Time for metal detectors?
The shooting that erupted this week at Mansfield Timberview High School over yonder in Arlington, Texas, brings to mind a question that has rattled around in my noggin for, oh, decades.
Why haven't school districts adopted policies -- and spent the money required -- to install metal detectors at every school campus in America?
Four people were injured in the melee that occurred at Timberview. There doesn't appear to be any threat of someone dying as a result. A suspect is in custody and is charged with multiple counts of aggravated assault. The young man, an 18-year-old student at Timberview, reportedly was bullied in school, so he decided -- allegedly -- that he would show the bullies a thing or two about revenge.
I know that paying for and installing metal detectors aimed at finding out if anyone is carrying a weapon into the classroom is an expensive proposition. I get that taxpayers might not want to spend that kind of money. However, as we have seen at Timberview -- not to mention at schools throughout the nation over many years -- our children need protection and I am one individual who is willing to pay any price necessary to protect them. Indeed, I have a loved one attending school now; therefore, I have some skin in this game.
Our history is littered with horrifying incidents involving school massacres. They don't involve just high schoolers. The Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut in 2012 took the lives of 20 first- and second-graders along with six of their teachers.
If our politicians are going to dig in against legislation making it more difficult for crazy people to obtain firearms, then will society allow our local school boards spend money to deploy metal detectors as a hedge against those who seek to bring weaponry into our classrooms?
The person who shot those people in Arlington could have been caught had the school had metal detectors deployed to find the .45-caliber pistol he was packing.
It is time for us to awaken -- finally -- to the harsh reality of this cruel world in which we live.