to John “aka Mary Rosh” Lott after the Columbine massacre, to Wisconsin State Rep. Frank Lasee after a spate of high-profile shootings in CO, WI and Nickel Mines, PA (site of the horrific Amish school shooting that killed 5 girls). The crazy idea of guns in schools has taken on a resurgence since the VA Tech massacre.
Simple ideas such as door locks offend gun rights advocates because such ideas stop the gun lobby in their tracks — they no longer have their pedestal to push their radical agenda to promote guns not only in schools but in every aspect of daily life.
We’re eagerly awaiting what the gun guys will say to this commonsense idea. We’re sure they’ll come up with something. Maybe even some crazy retort such as “Well what door is going to stop a .50 caliber desert eagle handgun, huh?”
Let’s hope commonsense wins some of these battles.
